4 ms·

The reason I prefer untargeted ads is that targeted ads make me more likely to spend money. I don’t want to part with my money over junk I don’t need, so I’d ra

The reason I prefer untargeted ads is that targeted ads make me more likely to spend money. I don’t want to part with my money over junk I don’t need, so I’d rather see irrelevant ads that won’t persuade me to spend.

mgraczyk 5y ago
Yeah this is at least a rational viewpoint. You have beliefs and preferences, and under those beliefs and preferences you are better off without targeted ads. Unfortunately most other arguments against targeted ads don't have these properties and just restate the arguers convictions in various ways, with increasing levels of anger and certainty.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  ...As opposed to arguments in favor of tracking, which are totally rational and novel every time?
  - mgraczyk 5y ago
    People make bad arguments in both directions. Here's how I think about it though. Targeted advertising allows some businesses to exist that otherwise would not exist. In order to justify banning it or labeling it as unethical, we should show that there is some harm done that outweighs the benefits in terms of job creation and innovation. So far the examples of tangible harm I'm familiar with are rare and far less in magnitude than the value creation enabled by targeted advertising. What's more , all those harms can be mitigated, and it's in the best interest of large advertising platforms to mitigate so they they have better products. That's why Facebook and Google have spent more on basic research into privacy preserving computation and analytics than any other company. It's not that all targeted ads are bad or good. It's that we can make them good and keep the benefits without any of the harm. I don't see examples like "I got a personalized email" as inherently harmful, so I'm looking for justification specifically for beliefs like that one.
    - youngtaff 5y ago
      > Targeted advertising allows some businesses to exist that otherwise would not exist. Unfortunately it also funnels billions of dollars into hate sites ($2.6bn+ in the article I saw last week) It also funds schemes like this that may be technically brilliant contribute little to the web, and extract money from advertisers without giving much back https://mobile.twitter.com/TedFrench/status/1425414187455496194 https://mobile.twitter.com/TedFrench/status/1425414187455496... (buy's old domains names with good ranking, recreates the site, rewrites the content to boost it's ranking, runs ads and then sells it)
      - mgraczyk 5y ago
        Why is the example you linked a bad thing? He spent months writing hundreds of articles of good content. If you trust the metrics, it looks like a lot of people were reading the articles and finding real value. From the thread: "I’m far from a copywriter, but the content added was informative & above everything else, answered the search query in full. I can blitz out 10k words a day of garbage content easily, but it’s worth putting in extra effort and writing better content, even if there's less of it." This isn't an example of somebody taking advantage of ads to scam anyone. Maybe you disagree, but my take is that this is a legitimate business that provided real value to it's users and happened to use some gray hat SEO to grow.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      There's an assumption being made here that I've seen many people treat as an axiom. You say: > Targeted advertising allows some businesses to exist that otherwise would not exist. That's true, but in the argument, it carries the implicit assumption that those businesses existing is a good thing. But this is often not the case. Plenty of businesses exist only because they can dupe enough people with hyper-targeted ads. More importantly, though, advertising is an ecosystem. Companies buying ads are only part of the money flow. The more problematic part are the companies showing those ads. There you can find many[0] examples of companies that should not exist, and yet they do, because there's money in showing ads. Those companies always have some kind of bait to lure viewers onto their sites, where they'll be subject to ads. Because of the ad money, those sites displace legitimate efforts that try to provide actual value in the same space the ad-powered sites just use as their bait. It's a long topic, and this is just one small aspect of it. -- [0] - In my personal opinion, it's vast majority of sites displaying ads.

mgraczyk 5y ago

Yeah this is at least a rational viewpoint. You have beliefs and preferences, and under those beliefs and preferences you are better off without targeted ads. Unfortunately most other arguments against targeted ads don't have these properties and just restate the arguers convictions in various ways, with increasing levels of anger and certainty.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
...As opposed to arguments in favor of tracking, which are totally rational and novel every time?
- mgraczyk 5y ago
  People make bad arguments in both directions. Here's how I think about it though. Targeted advertising allows some businesses to exist that otherwise would not exist. In order to justify banning it or labeling it as unethical, we should show that there is some harm done that outweighs the benefits in terms of job creation and innovation. So far the examples of tangible harm I'm familiar with are rare and far less in magnitude than the value creation enabled by targeted advertising. What's more , all those harms can be mitigated, and it's in the best interest of large advertising platforms to mitigate so they they have better products. That's why Facebook and Google have spent more on basic research into privacy preserving computation and analytics than any other company. It's not that all targeted ads are bad or good. It's that we can make them good and keep the benefits without any of the harm. I don't see examples like "I got a personalized email" as inherently harmful, so I'm looking for justification specifically for beliefs like that one.
  - youngtaff 5y ago
    > Targeted advertising allows some businesses to exist that otherwise would not exist. Unfortunately it also funnels billions of dollars into hate sites ($2.6bn+ in the article I saw last week) It also funds schemes like this that may be technically brilliant contribute little to the web, and extract money from advertisers without giving much back https://mobile.twitter.com/TedFrench/status/1425414187455496194 https://mobile.twitter.com/TedFrench/status/1425414187455496... (buy's old domains names with good ranking, recreates the site, rewrites the content to boost it's ranking, runs ads and then sells it)
    - mgraczyk 5y ago
      Why is the example you linked a bad thing? He spent months writing hundreds of articles of good content. If you trust the metrics, it looks like a lot of people were reading the articles and finding real value. From the thread: "I’m far from a copywriter, but the content added was informative & above everything else, answered the search query in full. I can blitz out 10k words a day of garbage content easily, but it’s worth putting in extra effort and writing better content, even if there's less of it." This isn't an example of somebody taking advantage of ads to scam anyone. Maybe you disagree, but my take is that this is a legitimate business that provided real value to it's users and happened to use some gray hat SEO to grow.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    There's an assumption being made here that I've seen many people treat as an axiom. You say: > Targeted advertising allows some businesses to exist that otherwise would not exist. That's true, but in the argument, it carries the implicit assumption that those businesses existing is a good thing. But this is often not the case. Plenty of businesses exist only because they can dupe enough people with hyper-targeted ads. More importantly, though, advertising is an ecosystem. Companies buying ads are only part of the money flow. The more problematic part are the companies showing those ads. There you can find many[0] examples of companies that should not exist, and yet they do, because there's money in showing ads. Those companies always have some kind of bait to lure viewers onto their sites, where they'll be subject to ads. Because of the ad money, those sites displace legitimate efforts that try to provide actual value in the same space the ad-powered sites just use as their bait. It's a long topic, and this is just one small aspect of it. -- [0] - In my personal opinion, it's vast majority of sites displaying ads.