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I used to be in your camp but after Google had only showed a number of us irrelevant ads for years after years I decided it didn't matter: I don't want to date

I used to be in your camp but after Google had only showed a number of us irrelevant ads for years after years I decided it didn't matter: I don't want to date hot Russian/Taiwanese/Ukrainian/Thai women, I'm not interested in dating elderly women near me - and I'm not interested in dating guys either. Nothing against any of those persons, but I'm happily married after all so even the idea of browsing those sites is crazy to me (not that I used any of them before either). With that I have almost exhausted the list of ads that Google thought has been relevant for me since I started dating my wife well over a decade ago. Why they cannot show ads for family holidays, programming conferences, local stores etc I don't know but if I had to guess I'd say they could need some diversity on their teams ;-). (Adding a few married parents with stable marriages and small children should do the trick, but I am not interested and haven't been for a couple of years, I find Google close to disgusting sometimes and whatever technical edge it has has disappeared to the degree that I'm positively surprised to just see sane results like they used to be in 2007.)

realmod 6y ago
Google not displaying relevant ads do NOT in any way make it less wrong. In your case, there are 2 'ethical' options: use premium or avoid the service. Btw I also use adblock so I am a part of the problem.
- anoncake 6y ago
  By paying for premium you support a company whose business model is based on selling emotional manipulation (i.e. ads). You support a company that violates your right to use the software of your choice on your personal property. And you give in to extortion by paying for not being exposed to emotional manipulation. Paying for premium is the unethical option here.
  - dingaling 6y ago
    > By paying for premium you support a company whose business model is based on selling emotional manipulation The corollary of that is that any interaction with such a company is unethical, since it encourages them to continue the manipulation on people who may not be as aware or resistant. I therefore assume you've routed YouTube.com to :: ?
    - ferzul 6y ago
      can you do that on a phone?
    - anoncake 6y ago
      Using its bandwidth without paying it doesn't encourage a for-profit company.
- skinkestek 6y ago
  It is my rendering device. For a number of years I allowed them to run JS on my device and download ads from other servers to my device. I have now instructed my rendering device to not do that. Even as a devout christian that doesn't feel unethical. I'm free to try to avoid the ads, they are free (within limits) to get me to view ads. A pro tip in that regard would be to make the ads relevant and unobtrusive. A good first step here would be to include them statically on the server side and make sure they don't contain any moving or noisy elements. Another good idea would be to select ads not solely on what company they can fleece for most money by showing me irrelevant ads but also factor in if the ad is in any way relevant.
mda 6y ago
A weird justification, "Oh they show me irrelevant ads" Just say that you don't care. Or do the right thing and either pay, don't watch or use it with ads.

realmod 6y ago

Google not displaying relevant ads do NOT in any way make it less wrong. In your case, there are 2 'ethical' options: use premium or avoid the service. Btw I also use adblock so I am a part of the problem.

anoncake 6y ago
By paying for premium you support a company whose business model is based on selling emotional manipulation (i.e. ads). You support a company that violates your right to use the software of your choice on your personal property. And you give in to extortion by paying for not being exposed to emotional manipulation. Paying for premium is the unethical option here.
- dingaling 6y ago
  > By paying for premium you support a company whose business model is based on selling emotional manipulation The corollary of that is that any interaction with such a company is unethical, since it encourages them to continue the manipulation on people who may not be as aware or resistant. I therefore assume you've routed YouTube.com to :: ?
  - ferzul 6y ago
    can you do that on a phone?
  - anoncake 6y ago
    Using its bandwidth without paying it doesn't encourage a for-profit company.
skinkestek 6y ago
It is my rendering device. For a number of years I allowed them to run JS on my device and download ads from other servers to my device. I have now instructed my rendering device to not do that. Even as a devout christian that doesn't feel unethical. I'm free to try to avoid the ads, they are free (within limits) to get me to view ads. A pro tip in that regard would be to make the ads relevant and unobtrusive. A good first step here would be to include them statically on the server side and make sure they don't contain any moving or noisy elements. Another good idea would be to select ads not solely on what company they can fleece for most money by showing me irrelevant ads but also factor in if the ad is in any way relevant.

mda 6y ago

A weird justification, "Oh they show me irrelevant ads" Just say that you don't care. Or do the right thing and either pay, don't watch or use it with ads.