10 ms·

Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But the result of the tracking is not only that you get "relev

by janpot 5y ago

Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But the result of the tracking is not only that you get "relevant" ads, it's that your timelines and your feeds and your news gets tweaked in ways that makes you engage with ads as much as possible. Not only do you get manipulated in buying stuff you didn't ask for (ads in general). You're also getting spoonfed content that tries to make you as vulnerable as possible to this manipulation. Up to a point that this is downright threatening democracy and our way of life. I guess you could call this a form of censorship. Content gets suppressed, simply because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue. It's this type of censorship on "social" media that I consider much more harmful than the type that usually gets most of our attention.

JohnFen 5y ago
> Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". My response to that is "I prefer random ads, because relevant ads are an indication that I'm being spied on". My objection to ads isn't the ads themselves -- I'm going to ignore those no matter what -- it's all the spying the ads bring with them.
threatofrain 5y ago
I'm curious how much manipulation people think is involved in terms of buying things you didn't want. Enough to absolve someone of their financial responsibility for buying? Why or why not?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  I think it's more enlightening to view it from the other side. If desktop and mobile advertising didn't have a material impact, why would profit-maximizing companies do it? If profit-maximizing companies are interested in this type of advertising, what is it about Facebook and Google that captures almost all their spend?
- kaba0 5y ago
  > I'm curious how much manipulation people think is involved in terms of buying things you didn't want. Enough to absolve someone of their financial responsibility for buying? Well, marketing has some famous stories where seemingly counterintuitive things resulted in more buys, eg. Actimel (not sure whether it is called the same in the US as well, but this fruity milk drink with some added vitamins) was having trouble selling at their original price, but increasing the price and thus making it appear a more luxury item did the think for them. There are many small “hacks” in the human brain that are actively exploited by marketing so while I would not say that we are not responsible for our financing, we are at the very least heavily manipulated when shopping - and also, some people are easier to manipulate than others.
villasv 5y ago
> I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads I froze up the first time someone said this to me. Of course I prefer random ads, cause this way they're less likely to push the right buttons on my vulnerable monkey-ass brain. Do people think tailored ads are good for them instead of consumerism triggers? Messed up worldview.
- LorenPechtel 5y ago
  Random ads are effectively noise. Targeted ads occasionally are of value. If there's going to be an ad, better it be a targeted one. I also have no problem with companies tracking for the purpose of seeing which ads work. I do *not* like the retargeting ads--if I didn't buy the item there's a reason! Either I didn't want it or I'm waiting for a better price, neither of which you're going to solve unless you're telling me about a sale on an item. And the biggie is how intrusive they get. I'd like to see a system where the browser sends an acceptable-ad policy, a site can either comply or refuse to serve the page.
  - kzrdude 5y ago
    Ads should be targeted to the content, not the recipient IMO. If you're reading about California wine in an article, advertise based on that - travel, wine, whatever.
    - bquest2 5y ago
      But surely, there are car enthusiasts who read about cars that would never read an article about California wine, but would benefit from knowing about it. In your world, that person misses out on the pleasures of california wine
      - jfoutz 5y ago
        This is an amusing example. I'd guess that car enthusiasts are aware of Sonoma for various reasons. I suspect they'd get some exposure to California wine inadvertently through that connection.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> I guess you could call this a form of censorship. Content gets suppressed, simply because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue. Absolutely. I've seen entire websites completely reinvent themselves because someone complained to Google about some "offensive" page and got their ads pulled. Stuff I used to like got deleted because of advertisers. If this "sanitized advertiser friendly web" is the future, I'd rather not have a web at all.
- zionic 5y ago
  Honestly one of the few things worse than advertisers are the engineers who work to enable them. Some things are worth more than money.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Agreed.
  - long_time_gone 5y ago
    This would include most Facebook and Google engineers, no?
BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
> Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But... You don't even need your "but" (so hold on to it), because this is a classic false dichotomy anyway. Targeting does not require spying nor does spying tend to improve targeting. Basic immediate context (what you're doing, not who you are) works better for both advertisers and willing consumers than personally invasive intrusion does. You should rather ask whether they prefer relevant ads that put them at risk by aggregating everything about their lives into databases that regularly get breached or relevant ads that don't put them at risk. They can get relevant ads either way. They've just been sold a bill of goods on the need for personal invasion to do it.
- Tarsul 5y ago
  I'd have no problem telling advertisers that I am between 30-40 years old, male and live in a certain region. And that's information that would help advertisers (if they did not have it yet) very much. So just ask your users to give some information and tell them how they will use it and maybe they will give it, but don't spy on your users every secret. But not Facebook. That ship has sailed. I can't and won't trust them.
  - tobr 5y ago
    > 30-40 years old, male and live in a certain region. And that's information that would help advertisers Region, sure, that makes sense for a local business. But targeting gender or age is discrimination.
    - sturza 5y ago
      how would you sell bras for women over 50?
      - svachalek 5y ago
        When the user indicates they are looking to buy bras for women over 50.
nkingsy 5y ago
I don’t necessarily think engagement is the wrong metric, and I don’t mind some personalized tracking of that engagement to increase ad revenue. The issue is allowing any old engagement. I’d like to see the hacker news system scaled. Some things that could make moderators actions go further to keep the cost down: - outrage detection: before you hit post, you’re warned that your possibly inflammatory post will be flagged for moderation. -timeouts: if a moderator finds outrage or outrage bait in a post, the poster gets a seven day timeout (cannot log on). ANYONE who replied to or liked the offending post gets a one day timeout.
- thrtythreeforty 5y ago
  Why would I ever do anything but lurk in such a forum? The risk/reward ratio would be so out of whack that even if I wanted to learn something, I would rather not risk a drive-by ban if who I'm talking to turned out to make the moderator mad.
  - nkingsy 5y ago
    I don't see a 1 day ban as much of a punishment. If there's a platform involved it could just block posting/voting for a day. As far as incentives to lurk, I see quite the opposite. I don't comment on reddit unless I have something funny to say because outrage, point scoring and comedy is what rises to the top rather than reasoned argument.
axaxs 5y ago
Do people really prefer relevant ads? I just disregard them, and it doesn't matter to me whether they are relevant or off the wall. The only ads I specifically don't like are the ones Youtube have randomly showed my wife and I. It's only happened twice to each of us, but they were a bit adult themed. Having a child in the house, I was pretty peeved.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  I vastly prefer irrelevant ones. If I browse e-book readers because my coworkers were talking about them and I was curious about the current state of the art, I don't want ads to pester me into buying something I don't need. On the other hand, no amount of ads will manipulate me into buying diapers or a timeshare.
- herbst 5y ago
  My favourite (in terms of how can this even happen) was an 43 minute ad of someone reading the Koran between 2 maybe 10 minute videos.
yowzadave 5y ago
I’m always shocked at how non-relevant the ads I see are. How many Ph.D’s at Google have dedicated their careers to targeting me more correctly, and yet: constant ads for stretchy water-wicking pants (I don’t go camping), solid brass pencil shavers (can’t remember the last time I used a pencil), and dating sites for seniors (I’m married and in my 30’s). Are these people just bad at their jobs? Don’t get me wrong, I prefer it this way. But you’d think they’d be better at it by now.
- droidist2 5y ago
  Google does seem utterly incompetent relative to their brainpower and budget.
cout 5y ago
In the early years of ads on facebook they had targeted ads in the sidebar, but the news feed was left untouched. One change that happened is that Likes started giving pages access to space in your feed. Eventually pages that I didn't explicitly like started gaining access there. After that the algorithm for ordering the feed changed (probably more than once). I was okay with the targeted ads in the sidebar, when that's all it was. I opted not to block ads on facebook with adblock plus. I learned of all sorts of products that I probably never would have heard of had I been getting random ads, or ads intended to appeal to a wide audience. I never felt manipulated. The tweaking of the news feed feels wrong though even without ads. Maybe it was an inevitable result of the quest for profits, but if I could go back to targeted ads the way they used to be, I would do it in a heartbeat. The reality is that I've been fed targeted ads all my life, but the targeting wasn't was optimized. Automotive magazines are more likely to have ads for spark plugs than hair products. A cooking website is more likely to have ads for spatulas than tractors. At least, that's how it used to be. With ads fed from Google, ads are likely to be related to what I've recently searched for with their search engine. The result is often comical: I no longer see ads relevant to what I'm interested in at the time, but to what I was interested in 30 minutes ago. I'm not clicking any of those ads; I've already moved on.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
"Content gets suppressed, simply because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue." Why is it that the only the first page of search results in a search engine "matter". (Some search engines are now showing a total of 5 (!) results. Brave's new search engine does not even have a page 2!) Why is it that an "app store" has limited search discoverability but instead provides "Top 10" or "Top 20" lists. And more recently, "recommended apps". Why is it that a video hosting service has "recomendations" enabled by default, recommended videos show up in search results and the top "recommended videos" always have the highest view counts. "Tech" has no viable "business model" except advertising. (Time will tell if this "model" is actually sustainable.) This is because they are nothing more than middlemen. They do not produce content and offer nothing of value that they in fact own. Whatever they offer can be obtained directly from its true owners, provided there is motivation (e.g., avoiding payment to a middleman). If "tech" did have something of value they own, it stands to reason they would charge for it. This would provide others with the motivation to cut out the middleman. Hence, "tech" cannot charge "users" money for middleman services.
deleted 5y ago
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deleted 5y ago
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by janpot 5y ago

JohnFen 5y ago

> Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". My response to that is "I prefer random ads, because relevant ads are an indication that I'm being spied on". My objection to ads isn't the ads themselves -- I'm going to ignore those no matter what -- it's all the spying the ads bring with them.

threatofrain 5y ago

I'm curious how much manipulation people think is involved in terms of buying things you didn't want. Enough to absolve someone of their financial responsibility for buying? Why or why not?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
long_time_gone 5y ago
I think it's more enlightening to view it from the other side. If desktop and mobile advertising didn't have a material impact, why would profit-maximizing companies do it? If profit-maximizing companies are interested in this type of advertising, what is it about Facebook and Google that captures almost all their spend?
kaba0 5y ago
> I'm curious how much manipulation people think is involved in terms of buying things you didn't want. Enough to absolve someone of their financial responsibility for buying? Well, marketing has some famous stories where seemingly counterintuitive things resulted in more buys, eg. Actimel (not sure whether it is called the same in the US as well, but this fruity milk drink with some added vitamins) was having trouble selling at their original price, but increasing the price and thus making it appear a more luxury item did the think for them. There are many small “hacks” in the human brain that are actively exploited by marketing so while I would not say that we are not responsible for our financing, we are at the very least heavily manipulated when shopping - and also, some people are easier to manipulate than others.

villasv 5y ago

> I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads I froze up the first time someone said this to me. Of course I prefer random ads, cause this way they're less likely to push the right buttons on my vulnerable monkey-ass brain. Do people think tailored ads are good for them instead of consumerism triggers? Messed up worldview.

LorenPechtel 5y ago
Random ads are effectively noise. Targeted ads occasionally are of value. If there's going to be an ad, better it be a targeted one. I also have no problem with companies tracking for the purpose of seeing which ads work. I do *not* like the retargeting ads--if I didn't buy the item there's a reason! Either I didn't want it or I'm waiting for a better price, neither of which you're going to solve unless you're telling me about a sale on an item. And the biggie is how intrusive they get. I'd like to see a system where the browser sends an acceptable-ad policy, a site can either comply or refuse to serve the page.
- kzrdude 5y ago
  Ads should be targeted to the content, not the recipient IMO. If you're reading about California wine in an article, advertise based on that - travel, wine, whatever.
  - bquest2 5y ago
    But surely, there are car enthusiasts who read about cars that would never read an article about California wine, but would benefit from knowing about it. In your world, that person misses out on the pleasures of california wine
    - jfoutz 5y ago
      This is an amusing example. I'd guess that car enthusiasts are aware of Sonoma for various reasons. I suspect they'd get some exposure to California wine inadvertently through that connection.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> I guess you could call this a form of censorship. Content gets suppressed, simply because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue. Absolutely. I've seen entire websites completely reinvent themselves because someone complained to Google about some "offensive" page and got their ads pulled. Stuff I used to like got deleted because of advertisers. If this "sanitized advertiser friendly web" is the future, I'd rather not have a web at all.

zionic 5y ago
Honestly one of the few things worse than advertisers are the engineers who work to enable them. Some things are worth more than money.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Agreed.
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  This would include most Facebook and Google engineers, no?

BugsJustFindMe 5y ago

> Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But... You don't even need your "but" (so hold on to it), because this is a classic false dichotomy anyway. Targeting does not require spying nor does spying tend to improve targeting. Basic immediate context (what you're doing, not who you are) works better for both advertisers and willing consumers than personally invasive intrusion does. You should rather ask whether they prefer relevant ads that put them at risk by aggregating everything about their lives into databases that regularly get breached or relevant ads that don't put them at risk. They can get relevant ads either way. They've just been sold a bill of goods on the need for personal invasion to do it.

Tarsul 5y ago
I'd have no problem telling advertisers that I am between 30-40 years old, male and live in a certain region. And that's information that would help advertisers (if they did not have it yet) very much. So just ask your users to give some information and tell them how they will use it and maybe they will give it, but don't spy on your users every secret. But not Facebook. That ship has sailed. I can't and won't trust them.
- tobr 5y ago
  > 30-40 years old, male and live in a certain region. And that's information that would help advertisers Region, sure, that makes sense for a local business. But targeting gender or age is discrimination.
  - sturza 5y ago
    how would you sell bras for women over 50?
    - svachalek 5y ago
      When the user indicates they are looking to buy bras for women over 50.

nkingsy 5y ago

I don’t necessarily think engagement is the wrong metric, and I don’t mind some personalized tracking of that engagement to increase ad revenue. The issue is allowing any old engagement. I’d like to see the hacker news system scaled. Some things that could make moderators actions go further to keep the cost down: - outrage detection: before you hit post, you’re warned that your possibly inflammatory post will be flagged for moderation. -timeouts: if a moderator finds outrage or outrage bait in a post, the poster gets a seven day timeout (cannot log on). ANYONE who replied to or liked the offending post gets a one day timeout.

thrtythreeforty 5y ago
Why would I ever do anything but lurk in such a forum? The risk/reward ratio would be so out of whack that even if I wanted to learn something, I would rather not risk a drive-by ban if who I'm talking to turned out to make the moderator mad.
- nkingsy 5y ago
  I don't see a 1 day ban as much of a punishment. If there's a platform involved it could just block posting/voting for a day. As far as incentives to lurk, I see quite the opposite. I don't comment on reddit unless I have something funny to say because outrage, point scoring and comedy is what rises to the top rather than reasoned argument.

axaxs 5y ago

Do people really prefer relevant ads? I just disregard them, and it doesn't matter to me whether they are relevant or off the wall. The only ads I specifically don't like are the ones Youtube have randomly showed my wife and I. It's only happened twice to each of us, but they were a bit adult themed. Having a child in the house, I was pretty peeved.

kstrauser 5y ago
I vastly prefer irrelevant ones. If I browse e-book readers because my coworkers were talking about them and I was curious about the current state of the art, I don't want ads to pester me into buying something I don't need. On the other hand, no amount of ads will manipulate me into buying diapers or a timeshare.
herbst 5y ago
My favourite (in terms of how can this even happen) was an 43 minute ad of someone reading the Koran between 2 maybe 10 minute videos.

yowzadave 5y ago

I’m always shocked at how non-relevant the ads I see are. How many Ph.D’s at Google have dedicated their careers to targeting me more correctly, and yet: constant ads for stretchy water-wicking pants (I don’t go camping), solid brass pencil shavers (can’t remember the last time I used a pencil), and dating sites for seniors (I’m married and in my 30’s). Are these people just bad at their jobs? Don’t get me wrong, I prefer it this way. But you’d think they’d be better at it by now.

droidist2 5y ago
Google does seem utterly incompetent relative to their brainpower and budget.

cout 5y ago

In the early years of ads on facebook they had targeted ads in the sidebar, but the news feed was left untouched. One change that happened is that Likes started giving pages access to space in your feed. Eventually pages that I didn't explicitly like started gaining access there. After that the algorithm for ordering the feed changed (probably more than once). I was okay with the targeted ads in the sidebar, when that's all it was. I opted not to block ads on facebook with adblock plus. I learned of all sorts of products that I probably never would have heard of had I been getting random ads, or ads intended to appeal to a wide audience. I never felt manipulated. The tweaking of the news feed feels wrong though even without ads. Maybe it was an inevitable result of the quest for profits, but if I could go back to targeted ads the way they used to be, I would do it in a heartbeat. The reality is that I've been fed targeted ads all my life, but the targeting wasn't was optimized. Automotive magazines are more likely to have ads for spark plugs than hair products. A cooking website is more likely to have ads for spatulas than tractors. At least, that's how it used to be. With ads fed from Google, ads are likely to be related to what I've recently searched for with their search engine. The result is often comical: I no longer see ads relevant to what I'm interested in at the time, but to what I was interested in 30 minutes ago. I'm not clicking any of those ads; I've already moved on.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

"Content gets suppressed, simply because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue." Why is it that the only the first page of search results in a search engine "matter". (Some search engines are now showing a total of 5 (!) results. Brave's new search engine does not even have a page 2!) Why is it that an "app store" has limited search discoverability but instead provides "Top 10" or "Top 20" lists. And more recently, "recommended apps". Why is it that a video hosting service has "recomendations" enabled by default, recommended videos show up in search results and the top "recommended videos" always have the highest view counts. "Tech" has no viable "business model" except advertising. (Time will tell if this "model" is actually sustainable.) This is because they are nothing more than middlemen. They do not produce content and offer nothing of value that they in fact own. Whatever they offer can be obtained directly from its true owners, provided there is motivation (e.g., avoiding payment to a middleman). If "tech" did have something of value they own, it stands to reason they would charge for it. This would provide others with the motivation to cut out the middleman. Hence, "tech" cannot charge "users" money for middleman services.

deleted 5y ago

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deleted 5y ago

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