4 ms·

>The vast majority of the general population are receptive to advertising That's terrible justification to do something I consider sleazy just to make a buck.

by cbs 15y ago

>The vast majority of the general population are receptive to advertising That's terrible justification to do something I consider sleazy just to make a buck. I am a proponent of the idea of voting with my wallet, unfortunately for some reason that concept seems to get whitewashed by people who justify ignoring it by saying its "just business". That mindset is even stronger by people who are not end consumers. >You're the one missing out on the money. I used to be OK running enough ads for my web properties to cover hosting. Then I discovered I had scruples.

speckledjim 15y ago
This is the sort of uneducated attitude I'm talking about. Advertising is not 'sleazy'. It works, and it provides a service to both advertiser, publisher, and consumer. Do you also consider online dating to be sleazy, or job posting sites? Because that's essentially what advertising is - matching a consumer interested in something, to an advertiser who provides something. Without advertising, most consumers would not have a clue what products and services exist. Most manufacturers would have no way to tell people about the service/product they provide. I'm literally amazed at the naivety.
- _delirium 15y ago
  Calling it an "uneducated attitude" is a bit of an ad hominem, and could just as easily be flung in the other direction, at the attitude that takes some sort of naive Economics 101 justification completely uncritically, without being familiar with the history, practice, and theory of marketing/advertising. I agree that at its best advertising is matching, basically filling in an information gap. But it often does the opposite, exploiting an information gap / ignorance; in fact it's often explicitly and completely unapologetically aimed at doing that, looking to create and exploit information asymmetries. You make more money by selling people an expensive version of something they can get equivalent cheaper, or by luring people into a contract whose full cost they don't realize up front. There's a reason advertisers tend to read up on behaviorist psychology, because exploiting weaknesses in human decision-making, to encourage people to allocate their resources in a way that they wouldn't do with perfect information, is a big part of the game. I may just know the wrong people, but I don't actually know anybody in marketing who doesn't have a sort of cynical "tricking suckers into buying our clients' stuff" view, at least some of the time. That's the game; you don't last long in the business if you have a purely idealistic view of only matching people to quality products that are a good match for them, especially since at larger firms you often have no choice about which products you're supposed to be selling.
- cbs 15y ago
  >Advertising is not 'sleazy'. It works The two are not mutually exclusive. >it provides a service to both advertiser, publisher, and consumer Given the number of advertizing channels, and the pool of products and services offered, the cost (in time) to the consumer, is rather high just to learn that X exists. >Do you also consider online dating to be sleazy, or job posting sites? Because that's essentially what advertising is - matching a consumer interested in something, to an advertiser who provides something. I'd agree that they are essentially the same if I had to go to "fast food" section of craigslist to find out what fast food joints out there, or the "auto insurance" section to find out that Progressive is a thing. >I'm literally amazed at the naivety. Say I accept your premise, that still doesn't negate the fact that there is enough advertizement in other mediums that all the virtues of it are already sufficiently met that adding advertizement to my websites don't create any value for the visitor. I don't believe in the eradication of advertizement, just that it has reached a level of permeation that subjecting my visitors to even more of it is something I do not believe in.
  - speckledjim 15y ago
    > I don't believe in the eradication of advertizement, just that it has reached a level of permeation that subjecting my visitors to even more of it is something I do not believe in. Most people can tune out things they're not interested in. Just as you walk down a street, you are bombarded with shop signage, and you filter out the ones that interest you, and the ones that don't. You read a magazine, and when faced with an advert that's not relevant or interesting, you turn the page. There are certainly people who do not have the ability to cope well with adverts on the internet, and for them, adblock exists.
    - cbs 15y ago
      Most people can tune out things they're not interested in. Vermont is a tourist trap and as such doesn't allow billboards. Should they allow them and just tell the leaf-peepers to enjoy the scenery around the billboards? Or is the presence of advertizement, willfully ignored or not, still intrusive? We don't allow advertizement in schools (well, thats eroding, but anyway..), I'm willing to bet your workplace isn't covered in advertizement posters and have an intercom and/or tvs constantly blaring ads all day unless you work a particularity shitty, most likely retail, job. Why not? If you could just decide to tune out the ads once and never worry about it again, why not? Advertizing is a necessary evil. You can just say that. You don't have to justify it as a practice you (or others) engage in beyond that. No, I don't think its _evil_ evil, I'm just using the phase, but what I don't understand is that you seem to be arguing for it beyond its role as a necessary evil. Why do you? Are you defending it as a practice you have diluted yourself into beveling is good for everyone so that you don't have to feel conflicted about engaging in it? Are you just talking the talk to make a practice you engage in (and yourself as a user) look better in the court of public opinion? Have you just swallowed the "if its profitable, it is therefore good in every metric" ideology hook, line and sinker? I really don't get where you're coming from.
- JabavuAdams 15y ago
  The most successful advertisements, i.e. the ones that work best are not simply broadcasting useful information to consumers. Instead, they typically rely on known cognitive exploits. If advertising is just about educating consumers, why don't advertisers run ads that are critical of their own products? A half-truth can be worse than an outright lie, because it is more confusing.
davidw 15y ago
I run ads on my sites and I think I have some scruples, thank you very much. They sort of cover hosting costs. If people don't want to see the ads, well they can go find some other site to see: it's that simple. They get to use my site(s) for free, so I think it's a pretty good deal for them.
- a3_nm 15y ago
  People who don't want to see ads will probably have them blocked anyway.

by cbs 15y ago

speckledjim 15y ago

This is the sort of uneducated attitude I'm talking about. Advertising is not 'sleazy'. It works, and it provides a service to both advertiser, publisher, and consumer. Do you also consider online dating to be sleazy, or job posting sites? Because that's essentially what advertising is - matching a consumer interested in something, to an advertiser who provides something. Without advertising, most consumers would not have a clue what products and services exist. Most manufacturers would have no way to tell people about the service/product they provide. I'm literally amazed at the naivety.

_delirium 15y ago
Calling it an "uneducated attitude" is a bit of an ad hominem, and could just as easily be flung in the other direction, at the attitude that takes some sort of naive Economics 101 justification completely uncritically, without being familiar with the history, practice, and theory of marketing/advertising. I agree that at its best advertising is matching, basically filling in an information gap. But it often does the opposite, exploiting an information gap / ignorance; in fact it's often explicitly and completely unapologetically aimed at doing that, looking to create and exploit information asymmetries. You make more money by selling people an expensive version of something they can get equivalent cheaper, or by luring people into a contract whose full cost they don't realize up front. There's a reason advertisers tend to read up on behaviorist psychology, because exploiting weaknesses in human decision-making, to encourage people to allocate their resources in a way that they wouldn't do with perfect information, is a big part of the game. I may just know the wrong people, but I don't actually know anybody in marketing who doesn't have a sort of cynical "tricking suckers into buying our clients' stuff" view, at least some of the time. That's the game; you don't last long in the business if you have a purely idealistic view of only matching people to quality products that are a good match for them, especially since at larger firms you often have no choice about which products you're supposed to be selling.
cbs 15y ago
>Advertising is not 'sleazy'. It works The two are not mutually exclusive. >it provides a service to both advertiser, publisher, and consumer Given the number of advertizing channels, and the pool of products and services offered, the cost (in time) to the consumer, is rather high just to learn that X exists. >Do you also consider online dating to be sleazy, or job posting sites? Because that's essentially what advertising is - matching a consumer interested in something, to an advertiser who provides something. I'd agree that they are essentially the same if I had to go to "fast food" section of craigslist to find out what fast food joints out there, or the "auto insurance" section to find out that Progressive is a thing. >I'm literally amazed at the naivety. Say I accept your premise, that still doesn't negate the fact that there is enough advertizement in other mediums that all the virtues of it are already sufficiently met that adding advertizement to my websites don't create any value for the visitor. I don't believe in the eradication of advertizement, just that it has reached a level of permeation that subjecting my visitors to even more of it is something I do not believe in.
- speckledjim 15y ago
  > I don't believe in the eradication of advertizement, just that it has reached a level of permeation that subjecting my visitors to even more of it is something I do not believe in. Most people can tune out things they're not interested in. Just as you walk down a street, you are bombarded with shop signage, and you filter out the ones that interest you, and the ones that don't. You read a magazine, and when faced with an advert that's not relevant or interesting, you turn the page. There are certainly people who do not have the ability to cope well with adverts on the internet, and for them, adblock exists.
  - cbs 15y ago
    Most people can tune out things they're not interested in. Vermont is a tourist trap and as such doesn't allow billboards. Should they allow them and just tell the leaf-peepers to enjoy the scenery around the billboards? Or is the presence of advertizement, willfully ignored or not, still intrusive? We don't allow advertizement in schools (well, thats eroding, but anyway..), I'm willing to bet your workplace isn't covered in advertizement posters and have an intercom and/or tvs constantly blaring ads all day unless you work a particularity shitty, most likely retail, job. Why not? If you could just decide to tune out the ads once and never worry about it again, why not? Advertizing is a necessary evil. You can just say that. You don't have to justify it as a practice you (or others) engage in beyond that. No, I don't think its _evil_ evil, I'm just using the phase, but what I don't understand is that you seem to be arguing for it beyond its role as a necessary evil. Why do you? Are you defending it as a practice you have diluted yourself into beveling is good for everyone so that you don't have to feel conflicted about engaging in it? Are you just talking the talk to make a practice you engage in (and yourself as a user) look better in the court of public opinion? Have you just swallowed the "if its profitable, it is therefore good in every metric" ideology hook, line and sinker? I really don't get where you're coming from.
JabavuAdams 15y ago
The most successful advertisements, i.e. the ones that work best are not simply broadcasting useful information to consumers. Instead, they typically rely on known cognitive exploits. If advertising is just about educating consumers, why don't advertisers run ads that are critical of their own products? A half-truth can be worse than an outright lie, because it is more confusing.

davidw 15y ago

I run ads on my sites and I think I have some scruples, thank you very much. They sort of cover hosting costs. If people don't want to see the ads, well they can go find some other site to see: it's that simple. They get to use my site(s) for free, so I think it's a pretty good deal for them.

a3_nm 15y ago
People who don't want to see ads will probably have them blocked anyway.