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Lie & scam - big words. Ads/marketing budgets create employment that would otherwise not be there. Ads provide monetization for apps you use on your phone. Wi

Lie & scam - big words. Ads/marketing budgets create employment that would otherwise not be there. Ads provide monetization for apps you use on your phone. Without monetization you wouldn't have the proliferation of the ads, and not everyone is willing to pay directly. It creates jobs, supports businesses, helps otherwise unsustainable content. It helps the small businesses grow their market. It supports economy. You are also sort of missing the point. We are trying to make ads relavant for everyone, but even if it's relavant, you don't click on everything you see. This is true because of how you as a person do things. You don't buy the first car you see on the street, you do research, you spend days etc. Just think of that, and you'll see why why 1% ctr is actually not a terrible thing as you made it sound like. if you clicked on everything you see, you wouldn't be able to do _anything_. Disclaimer: Current FB and ex-Google employee working on ads for 8 years. And no, my pay doesn't depend on me saying these, i could just work _anywhere_ i wanted, literally.

semi-extrinsic 6y ago
I'm sorry, but whenever I'm looking for a new app to do something, it's consistently either the "hobbyist-made, free because ideology" apps, or the "made by $bigcorp, costs $5 but no ads" apps that actually are useful and good. That, and the seemingly utter stupidity of ad engines. Like, yes I bought that new power tool last week. Stop showing me the ad for the tool from the same store I already bought it from. I'm pretty much convinced that apart from the people working in the ad business, nobody actually profits off ads. Certainly it's close to impossible to prove that ads are effective, and people who sell ads to companies are good at cherry picking and suggestive correlations. Then in the end everyone tries to buy the same eyeballs by paying the same ad companies, and it all averages out to nothing except you spent a bunch of money.
- tehlike 6y ago
  It's fairly easy to prove. Businesses are not dumb. Why would they throw their money on advertising otherwise?
  - egsmi 6y ago
    > Businesses are not dumb. Over all businesses over long periods of time, maybe. But a business can definitely be dumb. And a smart business can definitely do a dumb thing.
    - tehlike 6y ago
      "some can be" and "all are" are different things. There are a lot of businesses that don't keep track of their finances, just like there are many people who don't. But assuming that's de-facto situation and every business is losing money on ads is cynical thinking.
  - semi-extrinsic 6y ago
    Come now, this is only an enhanced form of prisoners dilemma, where the prison guards do a side hustle helping prisoners rat each other out, in exchange for a "very small" commission. Everyone spending money on advertising is a strong Nash equilibrium, but it is not the optimal solution. If everyone spends money on ads, a single actor choosing to not spend money on ads would (probably) see a loss. And in this case, you have a centralized actor (ad companies) spending a lot of resources telling everyone this fact. But if everyone decided to not spend money on ads, everyone (except ad companies of course) would see a win.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      I think you are digging yourself too deep into antagonistic thinking. >Come now, this is only an enhanced form of prisoners dilemma, where the prison guards do a side hustle helping prisoners rat each other out, in exchange for a "very small" commission. Everyone spending money on advertising is a strong Nash equilibrium, but it is not the optimal solution. Imagine you are making your own craft beer in your basement and you are sitting on two crates of beer. You want to sell your beer but you don't tell anyone that you are selling beer because that would be advertising and according to you advertising is not an optimal solution. Even if we assume you are the only company on the planet and have no competitors, your business is still in trouble and about to make losses and close down. >If everyone spends money on ads, a single actor choosing to not spend money on ads would (probably) see a loss. And in this case, you have a centralized actor (ad companies) spending a lot of resources telling everyone this fact. Now we assume that you tell someone that you are selling beer which is basically what advertising is. People know that you sell beer now. They can now make a decision to buy your beer. If people like beer that's what they are going to do. If they hate beer they can still decide to not buy your beer. Yeah, if you did not advertise then you would indeed see losses. Simply because nobody is aware of your products, meaning they are unable to buy your products. But again, no second party is involved, so you don't need a centralized actor to decide to do advertising. >But if everyone decided to not spend money on ads, everyone (except ad companies of course) would see a win. Since we are the only company around we are "everyone" and if we decide to not spend money on ads then we would see losses. So now that I have proven that your hypothesis is not correct we can actually talk about the ad market in general. Advertising is providing value for companies but the amount of value advertising can provide is not based on how many resources you spend on advertising, rather it is dependent on the size of the market. A big market with lots of consumers can make more money off of more advertising but there is a certain point beyond which you end up spending more on advertising than the market needs. On a planet with 1000 consumers and two companies the best case would be if both companies put out 500 ads. So clearly the optimum amount of advertising is not 0. However, a big company can put out 1000 ads and thereby displace its competitor's ads. It's best to have some ads but not too many.
- tehlike 6y ago
  >"I bought that new power tool last week. Stop showing me the ad for the tool from the same store I already bought it from." Yes. I hate this too, but think of it as a bug, not the actual intention. We would love to know when you wouldn't buy a product as much as we would love to know when you actually would. But we don't, always, and end up having to make approximations. We don't always know what you actually bought, we just know you bought something. Advertisers don't even always tell the value of stuff you bought, something tht'd have benefited them to share from ROI pov etc.
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    That "bug" exists ever since adtech exists. Clearly, nobody is interested in fixing it then? "It's a developing area" is a pretty old adage by now, and is worn out. Modern tech exists for 25+ years now. Do something. Most of the people I've spoken to hate ads. Not fixing ancient bugs isn't helping the situation.
    - tehlike 6y ago
      No, this is within the framework - the buyer (say, amazon) wants to target you since you recently bought something. They could say they don't want to target you since you already bought it, but it's partly up to them. FB/Google/etc could downrank and reduce its frequency or whatever, but it will keep happening one way or the other due to variety of sellers etc in the market.
playpause 6y ago
You haven’t addressed the only point in the comment you’re replying to.
- tehlike 6y ago
  I did. "tracking is getting them better/ more relevant advertising" -> it makes it more relavant yes. But your individual experience on 100 impressions don't matter. Us showing you ads for something you already bought is a bug. Not a fundamental to advertising kind of issue.
rland 6y ago
You know what else would monetize apps on our phone? Actual money. In the absence of ads, we'd have people paying money to honest app makers for the utility of the app. And along with that, the accountability, honesty, and incentive alignment that comes from a straightforward exchange. Instead, we have app makers selling users, their data, and their attention to the various companies/intermediaries/entities involved -- without ever telling the user how the bread is buttered. Yeah, when I'm buying a toaster, I do research. But that has nothing to do with modern ad-tech and its various tentacles whatsoever. Actually, nowadays, I find this whole ecosystem actively prevents me from being proactive about my consumer choice, because every single thing I see when I google "best toaster 2020" is some type of eldritch symbiosis of Fb Goog Az (choose any; none are good), a 1 cent-paid-per-letter 3rd world content farmer, instant click bidding based on my browser, age, gender, location, prior 2 week consumption pattern, political view. It's really tough to compete with free, and I understand that there are significant barriers to paying directly for content/utility/etc. I know, the system we have set up is ambiguous and complicated and subtle. But maybe those ads/marketing budget dollars could be used to actually like, I don't know: improve people's lives? fix these systems? reverse course? Convince people to consume less so that we don't collapse the biosphere? It's so tiring to see the most intelligent people alive say, well, this is quite clearly a massive problem that might literally destabilize the order of our entire society on one hand, but on the other, people just have to know how bad they want the Newest Garbage On Sale This Upcoming Black Friday... Yes, it is a lie and a scam. One of the most epic of recent years.
- nemothekid 6y ago
  >In the absence of ads, we'd have people paying money to honest app makers for the utility of the app. I don’t think so; and the counter example is gaming. We would see free to download products with upsells catered to whales. I’m not sure if that would be a better product but I don’t think that business model is honest either
- tehlike 6y ago
  Feel free to pay money, I applaud that. For the content you benefit from, if you are willing to pay, that's amazing. I do pay for content too (i have yt premium, netflix, blutv etc). But not everyone wants to pay for the content. You certainly wouldn't pay for a game you play for two weeks and get bored. How do you think a mobile game on a device would get the word of mouth they do without initial monetization etc? How do you think you'd get to know your neighborhood burger joint without some form of advertising (either word of mouth, or through real paid advertising). how would you know the burger joint somewhere else? Short of a micropayment solution that pays out proportional to the value you get (flattr? maybe), ads is the only viable option. But that only solves the content creator pov. It doesn't help the advertiser - the business that need your money to survive.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> Ads/marketing budgets create employment that would otherwise not be there. Whether something creates jobs or not doesn't make it a net good. Would you suggest Ransomware is good? Because it also creates jobs. As do Nigerian email scams and Ponzi schemes. "Creating Jobs" doesn't mean something is good for society. > You are also sort of missing the point. We are trying to make ads relavant for everyone, but even if it's relavant, you don't click on everything you see. Apparently you are missing the point here. Whether you see it or not, Facebook and google's marketplaces by nature serve advertisers, not me. Advertisers don't give a damn what advertising is "most relevant" to me. What they care about is which demographics are most profitable to their brands. > We are trying to make ads relavant for everyone So long as Google and Facebook put the advertisers in control of who sees their advertising, any assertion that the system is designed to serve us is bullshit. People don't see advertising that is relevant, they see advertisements from the people who pay google/ Facebook to see their message. Those two things are not equivalent and never will be.
- tehlike 6y ago
  Advertisers don't give a damn what advertising is "most relevant" to me. -> They certainly do, indirectly - that'd mean they get better ROI on their investment. But think of it this way. You are getting a service, you are paying either directly or indirectly through ads. Facebook wouldn't be a thing if it were a paid product from get go. It'd probably even lose a major part of its user base if it became a paid product overnight. Like i said, i would love if i can pay for a product i am benefiting from, but it's not always possible.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  > So long as Google and Facebook put the advertisers in control of who sees their advertising, any assertion that the system is designed to serve us is bullshit But they don't put advertisers in control of who sees their ads. If you look at audience sizes on FB, and then run some direct response ads on that audience, you'll notice that you only ever reach maybe 10% of that audience. This is because what FB/Goog are good at is figuring out which ads are likely to get someone to click and/or convert, and show only those ads. The dirty secret is that those people might have converted anyway. One can measure this with an attribution model, but the trouble is that the two biggest players Google and Facebook have very little incentive to co-operate, so all attribution models are extremely biased. tl;dr the advertisers set boundaries on who should see the ad, but they don't control who the ads get served to.

semi-extrinsic 6y ago

I'm sorry, but whenever I'm looking for a new app to do something, it's consistently either the "hobbyist-made, free because ideology" apps, or the "made by $bigcorp, costs $5 but no ads" apps that actually are useful and good. That, and the seemingly utter stupidity of ad engines. Like, yes I bought that new power tool last week. Stop showing me the ad for the tool from the same store I already bought it from. I'm pretty much convinced that apart from the people working in the ad business, nobody actually profits off ads. Certainly it's close to impossible to prove that ads are effective, and people who sell ads to companies are good at cherry picking and suggestive correlations. Then in the end everyone tries to buy the same eyeballs by paying the same ad companies, and it all averages out to nothing except you spent a bunch of money.

tehlike 6y ago
It's fairly easy to prove. Businesses are not dumb. Why would they throw their money on advertising otherwise?
- egsmi 6y ago
  > Businesses are not dumb. Over all businesses over long periods of time, maybe. But a business can definitely be dumb. And a smart business can definitely do a dumb thing.
  - tehlike 6y ago
    "some can be" and "all are" are different things. There are a lot of businesses that don't keep track of their finances, just like there are many people who don't. But assuming that's de-facto situation and every business is losing money on ads is cynical thinking.
- semi-extrinsic 6y ago
  Come now, this is only an enhanced form of prisoners dilemma, where the prison guards do a side hustle helping prisoners rat each other out, in exchange for a "very small" commission. Everyone spending money on advertising is a strong Nash equilibrium, but it is not the optimal solution. If everyone spends money on ads, a single actor choosing to not spend money on ads would (probably) see a loss. And in this case, you have a centralized actor (ad companies) spending a lot of resources telling everyone this fact. But if everyone decided to not spend money on ads, everyone (except ad companies of course) would see a win.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    I think you are digging yourself too deep into antagonistic thinking. >Come now, this is only an enhanced form of prisoners dilemma, where the prison guards do a side hustle helping prisoners rat each other out, in exchange for a "very small" commission. Everyone spending money on advertising is a strong Nash equilibrium, but it is not the optimal solution. Imagine you are making your own craft beer in your basement and you are sitting on two crates of beer. You want to sell your beer but you don't tell anyone that you are selling beer because that would be advertising and according to you advertising is not an optimal solution. Even if we assume you are the only company on the planet and have no competitors, your business is still in trouble and about to make losses and close down. >If everyone spends money on ads, a single actor choosing to not spend money on ads would (probably) see a loss. And in this case, you have a centralized actor (ad companies) spending a lot of resources telling everyone this fact. Now we assume that you tell someone that you are selling beer which is basically what advertising is. People know that you sell beer now. They can now make a decision to buy your beer. If people like beer that's what they are going to do. If they hate beer they can still decide to not buy your beer. Yeah, if you did not advertise then you would indeed see losses. Simply because nobody is aware of your products, meaning they are unable to buy your products. But again, no second party is involved, so you don't need a centralized actor to decide to do advertising. >But if everyone decided to not spend money on ads, everyone (except ad companies of course) would see a win. Since we are the only company around we are "everyone" and if we decide to not spend money on ads then we would see losses. So now that I have proven that your hypothesis is not correct we can actually talk about the ad market in general. Advertising is providing value for companies but the amount of value advertising can provide is not based on how many resources you spend on advertising, rather it is dependent on the size of the market. A big market with lots of consumers can make more money off of more advertising but there is a certain point beyond which you end up spending more on advertising than the market needs. On a planet with 1000 consumers and two companies the best case would be if both companies put out 500 ads. So clearly the optimum amount of advertising is not 0. However, a big company can put out 1000 ads and thereby displace its competitor's ads. It's best to have some ads but not too many.
tehlike 6y ago
>"I bought that new power tool last week. Stop showing me the ad for the tool from the same store I already bought it from." Yes. I hate this too, but think of it as a bug, not the actual intention. We would love to know when you wouldn't buy a product as much as we would love to know when you actually would. But we don't, always, and end up having to make approximations. We don't always know what you actually bought, we just know you bought something. Advertisers don't even always tell the value of stuff you bought, something tht'd have benefited them to share from ROI pov etc.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  That "bug" exists ever since adtech exists. Clearly, nobody is interested in fixing it then? "It's a developing area" is a pretty old adage by now, and is worn out. Modern tech exists for 25+ years now. Do something. Most of the people I've spoken to hate ads. Not fixing ancient bugs isn't helping the situation.
  - tehlike 6y ago
    No, this is within the framework - the buyer (say, amazon) wants to target you since you recently bought something. They could say they don't want to target you since you already bought it, but it's partly up to them. FB/Google/etc could downrank and reduce its frequency or whatever, but it will keep happening one way or the other due to variety of sellers etc in the market.

playpause 6y ago

You haven’t addressed the only point in the comment you’re replying to.

tehlike 6y ago
I did. "tracking is getting them better/ more relevant advertising" -> it makes it more relavant yes. But your individual experience on 100 impressions don't matter. Us showing you ads for something you already bought is a bug. Not a fundamental to advertising kind of issue.

rland 6y ago

You know what else would monetize apps on our phone? Actual money. In the absence of ads, we'd have people paying money to honest app makers for the utility of the app. And along with that, the accountability, honesty, and incentive alignment that comes from a straightforward exchange. Instead, we have app makers selling users, their data, and their attention to the various companies/intermediaries/entities involved -- without ever telling the user how the bread is buttered. Yeah, when I'm buying a toaster, I do research. But that has nothing to do with modern ad-tech and its various tentacles whatsoever. Actually, nowadays, I find this whole ecosystem actively prevents me from being proactive about my consumer choice, because every single thing I see when I google "best toaster 2020" is some type of eldritch symbiosis of Fb Goog Az (choose any; none are good), a 1 cent-paid-per-letter 3rd world content farmer, instant click bidding based on my browser, age, gender, location, prior 2 week consumption pattern, political view. It's really tough to compete with free, and I understand that there are significant barriers to paying directly for content/utility/etc. I know, the system we have set up is ambiguous and complicated and subtle. But maybe those ads/marketing budget dollars could be used to actually like, I don't know: improve people's lives? fix these systems? reverse course? Convince people to consume less so that we don't collapse the biosphere? It's so tiring to see the most intelligent people alive say, well, this is quite clearly a massive problem that might literally destabilize the order of our entire society on one hand, but on the other, people just have to know how bad they want the Newest Garbage On Sale This Upcoming Black Friday... Yes, it is a lie and a scam. One of the most epic of recent years.

nemothekid 6y ago
>In the absence of ads, we'd have people paying money to honest app makers for the utility of the app. I don’t think so; and the counter example is gaming. We would see free to download products with upsells catered to whales. I’m not sure if that would be a better product but I don’t think that business model is honest either
tehlike 6y ago
Feel free to pay money, I applaud that. For the content you benefit from, if you are willing to pay, that's amazing. I do pay for content too (i have yt premium, netflix, blutv etc). But not everyone wants to pay for the content. You certainly wouldn't pay for a game you play for two weeks and get bored. How do you think a mobile game on a device would get the word of mouth they do without initial monetization etc? How do you think you'd get to know your neighborhood burger joint without some form of advertising (either word of mouth, or through real paid advertising). how would you know the burger joint somewhere else? Short of a micropayment solution that pays out proportional to the value you get (flattr? maybe), ads is the only viable option. But that only solves the content creator pov. It doesn't help the advertiser - the business that need your money to survive.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> Ads/marketing budgets create employment that would otherwise not be there. Whether something creates jobs or not doesn't make it a net good. Would you suggest Ransomware is good? Because it also creates jobs. As do Nigerian email scams and Ponzi schemes. "Creating Jobs" doesn't mean something is good for society. > You are also sort of missing the point. We are trying to make ads relavant for everyone, but even if it's relavant, you don't click on everything you see. Apparently you are missing the point here. Whether you see it or not, Facebook and google's marketplaces by nature serve advertisers, not me. Advertisers don't give a damn what advertising is "most relevant" to me. What they care about is which demographics are most profitable to their brands. > We are trying to make ads relavant for everyone So long as Google and Facebook put the advertisers in control of who sees their advertising, any assertion that the system is designed to serve us is bullshit. People don't see advertising that is relevant, they see advertisements from the people who pay google/ Facebook to see their message. Those two things are not equivalent and never will be.

tehlike 6y ago
Advertisers don't give a damn what advertising is "most relevant" to me. -> They certainly do, indirectly - that'd mean they get better ROI on their investment. But think of it this way. You are getting a service, you are paying either directly or indirectly through ads. Facebook wouldn't be a thing if it were a paid product from get go. It'd probably even lose a major part of its user base if it became a paid product overnight. Like i said, i would love if i can pay for a product i am benefiting from, but it's not always possible.
disgruntledphd2 6y ago
> So long as Google and Facebook put the advertisers in control of who sees their advertising, any assertion that the system is designed to serve us is bullshit But they don't put advertisers in control of who sees their ads. If you look at audience sizes on FB, and then run some direct response ads on that audience, you'll notice that you only ever reach maybe 10% of that audience. This is because what FB/Goog are good at is figuring out which ads are likely to get someone to click and/or convert, and show only those ads. The dirty secret is that those people might have converted anyway. One can measure this with an attribution model, but the trouble is that the two biggest players Google and Facebook have very little incentive to co-operate, so all attribution models are extremely biased. tl;dr the advertisers set boundaries on who should see the ad, but they don't control who the ads get served to.