6 ms·

I realize you are not the original poster but it sounds like your view would be the same even if we lived in a world without children. In this case it’s not re

by lotu 7y ago

I realize you are not the original poster but it sounds like your view would be the same even if we lived in a world without children. In this case it’s not really about helping children it is about advancing your desired outcome and that annoys me a bit. The bigger issue is do you really think things will be better this way. Services like Google Search, Maps, newspapers would all become pay-walled. I honestly would personally like this outcome, as I have enough income to pay an extra $20-30 / month for these features. However for those in poverty 15-20% in the US and much more world wide this would be a major hardship. I really don’t think we want all of these currently ad supported things to be pay only in future, which is the inevitable outcome of banning advertising.

kd5bjo 7y ago
But in monetary terms, what do these “free” services cost to various populations? The advertisers believe that paying for the service is turning them a profit, so someone is paying more for the advertised products than they used to. Is this a case of people with disposable income subsidizing everyone else, or one of manipulating vulnerable populations to spend their money unwisely?
- cbsmith 7y ago
  In reality, it is neither people with disposable income subsidizing everyone else nor manipulating vulnerable populations to spend their money unwisely. Much like with trade, advertising isn't necessarily a zero sum game. Nor is it the same experience for everyone. I suspect your perception of advertising is distorted by your own context. A high income individual might see advertising as targeting their disposable income and attempting to get them to spend more of it... because that's what will really move the needle for the advertiser with that customer. But it's a totally different experience for advertising's impact on low-income consumers. Amongst lower income folks little if any of their spending is disposable income; that's not going to move the needle for an advertiser. What might move the needle is the non-disposable income, particular for staple consumer packaged goods (CPG) like food, clothing, cleaning products, etc. The goal isn't to get lower income folks to spend more of their income at all, because that isn't an option. The only way to reliably get low income consumers to spend more money is to give them more money to spend. In most cases, all or almost all their income is going to be spent even without advertising. When you are hungry and on a limited budget, an ad isn't going to convince you to spend more money on food, but it might change your mind about what you decide to eat. So advertisers aren't trying to convince poorer folks to spend more of their disposable income, but rather to choose to spend their non-disposable income with the advertiser instead of a competitor. While advertisers may be attempting to manipulate an audience, lower income folks aren't so vulnerable. You can show them as many ads as you want for yachts, they aren't going to buy one. The more vulnerable audiences are those with more choices, not fewer. Stronger players in a market tend to be able to afford more on marketing, which can mean that advertising ensures those consumers are aware of the stronger players in the market. Consumers consequently have learned to treat extensive marketing as an easily detectable proxy signal for that strength, which, despite its pitfalls, is often more reliable than other signals (unfortunately, targeting can undermine this a bit by making an advertising seem more pervasive to a targeted audience than it really is, but overall it remains more true than not). Brand awareness advertising in particular tends to increase the importance of providing a successful product experience to those lower income populations, because those populations are more risk adverse to a disappointing experience (one can't just buy more food if the stuff one spent the last of one's paycheck on turns out to be terrible). Consequently, even though lower-income consumers might have a lower expected customer lifetime value, an advertiser might be more concerned that a negative experience with them, as the damage to the brand image might be far more lasting. If you have a non-staple CPG good, your revenue isn't going to be coming from consumer's non-disposable income, so you're going to naturally disenfranchise consumers who don't have much if any disposable income. You won't care about their needs or their complaints. Maybe if you are creative, you might increase margins on your product so you can find some way to give away your product to those without disposable income, thereby having people with disposable income subsidize everyone else. Unless... ...you make your product ad supported. Now you might derive much of your revenue stream by appealing to a customer base with no disposable income, because you are getting paid by an advertiser with a product that might target non-disposable income... and even if those consumers are being influenced by the advertising, they aren't going to be spending money they wouldn't spend anyway (not a choice available to them), and while it is far from certain, they are more likely to be getting better value for that money. So one can argue that advertising makes advertisers and ad supported products more sensitive to the needs of lower income populations who do not have disposable income.
  - kd5bjo 7y ago
    I didn’t intend to signal a blanket disagreement with ‘lotu, but rather to indicate that their position rests on assumptions that don’t necessarily hold for all cases. I actually agree with most everything you say here, except for grouping all advertising together. Some ads are generally helpful for all the reasons you list here; others are incredibly predatory. To move the conversation forward, we need to move past “ads are good” vs “ads are evil” and start talking about the benefits and drawbacks of particular kinds of ads. What Apple’s doing here seems like a good start to me— they’re reinforcing the idea that (app) publishers can and should exercise editorial control over the ads their app displays, and having somebody to hold accountable for bad decisions is a prerequisite for any meaningful discussion of what is and isn’t appropriate.
    - cbsmith 7y ago
      Yeah, I don't have a lot of disagreement with your points either... I didn't intend to group all ads together, but rather speak broadly of the aggregate effect of advertisers. No question there are predatory ads. I would say though that publishers can and should exercise editorial control over ads & analytics in their apps... even if they are using 3rd parties. What tends to happen is that they choose NOT to in all but the most egregious cases (and even then...), because of the impact on their bottom line.
frereubu 7y ago
OK, perhaps that was a little intemperate. But "Are you suggesting that because kids can use any app on a phone that all tracking and ads should be banned?" felt a bit like a conversation where someone is arguing against the death penalty and someone else says "Yeah, so you want murderers to go free?" There are lots of other possibilities, and if advertising and tracking is a on a spectrum from respectful to abusive we're currently way, way over towards the abusive end.

by lotu 7y ago

kd5bjo 7y ago

But in monetary terms, what do these “free” services cost to various populations? The advertisers believe that paying for the service is turning them a profit, so someone is paying more for the advertised products than they used to. Is this a case of people with disposable income subsidizing everyone else, or one of manipulating vulnerable populations to spend their money unwisely?

cbsmith 7y ago
In reality, it is neither people with disposable income subsidizing everyone else nor manipulating vulnerable populations to spend their money unwisely. Much like with trade, advertising isn't necessarily a zero sum game. Nor is it the same experience for everyone. I suspect your perception of advertising is distorted by your own context. A high income individual might see advertising as targeting their disposable income and attempting to get them to spend more of it... because that's what will really move the needle for the advertiser with that customer. But it's a totally different experience for advertising's impact on low-income consumers. Amongst lower income folks little if any of their spending is disposable income; that's not going to move the needle for an advertiser. What might move the needle is the non-disposable income, particular for staple consumer packaged goods (CPG) like food, clothing, cleaning products, etc. The goal isn't to get lower income folks to spend more of their income at all, because that isn't an option. The only way to reliably get low income consumers to spend more money is to give them more money to spend. In most cases, all or almost all their income is going to be spent even without advertising. When you are hungry and on a limited budget, an ad isn't going to convince you to spend more money on food, but it might change your mind about what you decide to eat. So advertisers aren't trying to convince poorer folks to spend more of their disposable income, but rather to choose to spend their non-disposable income with the advertiser instead of a competitor. While advertisers may be attempting to manipulate an audience, lower income folks aren't so vulnerable. You can show them as many ads as you want for yachts, they aren't going to buy one. The more vulnerable audiences are those with more choices, not fewer. Stronger players in a market tend to be able to afford more on marketing, which can mean that advertising ensures those consumers are aware of the stronger players in the market. Consumers consequently have learned to treat extensive marketing as an easily detectable proxy signal for that strength, which, despite its pitfalls, is often more reliable than other signals (unfortunately, targeting can undermine this a bit by making an advertising seem more pervasive to a targeted audience than it really is, but overall it remains more true than not). Brand awareness advertising in particular tends to increase the importance of providing a successful product experience to those lower income populations, because those populations are more risk adverse to a disappointing experience (one can't just buy more food if the stuff one spent the last of one's paycheck on turns out to be terrible). Consequently, even though lower-income consumers might have a lower expected customer lifetime value, an advertiser might be more concerned that a negative experience with them, as the damage to the brand image might be far more lasting. If you have a non-staple CPG good, your revenue isn't going to be coming from consumer's non-disposable income, so you're going to naturally disenfranchise consumers who don't have much if any disposable income. You won't care about their needs or their complaints. Maybe if you are creative, you might increase margins on your product so you can find some way to give away your product to those without disposable income, thereby having people with disposable income subsidize everyone else. Unless... ...you make your product ad supported. Now you might derive much of your revenue stream by appealing to a customer base with no disposable income, because you are getting paid by an advertiser with a product that might target non-disposable income... and even if those consumers are being influenced by the advertising, they aren't going to be spending money they wouldn't spend anyway (not a choice available to them), and while it is far from certain, they are more likely to be getting better value for that money. So one can argue that advertising makes advertisers and ad supported products more sensitive to the needs of lower income populations who do not have disposable income.
- kd5bjo 7y ago
  I didn’t intend to signal a blanket disagreement with ‘lotu, but rather to indicate that their position rests on assumptions that don’t necessarily hold for all cases. I actually agree with most everything you say here, except for grouping all advertising together. Some ads are generally helpful for all the reasons you list here; others are incredibly predatory. To move the conversation forward, we need to move past “ads are good” vs “ads are evil” and start talking about the benefits and drawbacks of particular kinds of ads. What Apple’s doing here seems like a good start to me— they’re reinforcing the idea that (app) publishers can and should exercise editorial control over the ads their app displays, and having somebody to hold accountable for bad decisions is a prerequisite for any meaningful discussion of what is and isn’t appropriate.
  - cbsmith 7y ago
    Yeah, I don't have a lot of disagreement with your points either... I didn't intend to group all ads together, but rather speak broadly of the aggregate effect of advertisers. No question there are predatory ads. I would say though that publishers can and should exercise editorial control over ads & analytics in their apps... even if they are using 3rd parties. What tends to happen is that they choose NOT to in all but the most egregious cases (and even then...), because of the impact on their bottom line.

frereubu 7y ago

OK, perhaps that was a little intemperate. But "Are you suggesting that because kids can use any app on a phone that all tracking and ads should be banned?" felt a bit like a conversation where someone is arguing against the death penalty and someone else says "Yeah, so you want murderers to go free?" There are lots of other possibilities, and if advertising and tracking is a on a spectrum from respectful to abusive we're currently way, way over towards the abusive end.