4 ms·

I don't buy this. These kinds of sites are already behind a paywall for most of the content you'd want to see, as Graham notes. I do not understand why sites l

I don't buy this. These kinds of sites are already behind a paywall for most of the content you'd want to see, as Graham notes. I do not understand why sites like the New York Times, which generate massive amounts of traffic as far as I know, cannot use other real estate on their websites to serve static ads with zero nefarious tracking enabled. The model already exists for their physical product. I fail to see why we can't have a version of the Internet that ports over that previously successful system. I don't work in Internet ads; I work in hardware. So maybe someone here can help me understand why what I would otherwise assume to be a simple implementation is viewed as impossible. I'm obviously missing something.

riffraff 7y ago
I suppose the explanation is that classic ads are ineffective, and tracking-enabled ones can be better. If you didn't use them you'd have to explain to your shareholders why you decided to leave money on the table.
- fock 7y ago
  https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/a-dangerous-question-does-internet-advertising-work-at-all/372704/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/a-dange... I suppose the explanation is that classic ads can be easily served by a multitude of agents and there will be no billion-dollar business. Nowadays, invested vendors have created a smokescreen so thick, noone ackknowledges that most of their ads are having 0 effect...
- remarkEon 7y ago
  I think I get that "classic" ads are ineffective relative to installing a surveillance apparatus that has designs on influencing your behavior. So, perhaps you're right that it's investors that are causing this, who are demanding higher returns every quarter.
SifJar 7y ago
I also don't work in Internet ads, but my assumption would be that advertisers are unwilling to pay for a static ad to be displayed to e.g. 100k users when they could instead pay for ad that uses tracking to display only to the 500 users that might actually be interested. And from NYT (or other publisher) perspective, 20 of the later is presumably more lucrative than 1 of the former
- remarkEon 7y ago
  Fair. I obviously have a deep ignorance of the underlying economics here.
- Moru 7y ago
  * Translation: The 500 users that a machine thinks are interested in your product. The meassurement of this being true is just as good as a Game ad published in a computer magazine.
  - mrr54 7y ago
    I think a video game ad displayed in a computer game magazine must be much more accurate than the kind of shitty advertising I get shown online.

riffraff 7y ago

I suppose the explanation is that classic ads are ineffective, and tracking-enabled ones can be better. If you didn't use them you'd have to explain to your shareholders why you decided to leave money on the table.

fock 7y ago
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/a-dangerous-question-does-internet-advertising-work-at-all/372704/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/a-dange... I suppose the explanation is that classic ads can be easily served by a multitude of agents and there will be no billion-dollar business. Nowadays, invested vendors have created a smokescreen so thick, noone ackknowledges that most of their ads are having 0 effect...
remarkEon 7y ago
I think I get that "classic" ads are ineffective relative to installing a surveillance apparatus that has designs on influencing your behavior. So, perhaps you're right that it's investors that are causing this, who are demanding higher returns every quarter.

SifJar 7y ago

I also don't work in Internet ads, but my assumption would be that advertisers are unwilling to pay for a static ad to be displayed to e.g. 100k users when they could instead pay for ad that uses tracking to display only to the 500 users that might actually be interested. And from NYT (or other publisher) perspective, 20 of the later is presumably more lucrative than 1 of the former

remarkEon 7y ago
Fair. I obviously have a deep ignorance of the underlying economics here.
Moru 7y ago
* Translation: The 500 users that a machine thinks are interested in your product. The meassurement of this being true is just as good as a Game ad published in a computer magazine.
- mrr54 7y ago
  I think a video game ad displayed in a computer game magazine must be much more accurate than the kind of shitty advertising I get shown online.