6 ms·

Biggest issue with this argument - advertising supported businesses are fine, contextual advertising is fine, targeted cross site advertising is a pointless red

by czzr 5y ago

Biggest issue with this argument - advertising supported businesses are fine, contextual advertising is fine, targeted cross site advertising is a pointless red queen race that is undermining our society in multiple ways.

jefftk 5y ago
Can you say more what you mean by "pointless red queen race"? Let's say someone wants to sell fishing equipment. The traditional way of doing this is to buy ads on fishing sites. So now my fishing equipment purchases make there be more writing about fishing; yay! Then one of the fishing websites decides to put a tracking pixel on their site to drop "fishing website visitor" cookies (or, in a future without third-party cookies, a turtledove interest group). They make a deal with a third party provider and get paid a small amount per visitor. Then fishing retailers have a new choice: instead of buying ads on fishing sites they can instead buy ads on any site for users who have one of the "fishing website visitor" cookies. If there were a monopoly fishing site, then this would increase their earnings: while the ad space on their site isn't as valuable, they will set the pixel price high enough that they come out ahead. It's not a monopoly, though, so the price of the pixel gets driven down through competition, and money that would go to fishing sites instead goes to the publishers that people who spend money on fishing equipment visit. In this case I see how it's worse for fishing sites, but not how it's bad for consumers: their willingness to buy fishing equipment translates into support for all the sites they visit, and not just the fishing sites. But there are also many niches that don't have economic tie-ins, or have ones that are far weaker than "writing about fishing" and "buying fishing equipment". In a world with targeted advertising, these niches do better, because of overlap between audiences. A "let's have better housing policy" blog can show ads for fishing equipment, vacations, HVAC supplies, or whatever else visitors have shown interest in on other sites. Additionally, targeted advertising increases the total amount of funding available for online content, because people with niche interests are available to be advertised to in more places. Seeing ten fishing ads once a week when you visit a fishing site vs seeing twenty fishing ads spread over the course of the week, etc. So while niche publishers in lucrative niches would likely make more money if we only had context-based advertising, I don't think niche publishers overall, publishers overall, or consumers would be better off. (This is modified from a comment I originally posted on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620763)
- omginternets 5y ago
  Now take us through the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection. You seem to be deliberately focusing on the beneficial parts of advertising, at the exclusion of the harmful bits. If you want to maintain your credibility -- let alone give the impression of someone striving to live ethically -- you'll need to give that second part its due attention. Addendum: If I were offered a generous salary to work on Google ad technology, I might accept. I'm not 100% sure, but the temptation would very real. As such, I want to make it clear that my criticism does not stem from any feeling of moral superiority, but rather from deep-seated respect and sympathy for someone engaged in an ethical dilemma. I believe the comments would be much more charitable had your position been something along the lines of "I do it because it's good money, and I sometimes struggle with the dilemma. Here is the nature of the issue as I see it." As a general rule, people respect earnest introspection. Not so with playing ostrich.
  - dnissley 5y ago
    Let's talk about the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection. Are you saying you know something about those? Do tell! Maybe I'm just terribly dense, but I seriously can't think of any reasonable objection to what google does. The best I personally can come up with is that most people don't understand what google is doing and if they did know some of them might object. When I google "the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection" I get results that talk about the NSA and human rights -- this doesn't seem to have much to do with what google is doing though. When I add "google" to that search I get a rambling article on "How surveillance changes people's behavior". Please help me out here -- how am I or anyone else being harmed by google knowing what sites I visit? I don't think the author is being disingenuous. I do think there is a sizable subset of privacy advocates who have become so stringently ideological about this issue they would downvote even thoughtful replies and are so caught up in their bubble that they seemingly can't have a conversation with anyone outside of it.
    - omginternets 5y ago
      >Let's talk about the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection. Are you saying you know something about those? Do tell! Yes, let's. I'm not an expert, so I don't have any insight. Do you? Still, this question seems like an essential part of essay about the ethics of working in the ad industry. Perhaps you meant to direct your sarcasm towards the author?

by czzr 5y ago

jefftk 5y ago

Can you say more what you mean by "pointless red queen race"? Let's say someone wants to sell fishing equipment. The traditional way of doing this is to buy ads on fishing sites. So now my fishing equipment purchases make there be more writing about fishing; yay! Then one of the fishing websites decides to put a tracking pixel on their site to drop "fishing website visitor" cookies (or, in a future without third-party cookies, a turtledove interest group). They make a deal with a third party provider and get paid a small amount per visitor. Then fishing retailers have a new choice: instead of buying ads on fishing sites they can instead buy ads on any site for users who have one of the "fishing website visitor" cookies. If there were a monopoly fishing site, then this would increase their earnings: while the ad space on their site isn't as valuable, they will set the pixel price high enough that they come out ahead. It's not a monopoly, though, so the price of the pixel gets driven down through competition, and money that would go to fishing sites instead goes to the publishers that people who spend money on fishing equipment visit. In this case I see how it's worse for fishing sites, but not how it's bad for consumers: their willingness to buy fishing equipment translates into support for all the sites they visit, and not just the fishing sites. But there are also many niches that don't have economic tie-ins, or have ones that are far weaker than "writing about fishing" and "buying fishing equipment". In a world with targeted advertising, these niches do better, because of overlap between audiences. A "let's have better housing policy" blog can show ads for fishing equipment, vacations, HVAC supplies, or whatever else visitors have shown interest in on other sites. Additionally, targeted advertising increases the total amount of funding available for online content, because people with niche interests are available to be advertised to in more places. Seeing ten fishing ads once a week when you visit a fishing site vs seeing twenty fishing ads spread over the course of the week, etc. So while niche publishers in lucrative niches would likely make more money if we only had context-based advertising, I don't think niche publishers overall, publishers overall, or consumers would be better off. (This is modified from a comment I originally posted on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620763)

omginternets 5y ago
Now take us through the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection. You seem to be deliberately focusing on the beneficial parts of advertising, at the exclusion of the harmful bits. If you want to maintain your credibility -- let alone give the impression of someone striving to live ethically -- you'll need to give that second part its due attention. Addendum: If I were offered a generous salary to work on Google ad technology, I might accept. I'm not 100% sure, but the temptation would very real. As such, I want to make it clear that my criticism does not stem from any feeling of moral superiority, but rather from deep-seated respect and sympathy for someone engaged in an ethical dilemma. I believe the comments would be much more charitable had your position been something along the lines of "I do it because it's good money, and I sometimes struggle with the dilemma. Here is the nature of the issue as I see it." As a general rule, people respect earnest introspection. Not so with playing ostrich.
- dnissley 5y ago
  Let's talk about the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection. Are you saying you know something about those? Do tell! Maybe I'm just terribly dense, but I seriously can't think of any reasonable objection to what google does. The best I personally can come up with is that most people don't understand what google is doing and if they did know some of them might object. When I google "the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection" I get results that talk about the NSA and human rights -- this doesn't seem to have much to do with what google is doing though. When I add "google" to that search I get a rambling article on "How surveillance changes people's behavior". Please help me out here -- how am I or anyone else being harmed by google knowing what sites I visit? I don't think the author is being disingenuous. I do think there is a sizable subset of privacy advocates who have become so stringently ideological about this issue they would downvote even thoughtful replies and are so caught up in their bubble that they seemingly can't have a conversation with anyone outside of it.
  - omginternets 5y ago
    >Let's talk about the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection. Are you saying you know something about those? Do tell! Yes, let's. I'm not an expert, so I don't have any insight. Do you? Still, this question seems like an essential part of essay about the ethics of working in the ad industry. Perhaps you meant to direct your sarcasm towards the author?