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People say how they hate surveillance tech, but at the end of the day, it pays half of the bills on this website. Most probably, there is Google Analytics and

People say how they hate surveillance tech, but at the end of the day, it pays half of the bills on this website. Most probably, there is Google Analytics and Facebook pixel on the very site you are building right now. So all these horribly, horribly outraged comments ring kind of hollow to me. I mean look at how many trackers are on The Verge site itself. Yeah FLoC is horrible. I hope it dies in a fire. It's just, people that build websites want tracking. And it works. Retargeting works, banners work. That's why it's everywhere, nonstop. We all do it, we secretly crave all the tracking data from our users. We are addicted to A/B testing and referrer tracking and ad revenue. So, I donno. There is a reason why Google does this.

busymom0 6y ago
> People say how they hate surveillance tech, but at the end of the day, it pays half of the bills on this website. HN has surveillance tech? > Most probably, there is Google Analytics and Facebook pixel on the very site you are building right now. Nope. I haven't used any of those since 2016. None of the apps I build for iOS have third party analytics, trackers or even ads. I solely rely on a single one time only in app purchase for monetization. Even my OCR app does all its processing locally on the device itself and none of the data leaves the device. I have a mood tracker app which obviously has a lot of intimate, confidential and private data from users - the data stays on their device and if they use iCloud syncing, then to Apple's server (despite all of Apple's flaws, they do seem to be doing much better when it comes to privacy). I have a school timetable app which also has lot of confidential data. Same thing on that app too - everything stays locally on the device or iCloud if user chooses. I DO NOT want user data. I have a site which is a resume builder which users input a lot of confidential data. Even that site never transfers any of the user data and everything is stored locally on the browser. There isn't even any ads or analytics on the site as can be confirmed by sniffing network requests. I had to spend couple extra weeks to get the PDF generation done locally in the browser instead of sending the user data to some server. This took extra time but it was worth it because I DO NOT WANT USER DATA. My Hacker News client app also has the same attention to privacy. I disclose to the user in the privacy policy that the only time the app accesses my own network is when it needs to fetch the favicon for the articles and I don't log these requests. I plan on adding notifications to that app and I will be disclosing that in the privacy policy that I will need to store the device token to be able to deliver the notifications. And the notifications will be opt-in so the user knows what data they are giving me to store. Other than that, I won't be using this for any tracking or other purposes. Obviously I am aware I can make a lot more money if I put ads and trackers etc but I have been at a point for many years now where I would lose money and business if it means I get to starve the beast of some money. My customers appreciate my privacy policy and often email me or leave reviews appreciating the privacy policy. So there's a market for it (less money though and I am fine with that). https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hack-for-hacker-news-developer/id1464477788 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hack-for-hacker-news-developer... Privacy policy for HACK: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cb282k7rrSi4awr0HizuRciX-nIYpympfrxGLEt9cgc/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cb282k7rrSi4awr0HizuRciX... Here's another example of my resume builder's privacy policy: https://resumetopdf.com/privacypolicy.html https://resumetopdf.com/privacypolicy.html Here's privacy policy for my MoodWell mood tracker: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19bIdiLwlnQxSIASNatVz8UpICt7ygNjldtW_h4GOaDg/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/19bIdiLwlnQxSIASNatVz8UpI... Privacy policy for my Image Text OCR app: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f05TVHqZPnj8aM1d0b6y6u6Hfubhw1X8jxpSyClcOFA/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f05TVHqZPnj8aM1d0b6y6u6H... Simply saying one cares about privacy and users isn't sufficient. I think one has to really want to make less money and also have bitter feelings towards the beast to purposefully starve it if they want to care about user privacy.
- vermilingua 6y ago
  > HN uses surveillance tech? HN is fully funded by Y Combinator. The suggestion is that YC make half their money from surveillance tech, but I can’t speak as to whether that is true.
  - busymom0 6y ago
    Fair point. I see what OP means now. Though that is like saying one won't use React Native or Flutter because it's made and funded by FB and Google.
naikrovek 6y ago
> people that build websites want tracking. And it works. Retargeting works, banners work. do they? I've never once bought anything because and ad made me aware of it, or because an ad convinced me I needed it. not once. has anyone? I'm sure someone has, but how many? I would not be surprised if studies were done that computed a purchase rate overall for all the ads people see or hear in their lives, that the number is less than one purchase per billion ads exposed.
- busymom0 6y ago
  One thing to note is that the purpose of ads might not just be to get you to directly click on it and buy something. It might also be to make you remember the brand name so the next time you think of lets say baby diapers, you remember "Huggies" because they are the most advertised ones even though there are better and cheaper alternatives. As for how impactful the ads are - you don't need a study. Simply run an ad and you will know how many people click your ad and how many then follow up with purchasing. That's where terms like cost per acquisition (CPA), customer acquisition cost (CAC), cost per click (CPC), Cost Per Thousand (CPM) etc come into place. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cpm.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cpm.asp It's not one purchase per billion ads. You can look up google Adwords cost per acquisition by industry (WARNING - might be blocked by ad blocker): https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/02/29/google-adwords-industry-benchmarks https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/02/29/google-adwords... Cost per acquisition on the app stores is much cheaper too.
  - zeusk 6y ago
    There’s a saying in finance, the more complex a financial product is, the more money banks make on it. I feel it quite aptly applies to advertisement industry as well. Massive amounts of complexity and red tape over getting people to buy things
  - MzHN 6y ago
    Honestly wondering why this is getting downvoted, if it's not against the rules to wonder. I hate targeted ads as much as anyone, and I don't buy the ad tech bs that they are vital to human survival, but I think the GP is a bit naive to think that ads have no effect on them. There's long-standing research that people unconsciously prefer familiar things, so exposure to ads is enough even if you don't remember it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect Of course if you would have never ever bought something, an ad is unlikely to make you change your mind. Same if you do thorough research on what to buy, you're probably not swayed by familiarity. But claiming that they have no effect is a bit naive. EDIT: I guess GP never claimed that they have no effect, but what I'm trying to say is that ads probably have a bigger effect in people in general, and even to you personally whoever is reading this, than you'd think. Targeted ads though? I hope we can live without them.
TeeMassive 6y ago
> People say how they hate surveillance tech, but at the end of the day, it pays half of the bills on this website. It seems to me that HN is a gateway to advertise a bigger platform. It's more of a win-win situation than a "you're the product" kind of thing. Also right now µBlock Origin and Privacy Badger are blocking nothing. And with more and more content producers soured by Big Tech creating their own private subscription based websites or opening semi-private platforms I wouldn't be surprised if we will see a decline ads revenue in the coming years.

busymom0 6y ago

> People say how they hate surveillance tech, but at the end of the day, it pays half of the bills on this website. HN has surveillance tech? > Most probably, there is Google Analytics and Facebook pixel on the very site you are building right now. Nope. I haven't used any of those since 2016. None of the apps I build for iOS have third party analytics, trackers or even ads. I solely rely on a single one time only in app purchase for monetization. Even my OCR app does all its processing locally on the device itself and none of the data leaves the device. I have a mood tracker app which obviously has a lot of intimate, confidential and private data from users - the data stays on their device and if they use iCloud syncing, then to Apple's server (despite all of Apple's flaws, they do seem to be doing much better when it comes to privacy). I have a school timetable app which also has lot of confidential data. Same thing on that app too - everything stays locally on the device or iCloud if user chooses. I DO NOT want user data. I have a site which is a resume builder which users input a lot of confidential data. Even that site never transfers any of the user data and everything is stored locally on the browser. There isn't even any ads or analytics on the site as can be confirmed by sniffing network requests. I had to spend couple extra weeks to get the PDF generation done locally in the browser instead of sending the user data to some server. This took extra time but it was worth it because I DO NOT WANT USER DATA. My Hacker News client app also has the same attention to privacy. I disclose to the user in the privacy policy that the only time the app accesses my own network is when it needs to fetch the favicon for the articles and I don't log these requests. I plan on adding notifications to that app and I will be disclosing that in the privacy policy that I will need to store the device token to be able to deliver the notifications. And the notifications will be opt-in so the user knows what data they are giving me to store. Other than that, I won't be using this for any tracking or other purposes. Obviously I am aware I can make a lot more money if I put ads and trackers etc but I have been at a point for many years now where I would lose money and business if it means I get to starve the beast of some money. My customers appreciate my privacy policy and often email me or leave reviews appreciating the privacy policy. So there's a market for it (less money though and I am fine with that). https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hack-for-hacker-news-developer/id1464477788 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hack-for-hacker-news-developer... Privacy policy for HACK: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cb282k7rrSi4awr0HizuRciX-nIYpympfrxGLEt9cgc/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cb282k7rrSi4awr0HizuRciX... Here's another example of my resume builder's privacy policy: https://resumetopdf.com/privacypolicy.html https://resumetopdf.com/privacypolicy.html Here's privacy policy for my MoodWell mood tracker: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19bIdiLwlnQxSIASNatVz8UpICt7ygNjldtW_h4GOaDg/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/19bIdiLwlnQxSIASNatVz8UpI... Privacy policy for my Image Text OCR app: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f05TVHqZPnj8aM1d0b6y6u6Hfubhw1X8jxpSyClcOFA/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f05TVHqZPnj8aM1d0b6y6u6H... Simply saying one cares about privacy and users isn't sufficient. I think one has to really want to make less money and also have bitter feelings towards the beast to purposefully starve it if they want to care about user privacy.

vermilingua 6y ago
> HN uses surveillance tech? HN is fully funded by Y Combinator. The suggestion is that YC make half their money from surveillance tech, but I can’t speak as to whether that is true.
- busymom0 6y ago
  Fair point. I see what OP means now. Though that is like saying one won't use React Native or Flutter because it's made and funded by FB and Google.

naikrovek 6y ago

> people that build websites want tracking. And it works. Retargeting works, banners work. do they? I've never once bought anything because and ad made me aware of it, or because an ad convinced me I needed it. not once. has anyone? I'm sure someone has, but how many? I would not be surprised if studies were done that computed a purchase rate overall for all the ads people see or hear in their lives, that the number is less than one purchase per billion ads exposed.

busymom0 6y ago
One thing to note is that the purpose of ads might not just be to get you to directly click on it and buy something. It might also be to make you remember the brand name so the next time you think of lets say baby diapers, you remember "Huggies" because they are the most advertised ones even though there are better and cheaper alternatives. As for how impactful the ads are - you don't need a study. Simply run an ad and you will know how many people click your ad and how many then follow up with purchasing. That's where terms like cost per acquisition (CPA), customer acquisition cost (CAC), cost per click (CPC), Cost Per Thousand (CPM) etc come into place. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cpm.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cpm.asp It's not one purchase per billion ads. You can look up google Adwords cost per acquisition by industry (WARNING - might be blocked by ad blocker): https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/02/29/google-adwords-industry-benchmarks https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/02/29/google-adwords... Cost per acquisition on the app stores is much cheaper too.
- zeusk 6y ago
  There’s a saying in finance, the more complex a financial product is, the more money banks make on it. I feel it quite aptly applies to advertisement industry as well. Massive amounts of complexity and red tape over getting people to buy things
- MzHN 6y ago
  Honestly wondering why this is getting downvoted, if it's not against the rules to wonder. I hate targeted ads as much as anyone, and I don't buy the ad tech bs that they are vital to human survival, but I think the GP is a bit naive to think that ads have no effect on them. There's long-standing research that people unconsciously prefer familiar things, so exposure to ads is enough even if you don't remember it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect Of course if you would have never ever bought something, an ad is unlikely to make you change your mind. Same if you do thorough research on what to buy, you're probably not swayed by familiarity. But claiming that they have no effect is a bit naive. EDIT: I guess GP never claimed that they have no effect, but what I'm trying to say is that ads probably have a bigger effect in people in general, and even to you personally whoever is reading this, than you'd think. Targeted ads though? I hope we can live without them.

TeeMassive 6y ago

> People say how they hate surveillance tech, but at the end of the day, it pays half of the bills on this website. It seems to me that HN is a gateway to advertise a bigger platform. It's more of a win-win situation than a "you're the product" kind of thing. Also right now µBlock Origin and Privacy Badger are blocking nothing. And with more and more content producers soured by Big Tech creating their own private subscription based websites or opening semi-private platforms I wouldn't be surprised if we will see a decline ads revenue in the coming years.