4 ms·

Your hard-line position that all ads are bad, always, is laughable. If you search for "cheapest gasoline" it's not unreasonable that an ad for an electric car m

Your hard-line position that all ads are bad, always, is laughable. If you search for "cheapest gasoline" it's not unreasonable that an ad for an electric car might be interesting. Or if you search for "Orlando hotels", an ad for generally less expensive hotels in Kissimmee (the next town over) is more valuable than a perfectly literal result. And if you search for "k8s cluster deployment tools" then you probably want as many ads as possible, so your evaluation doesn't fail to include a comprehensive set of options. Perhaps you're saying I already know about electric cars and Kissimmee and kubernetes, to which I'd respond, yes, probably via ads. Maybe a commercial or sign or web ad, but also maybe through a TV news spot (pr campaign) or magazine review (expenses paid) or web article (with affiliate link).

SquishyPanda23 7y ago
> Your hard-line position that all ads are bad, always, is laughable. This doesn't seem especially civil. > If you search for "cheapest gasoline" it's not unreasonable that an ad for an electric car might be interesting. Interesting to whom? The parent comment doesn't want to see ads. So no it's not likely to be interesting in this context. > Or if you search for "Orlando hotels", an ad for generally less expensive hotels in Kissimmee (the next town over) is more valuable than a perfectly literal result. For me, personally, no I would find that to be an annoyance. > And if you search for "k8s cluster deployment tools" then you probably want as many ads as possible, so your evaluation doesn't fail to include a comprehensive set of options. Again no, I would want 0 ads in that case. Have you read about k8s cluster deployment tools? It's hard to find any useful information because even the results that aren't literally ads are fluff blog posts with little content. I don't want the fluff posts, but I can comb through them. I certainly don't want the ads. > Perhaps you're saying I already know about electric cars and Kissimmee and kubernetes, to which I'd respond, yes, probably via ads. There are ways to learn about things without someone paying for the right to say them at you when you don't want them to.
- listenallyall 7y ago
  OK Mr Literal, you're saying when you search for "Las Vegas hotels" you want the results to exclude the entirety of the Strip, "Dallas football stadium" to exclude where the Cowboys play, and "American airlines reservations" to provide the web site or phone number for Delta (which is, technically, an American airline.)
  - trehalose 7y ago
    Could you explain how you got this from the comment you're replying to? Are you assuming a search engine can't find things there are ads for except when serving the ads?
    - listenallyall 7y ago
      Please check a map. It's an "annoyance" to SquishyPanda23 when he doesn't get a precisely literal result. If Kissimmee != Orlando, then Strip hotels != Las Vegas (they are all in unincorporated Clark County, NV) and AT&T Stadium != Dallas (it's in Arlington, and the old Texas Stadium is in Irving). But, hey, he's absolutely entitled to live his life ignorant about viable options.
      - cousin_it 7y ago
        You can be in favor of the search engine making the best guess to what you wanted, but still consider ads worse than search results. The reason is that ads aren't optimized only for relevancy, but for relevancy multiplied by commission. When an advertiser pays more per click, their ads will show on less relevant searches. If that effect didn't exist, I think people would be more ok with ads.
        listenallyall 7y ago
        I've never claimed that ads are better than search results. I'm only stating that some ads, in certain contexts or situations, do provide positive value. 'Grawprog' summed up his comment by stating "they're all shit," and I disagreed and gave examples of when they might offer positive value.
Retric 7y ago
Signs like those famous Golden Arches can be useful. However, when browsing the web in 20+ years I have never seen a useful paid for online add. That’s an inherent product of the medium where the only point of an add is to be less useful than the content I am looking at. Supose your GPS added advertising. so it’s priority is not the best for you but what’s best for 3rd parties. That’s what online adds are, they take something useful and inherently degrade the experience.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > Signs like those famous Golden Arches can be useful. I know this is picking on your example rather than your general concept, but this is a great example of how advertising is harmful. McDonald's has done incalculable damage to the health of Americans, and even if you don't go there, seeing the arches sometimes will get your kids yelling in the back seat, "I want to go to McDonald's!" This isn't helpful to us: it's helpful to McDonald's.
JoshTriplett 7y ago
There are many factors that might determine which search results I will want to see. Under no circumstances will those factors include "how much money did they pay the search engine". By definition, that can only change my search results to something less aligned with what I want.
- listenallyall 7y ago
  It's rather naive to believe they only arbiter of what's an ad or not an ad is payment to Google.
- Noumenon72 7y ago
  Not at all! The positive sum game here goes * Company creates thing people like you want to buy. * Company knows if you know about the thing, you will want to buy it. * Company knows you don't know whether a thing like their thing even exists, so you have no reason to search hard for it. * Company upfronts the money to defray your search costs, knowing it will be paid back when you buy the thing. This is called advertising. I am constantly learning about things I would have enjoyed if I had known about them. It is damn hard to make people aware even that you are giving away free lunch. Advertising breaks down that needless ignorance.
  - listenallyall 7y ago
    I used to buy hand tools at Lowe's, Home Depot, or occasionally Autozone if it was car-related. One day I saw a search result ad for Harbor Freight. Had heard the name, never knew they were a tools shop. I've joked to friends that discovery was life-changing. (for reasons, compare prices on just about anything, a good example would be a 1.5 ton floor jack)
    - harambae 7y ago
      Mostly tangential to the original point on this thread, but Harbor Freight tends to sell the cheapest, and far from the best, tools. Might be fine for your use case, I donno.
kerkeslager 7y ago
> If you search for "cheapest gasoline" it's not unreasonable that an ad for an electric car might be interesting. No, I still don't want to see an ad. It's not unreasonable that a search result for electric cars might be interesting, but I want results from an independent third party that serves me, not from the advertiser that serves themselves. > Or if you search for "Orlando hotels", an ad for generally less expensive hotels in Kissimmee (the next town over) is more valuable than a perfectly literal result. No, I still don't want to see an ad. A search result for a cheaper hotel in Kissimmee might be valuable, but I want results from an independent third party that serves me, not from the hotel that serves themselves. > And if you search for "k8s cluster deployment tools" then you probably want as many ads as possible, so your evaluation doesn't fail to include a comprehensive set of options. No, I still don't want to see an ad. I want to see search results of a comprehensive set of options, but I want those results from an independent third party that serves me, not from the hotel that serves themselves. > Perhaps you're saying I already know about electric cars and Kissimmee and kubernetes, to which I'd respond, yes, probably via ads. Maybe a commercial or sign or web ad, but also maybe through a TV news spot (pr campaign) or magazine review (expenses paid) or web article (with affiliate link). No, I'm saying that I want to discover products that are the best for my needs, not products with the best ad placement. I want tools that serve me, instead of serving the best-funded advertisers. Literally none of the cases you describe are what I want. Ads inherently give inaccurate information.
- listenallyall 7y ago
  Excuse me, but who are these benevolent 3rd parties who freely exist to "serve" you? Do you mean sites like Expedia or Booking.com, who are, of course, getting paid behind the scenes to highlight specific hotels? Or "review" sites who select their winner based on top paying affiliate links (see Sleepopolis)? Or car review sites who glowingly praise some new model, right after the writer was flown to California and given an all-expense paid weekend to tour wine country?
  - duckmysick 7y ago
    I'm assuming kerkeslager is talking about publications like Consumer Reports. Basically any publication that sells you access to curated aggregated content. It would be up to the readers to decide whether they trust the impartiality of the authors.

SquishyPanda23 7y ago

> Your hard-line position that all ads are bad, always, is laughable. This doesn't seem especially civil. > If you search for "cheapest gasoline" it's not unreasonable that an ad for an electric car might be interesting. Interesting to whom? The parent comment doesn't want to see ads. So no it's not likely to be interesting in this context. > Or if you search for "Orlando hotels", an ad for generally less expensive hotels in Kissimmee (the next town over) is more valuable than a perfectly literal result. For me, personally, no I would find that to be an annoyance. > And if you search for "k8s cluster deployment tools" then you probably want as many ads as possible, so your evaluation doesn't fail to include a comprehensive set of options. Again no, I would want 0 ads in that case. Have you read about k8s cluster deployment tools? It's hard to find any useful information because even the results that aren't literally ads are fluff blog posts with little content. I don't want the fluff posts, but I can comb through them. I certainly don't want the ads. > Perhaps you're saying I already know about electric cars and Kissimmee and kubernetes, to which I'd respond, yes, probably via ads. There are ways to learn about things without someone paying for the right to say them at you when you don't want them to.

listenallyall 7y ago
OK Mr Literal, you're saying when you search for "Las Vegas hotels" you want the results to exclude the entirety of the Strip, "Dallas football stadium" to exclude where the Cowboys play, and "American airlines reservations" to provide the web site or phone number for Delta (which is, technically, an American airline.)
- trehalose 7y ago
  Could you explain how you got this from the comment you're replying to? Are you assuming a search engine can't find things there are ads for except when serving the ads?
  - listenallyall 7y ago
    Please check a map. It's an "annoyance" to SquishyPanda23 when he doesn't get a precisely literal result. If Kissimmee != Orlando, then Strip hotels != Las Vegas (they are all in unincorporated Clark County, NV) and AT&T Stadium != Dallas (it's in Arlington, and the old Texas Stadium is in Irving). But, hey, he's absolutely entitled to live his life ignorant about viable options.
    - cousin_it 7y ago
      You can be in favor of the search engine making the best guess to what you wanted, but still consider ads worse than search results. The reason is that ads aren't optimized only for relevancy, but for relevancy multiplied by commission. When an advertiser pays more per click, their ads will show on less relevant searches. If that effect didn't exist, I think people would be more ok with ads.
      - listenallyall 7y ago
        I've never claimed that ads are better than search results. I'm only stating that some ads, in certain contexts or situations, do provide positive value. 'Grawprog' summed up his comment by stating "they're all shit," and I disagreed and gave examples of when they might offer positive value.

Retric 7y ago

Signs like those famous Golden Arches can be useful. However, when browsing the web in 20+ years I have never seen a useful paid for online add. That’s an inherent product of the medium where the only point of an add is to be less useful than the content I am looking at. Supose your GPS added advertising. so it’s priority is not the best for you but what’s best for 3rd parties. That’s what online adds are, they take something useful and inherently degrade the experience.

kerkeslager 7y ago
> Signs like those famous Golden Arches can be useful. I know this is picking on your example rather than your general concept, but this is a great example of how advertising is harmful. McDonald's has done incalculable damage to the health of Americans, and even if you don't go there, seeing the arches sometimes will get your kids yelling in the back seat, "I want to go to McDonald's!" This isn't helpful to us: it's helpful to McDonald's.

JoshTriplett 7y ago

There are many factors that might determine which search results I will want to see. Under no circumstances will those factors include "how much money did they pay the search engine". By definition, that can only change my search results to something less aligned with what I want.

listenallyall 7y ago
It's rather naive to believe they only arbiter of what's an ad or not an ad is payment to Google.
Noumenon72 7y ago
Not at all! The positive sum game here goes * Company creates thing people like you want to buy. * Company knows if you know about the thing, you will want to buy it. * Company knows you don't know whether a thing like their thing even exists, so you have no reason to search hard for it. * Company upfronts the money to defray your search costs, knowing it will be paid back when you buy the thing. This is called advertising. I am constantly learning about things I would have enjoyed if I had known about them. It is damn hard to make people aware even that you are giving away free lunch. Advertising breaks down that needless ignorance.
- listenallyall 7y ago
  I used to buy hand tools at Lowe's, Home Depot, or occasionally Autozone if it was car-related. One day I saw a search result ad for Harbor Freight. Had heard the name, never knew they were a tools shop. I've joked to friends that discovery was life-changing. (for reasons, compare prices on just about anything, a good example would be a 1.5 ton floor jack)
  - harambae 7y ago
    Mostly tangential to the original point on this thread, but Harbor Freight tends to sell the cheapest, and far from the best, tools. Might be fine for your use case, I donno.

kerkeslager 7y ago

> If you search for "cheapest gasoline" it's not unreasonable that an ad for an electric car might be interesting. No, I still don't want to see an ad. It's not unreasonable that a search result for electric cars might be interesting, but I want results from an independent third party that serves me, not from the advertiser that serves themselves. > Or if you search for "Orlando hotels", an ad for generally less expensive hotels in Kissimmee (the next town over) is more valuable than a perfectly literal result. No, I still don't want to see an ad. A search result for a cheaper hotel in Kissimmee might be valuable, but I want results from an independent third party that serves me, not from the hotel that serves themselves. > And if you search for "k8s cluster deployment tools" then you probably want as many ads as possible, so your evaluation doesn't fail to include a comprehensive set of options. No, I still don't want to see an ad. I want to see search results of a comprehensive set of options, but I want those results from an independent third party that serves me, not from the hotel that serves themselves. > Perhaps you're saying I already know about electric cars and Kissimmee and kubernetes, to which I'd respond, yes, probably via ads. Maybe a commercial or sign or web ad, but also maybe through a TV news spot (pr campaign) or magazine review (expenses paid) or web article (with affiliate link). No, I'm saying that I want to discover products that are the best for my needs, not products with the best ad placement. I want tools that serve me, instead of serving the best-funded advertisers. Literally none of the cases you describe are what I want. Ads inherently give inaccurate information.

listenallyall 7y ago
Excuse me, but who are these benevolent 3rd parties who freely exist to "serve" you? Do you mean sites like Expedia or Booking.com, who are, of course, getting paid behind the scenes to highlight specific hotels? Or "review" sites who select their winner based on top paying affiliate links (see Sleepopolis)? Or car review sites who glowingly praise some new model, right after the writer was flown to California and given an all-expense paid weekend to tour wine country?
- duckmysick 7y ago
  I'm assuming kerkeslager is talking about publications like Consumer Reports. Basically any publication that sells you access to curated aggregated content. It would be up to the readers to decide whether they trust the impartiality of the authors.