6 ms·

Why not just show adds not targeted for a particular user, but rather for the audience targeted by the media outlet in the first place? If the NYT or whatever

Why not just show adds not targeted for a particular user, but rather for the audience targeted by the media outlet in the first place? If the NYT or whatever started advertising for its audience, I wouldn't have shoes ads all over the place as soon as I buy a pair of shoes on amazon. The big lie of adtech is that it can advertise better than conventional methods. Yet I've yet to see a relevant ad online - when I see them in paper magazines and metro stations that don't aggressively target me individually. I'm not against advertising online, I don't like ads because I think they're too good and leverage our vices too much, yet I understand their necessity in the "econo-societal" context we live in. Therefore I am for ads in the metro, TV, magazines, billboards and websites. But I sure as fuck am against individually targeted ads, because even if they worked better I think that'd be going too far, but mostly because they don't work whatsoesver? In my circle of friends I've never heard someone going "yo, I saw this sick ad for [whatever], I'm sold, I'm gonna order one of those". I have however heard some (and myself) say "I saw this concert ad in the metro on my way here, wanna go ?" (The malade imaginaire with Daniel Auteuil ad in the Parisian metro worked on me for instance.) I could go on and on about this, but I've recently switched to dvorak and I'm pretty slow at typing. My thesis is as follows though: use ads on me, but don't follow me everywhere and try to find out what I might buy again. Use conventional pre ad tech means, they work better anyway. P.S. google sponsored links are such a dark pattern. I didn't realize it until I saw a very good friend of mine use google (peer googling if you will). He'd wouldn't even notice the sponsored links and click on them as if they were the first non-paid google link - only to click the back button and the second sponsored link again and again, until finally hitting the first non-paid link and being satisfied with its content. He's an architect and therefore very attentive to details and yet, he'd automatically click on them as we were googling after I repeatably explained him what was going on. I bet you most non techies are this way. P.S.S I haven't even had the time to discuss about the gdpr popups that show iphone style toggles but that are so evily designed that you cannot tell if they are "on" or "off". Or all the sites that check them all by default when they should be off. And all those sites that you just cannot even find where the hell to set these things even after navigating on all the nested links in the popup.

Mirioron 7y ago
>The big lie of adtech is that it can advertise better than conventional methods. Yet I've yet to see a relevant ad online - when I see them in paper magazines and metro stations that don't aggressively target me individually. How often do you see ads online that are in one of the hundreds of languages that you don't speak? How often are these ads for a particular business in a location that's in another country? Without some targeting, many of the ads I get are in languages I do not understand. Sometimes they advertise services that are in another country entirely.
- globuous 7y ago
  I've upvoted you because you kindly exposed an angle I hadn't thought of, thank you :) However, doesn't facebook already optionally ask me where I live, birth date etc ? Come on, those are enough info to classify me as student/working/revenue/ etc, and these I give with my consent. You don't need to analyze my location history, throw nlp at my comments, track my hyperlink activity or whatever the hell they do.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    >I've upvoted you because you kindly exposed an angle I hadn't thought of, thank you :) That is very kind of you. Thank you! >However, doesn't facebook already optionally ask me where I live, birth date etc ? Come on, those are enough info to classify me as student/working/revenue/ etc, and these I give with my consent. I agree with you, but not every service asks you for that information. I don't really want them to ask it either, because I would probably have to register on every website I try to visit to get access to the content. On the other hand, I completely agree that the whole thing has gone overboard. They try to track way too much stuff.
- asdff 7y ago
  I find it funny when the ad tech clearly doesn't have enough data points. I get weird ads now (on platforms where I can't block them, of course). Usually it's a drop shipped aliexpress product from a forgettably named shopify front, recently a lot of eczema treatment ads (I don't have eczema), and today I got a bayer aspirin ad. The last time I bought aspirin was 3 years ago when I had a headache and bought the biggest strongest bottle they had at CVS, generic of course. Who even clicks on internet ads? Grandma? Kids? People who weren't on the internet when clicking a banner ad gave you malware? My family has been blocking ads since 2005, I wonder if advertisers even know if their ads are being blocked? If I were Zuckerberg, I'd lie all day about my engagement numbers, because why wouldn't you? Hire a Russian click farm to get your numbers, your board of trustees probably isn't tech literate enough to tell the difference and that's good enough to keep the stock afloat.

Mirioron 7y ago

>The big lie of adtech is that it can advertise better than conventional methods. Yet I've yet to see a relevant ad online - when I see them in paper magazines and metro stations that don't aggressively target me individually. How often do you see ads online that are in one of the hundreds of languages that you don't speak? How often are these ads for a particular business in a location that's in another country? Without some targeting, many of the ads I get are in languages I do not understand. Sometimes they advertise services that are in another country entirely.

globuous 7y ago
I've upvoted you because you kindly exposed an angle I hadn't thought of, thank you :) However, doesn't facebook already optionally ask me where I live, birth date etc ? Come on, those are enough info to classify me as student/working/revenue/ etc, and these I give with my consent. You don't need to analyze my location history, throw nlp at my comments, track my hyperlink activity or whatever the hell they do.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  >I've upvoted you because you kindly exposed an angle I hadn't thought of, thank you :) That is very kind of you. Thank you! >However, doesn't facebook already optionally ask me where I live, birth date etc ? Come on, those are enough info to classify me as student/working/revenue/ etc, and these I give with my consent. I agree with you, but not every service asks you for that information. I don't really want them to ask it either, because I would probably have to register on every website I try to visit to get access to the content. On the other hand, I completely agree that the whole thing has gone overboard. They try to track way too much stuff.
asdff 7y ago
I find it funny when the ad tech clearly doesn't have enough data points. I get weird ads now (on platforms where I can't block them, of course). Usually it's a drop shipped aliexpress product from a forgettably named shopify front, recently a lot of eczema treatment ads (I don't have eczema), and today I got a bayer aspirin ad. The last time I bought aspirin was 3 years ago when I had a headache and bought the biggest strongest bottle they had at CVS, generic of course. Who even clicks on internet ads? Grandma? Kids? People who weren't on the internet when clicking a banner ad gave you malware? My family has been blocking ads since 2005, I wonder if advertisers even know if their ads are being blocked? If I were Zuckerberg, I'd lie all day about my engagement numbers, because why wouldn't you? Hire a Russian click farm to get your numbers, your board of trustees probably isn't tech literate enough to tell the difference and that's good enough to keep the stock afloat.