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> When those publishers are in the news business, this is another trade-off - pay walls (and privacy!) conflict with reach and public purpose, and again they te

> When those publishers are in the news business, this is another trade-off - pay walls (and privacy!) conflict with reach and public purpose, and again they tend to work best for the strongest. I think the most interesting "ads are good" argument I've heard is being able to give free tools to people who don't have the discretionary budget to pay for things like premium news. A bit sad about information paywalls over this. At the same time, I'd still gamble that this 'apocalypse' will prove to be created because there wasn't pressure to perform better with a limited ad capabilities. My bet would still be that things will be fine even after the playing board is tamed -- the markets just need some time to react and correct.

jen20 5y ago
> free tools to people who don't have the discretionary budget to pay for things like premium news. Is there evidence that blasting even very targeted ads at people without discretionary income yields conversion?
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Presumably you wouldn't be blasting ads for luxury goods or premium products. You'd be blasting ads for payday loans, gambling, get-rich-quick schemes and other scams. Morally, ethically and potentially even legally wrong (technically the ad network should be held complicit if they're promoting a scam), but it does work. "No discretionary income" doesn't mean the mark won't spend money if they believe they have a high probability of making it back + more.
- collaborative 5y ago
  Yes, this is true. We have run a company at a (small) profit using this method for 5 years But it also no longer is tge case. AdWords stopped working (at least for us) in April
whakim 5y ago
There are some other interesting ideas that aren't simply "invasive ads" or "subscriptions." Obviously, advertising was effective before the advent of the modern internet, so it seems like it should still be so if we rid ourselves of privacy-invasive hypertargeting and everyone has a level playing field (that being said, as the author and you yourself note, this does concentrate power in the hands of the best advertising "spots", e.g. Facebook or Google). There's stuff like BAT, which seems like it has a lot of potential but hasn't really taken off because most people just don't care enough about ads, and ads work well enough that there isn't sufficient motivation on the part of businesses to make it happen.

jen20 5y ago

> free tools to people who don't have the discretionary budget to pay for things like premium news. Is there evidence that blasting even very targeted ads at people without discretionary income yields conversion?

Nextgrid 5y ago
Presumably you wouldn't be blasting ads for luxury goods or premium products. You'd be blasting ads for payday loans, gambling, get-rich-quick schemes and other scams. Morally, ethically and potentially even legally wrong (technically the ad network should be held complicit if they're promoting a scam), but it does work. "No discretionary income" doesn't mean the mark won't spend money if they believe they have a high probability of making it back + more.
collaborative 5y ago
Yes, this is true. We have run a company at a (small) profit using this method for 5 years But it also no longer is tge case. AdWords stopped working (at least for us) in April

whakim 5y ago

There are some other interesting ideas that aren't simply "invasive ads" or "subscriptions." Obviously, advertising was effective before the advent of the modern internet, so it seems like it should still be so if we rid ourselves of privacy-invasive hypertargeting and everyone has a level playing field (that being said, as the author and you yourself note, this does concentrate power in the hands of the best advertising "spots", e.g. Facebook or Google). There's stuff like BAT, which seems like it has a lot of potential but hasn't really taken off because most people just don't care enough about ads, and ads work well enough that there isn't sufficient motivation on the part of businesses to make it happen.