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I think it's pretty clear what Peretti was talking about--let's make an effort to respond to his intended meaning and not get caught up in semantics. Peretti i

I think it's pretty clear what Peretti was talking about--let's make an effort to respond to his intended meaning and not get caught up in semantics. Peretti is talking about quality versus quantity: maybe Google doesn't serve up quality ads, maybe they just serve up quantity ads.

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
He may be right, but if Google is bad at ads, it's not for any lack of incentive alignment. They make more money by serving up the most efficient (i.e. high-paying + likely to be clicked) ads. It's not impossible, but it's hard to picture another organization having both the economic means and incentives to do it better than Google does. As to the question posed by the article, isn't the answer obvious? I don't know if users even "trust" Google's responses now. But it is manifestly the case that they will cease to do so when Google's answers cease to be the least efficient for whatever purposes users have for those answers. As long as Google is still the best way to search up information on, e.g., obscure aspects of Stardew Valley's economy, users who want to do searches about such things will continue to prefer Google. If Google ceases to surface good results for queries compared to e.g. DDG, users will migrate to DDG.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > He may be right, but if Google is bad at ads, it's not for any lack of incentive alignment. They make more money by serving up the most efficient (i.e. high-paying + likely to be clicked) ads. It's not impossible, but it's hard to picture another organization having both the economic means and incentives to do it better than Google does. Yeah, I think the only way that would happen is if someone came up with a novel superior approach to search and managed to legally protect it so Google couldn't just copy it. That's a very unlikely at this point. > But it is manifestly the case that they will cease to do so when Google's answers cease to be the least efficient for whatever purposes users have for those answers. I don't think I agree with this. Users don't necessarily behave rationally in self-interest: they can be (and are) manipulated, and unwilling to try new tools.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    I can believe that if there were another solution that were marginally better it might not be enough to unseat the top player in the market. But switching costs in search are extremely low so it would be surprising if people did not switch for a substantially better experience. In particular, it would require us to believe that what happened when Google showed up on the scene would not happen again, and to me that just does not seem likely.
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
      Perhaps switching costs are low, but they're certainly higher than people are willing to pay in many cases. Switching costs as high as "changing the default search provider" are demonstrably prohibitive.
calibas 7y ago
Peretti is talking about the quality of the ad service, not the quality of the ads themselves. Peretti is suggesting that maybe Google's service isn't anything special, and their success is due to their insanely large audience. The comment you replied to goes even further to suggest there's no real talent to serving ads at all, and that everything depends upon the audience size. That's not just semantics.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
grawprog 7y ago
>quality ads I've seen this term for years but I still don't understand what it means. I don't want to see ads. There are no 'quality' ads. All ads are designed to sell me things period. I don't need anyone telling me about what I might want. I understand ads exist to make money and if they didn't we wouldn't have the internet etc. But there's no 'quality' to them, they're a necessary evil i've come to accept and adapt to over my life. I dislike them, I have no need for them, there'll never be a time I say 'well gee, sure am glad I seen that ad, it showed me just what I didn't know I needed.' Ads exist to sell crap to people, they're not good or bad, they just are. Some are invasive, some are reasonable, but they're all shit.
- milesvp 7y ago
  You may have never seen a good ad then. There was a period of time I would actively look at ads on penny-arcade, because the owners of the site only ever allowed ads (mostly for games) that they themselves could at least tangentially endorse. This meant I basically got hand curated ads for products I was genuinely interested in, by people who’s taste I understood if not agreed with. That said this ended up being the exception to proof the rule about ads being mostly noise, and I agree the world would be better with less of them. And almost certainly the current state of algorithmic ad serving is a disaster.
  - ksaj 7y ago
    Just like the guitar mags I grew up with. I looked at all the ads, and even bought stuff based on what I saw in competing ads along with gear reviews. For that matter, the same goes for motorcycle magazines, and just about every other kind of magazine that caters to a niche market. Those kinds of ads can be great, even.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    Okay, but did those ads contribute anything beyond reading Penny Arcade's reviews of games? For you as a user, how does the ad improve your experience?
- clairity 7y ago

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago

He may be right, but if Google is bad at ads, it's not for any lack of incentive alignment. They make more money by serving up the most efficient (i.e. high-paying + likely to be clicked) ads. It's not impossible, but it's hard to picture another organization having both the economic means and incentives to do it better than Google does. As to the question posed by the article, isn't the answer obvious? I don't know if users even "trust" Google's responses now. But it is manifestly the case that they will cease to do so when Google's answers cease to be the least efficient for whatever purposes users have for those answers. As long as Google is still the best way to search up information on, e.g., obscure aspects of Stardew Valley's economy, users who want to do searches about such things will continue to prefer Google. If Google ceases to surface good results for queries compared to e.g. DDG, users will migrate to DDG.

kerkeslager 7y ago
> He may be right, but if Google is bad at ads, it's not for any lack of incentive alignment. They make more money by serving up the most efficient (i.e. high-paying + likely to be clicked) ads. It's not impossible, but it's hard to picture another organization having both the economic means and incentives to do it better than Google does. Yeah, I think the only way that would happen is if someone came up with a novel superior approach to search and managed to legally protect it so Google couldn't just copy it. That's a very unlikely at this point. > But it is manifestly the case that they will cease to do so when Google's answers cease to be the least efficient for whatever purposes users have for those answers. I don't think I agree with this. Users don't necessarily behave rationally in self-interest: they can be (and are) manipulated, and unwilling to try new tools.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  I can believe that if there were another solution that were marginally better it might not be enough to unseat the top player in the market. But switching costs in search are extremely low so it would be surprising if people did not switch for a substantially better experience. In particular, it would require us to believe that what happened when Google showed up on the scene would not happen again, and to me that just does not seem likely.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    Perhaps switching costs are low, but they're certainly higher than people are willing to pay in many cases. Switching costs as high as "changing the default search provider" are demonstrably prohibitive.

calibas 7y ago

Peretti is talking about the quality of the ad service, not the quality of the ads themselves. Peretti is suggesting that maybe Google's service isn't anything special, and their success is due to their insanely large audience. The comment you replied to goes even further to suggest there's no real talent to serving ads at all, and that everything depends upon the audience size. That's not just semantics.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

grawprog 7y ago

>quality ads I've seen this term for years but I still don't understand what it means. I don't want to see ads. There are no 'quality' ads. All ads are designed to sell me things period. I don't need anyone telling me about what I might want. I understand ads exist to make money and if they didn't we wouldn't have the internet etc. But there's no 'quality' to them, they're a necessary evil i've come to accept and adapt to over my life. I dislike them, I have no need for them, there'll never be a time I say 'well gee, sure am glad I seen that ad, it showed me just what I didn't know I needed.' Ads exist to sell crap to people, they're not good or bad, they just are. Some are invasive, some are reasonable, but they're all shit.

milesvp 7y ago
You may have never seen a good ad then. There was a period of time I would actively look at ads on penny-arcade, because the owners of the site only ever allowed ads (mostly for games) that they themselves could at least tangentially endorse. This meant I basically got hand curated ads for products I was genuinely interested in, by people who’s taste I understood if not agreed with. That said this ended up being the exception to proof the rule about ads being mostly noise, and I agree the world would be better with less of them. And almost certainly the current state of algorithmic ad serving is a disaster.
- ksaj 7y ago
  Just like the guitar mags I grew up with. I looked at all the ads, and even bought stuff based on what I saw in competing ads along with gear reviews. For that matter, the same goes for motorcycle magazines, and just about every other kind of magazine that caters to a niche market. Those kinds of ads can be great, even.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  Okay, but did those ads contribute anything beyond reading Penny Arcade's reviews of games? For you as a user, how does the ad improve your experience?
clairity 7y ago