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So how do you morally justify your work? Do you think this work is valuable? I know I sound confrontational, but I'm seriously wondering about this. In particul

So how do you morally justify your work? Do you think this work is valuable? I know I sound confrontational, but I'm seriously wondering about this. In particular because the HN crowd in general has been so highly critical of most adtech, but at the same time a significant portion of people here probably works on it or for one of the companies which are behind it.

nawgz 5y ago
Isn't it basically known that FAANG pays the most because they have the most invasive & powerful adtech, and adtech is actually just a euphemism for outreach and control? And I hate to say it, but they justify their work really easily: they get paid very well for it and someone else would if they didn't anyways The real battles were fought and lost long ago in this domain, and the chances of success were never high. Power is an addiction and powerful people are the most addicted, they always have and always will aim to subjugate and control, to be a pawn of such a person is definitely sad but maybe worth the lofty goal of having true financial independence
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jklinger410 5y ago
I vote with my conscious, but I work for whoever will pay me the most money.
- fortyseven 5y ago
  Yeah, that's uh... "cool".
  - jklinger410 5y ago
    Not everyone can just "choose" what field they want to be in. If I got to choose what I did every day, I'd be a writer or a musician. No ethical concerns there.
    - chitowneats 5y ago
      You don't have to work in ads or tracking technologies. Unless you are quite junior and needed to accept whoever was willing to take you. But based on your knowledge of the industry it seems you've spent quite a bit of time there.
    - dkersten 5y ago
      Most people who work for eg google s engineers have plenty of other decent paying options, especially right now. Sure, not everyone diodes, but most do.
- chitowneats 5y ago
  Does this mean that you would vote for a candidate who promised to impose meaningful regulations on your industry? Even if that meant harming a company you work for / may have equity in? Is there some other solution to this tracking proliferation? My question assumes you believe the work your industry is doing is unethical but that seems to be implied by your posts.
  - jklinger410 5y ago
    Absolutely. I'm not an owner and I don't have any equity.
  - jklinger410 5y ago
    > Is there some other solution to this tracking proliferation? Not in capitalist countries. Serving someone an ad that is actually relevant to them is good business. The government doesn't need web cookies to find you, they can just call your ISP or your phone carrier, or check surveillance cameras, ask your bank, so-on. No one from these private companies has the time to look at the data, you are just a number to them. Though it might feel like it, you aren't being spied on in any meaningful sense. You are just being profiled, as a tax to use all of the free services you have access to. Paid services that don't sell your data are the way to go, if that kind of thing scares you. But the ads you see online are going to suck.
    - chitowneats 5y ago
      Ah, so you don't find it unethical. Makes sense then you have no qualms accepting your paycheck. For the record, "capitalist" countries can and do regulate businesses. Those that are democracies do so based on the general interest of the citizenry. Unless you consider anything beyond absolute libertarianism to be "not capitalist". I find these semantic arguments often confuse the issue at hand. I would love to pay for services that don't track me. You mentioned in another comment it's becoming hard to own a car, have a bank account, insurance, without tracking being baked in. I'm interested in ways we can work to change this. I don't subscribe to your belief that there is no solution, or that the level of tracking involved in the status quo is not "meaningful".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- freen 5y ago
  https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/0/3357/files/2016/05/Happy-Nazis-24q3gq1.jpg https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/0/3357/files/20...
marketingtech 5y ago
There are many immoral players in the industry, but there's nothing inherently immoral about advertising. I help people discover products and services that they love. I help thousands of business owners find more customers, so they can support their families and create jobs for others. There's a lot of bad behavior from marketers and sketchy business owners, but I know the work that I'm personally doing has a tangible, positive impact on the lives of thousands of people.
- y4mi 5y ago
  > but there's nothing inherently immoral about advertising. That's debatable or at least strongly depends on your definition of advertising. moral advertisment could in my opinion only tell a person about something when they actually need that thing. For example telling the person what kind of options are available if a person needs to travel from x to y. Any other form eventually ends right where we are right now, with with scientists and psychologists trying to figure out how to manipulate people into doing things they wouldn't otherwise.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Note theres a difference between advertising and surveillance. "Adtech" proponents are likely to conflate the two since adtech relies on surveillance.
OJFord 5y ago
Not GP, don't work in ads (actually I think my former colleagues probably think I left because our role pivoted that way) but I'm of the view that 'if I don't someone else will', and so in a way I'd rather learn more about it, maybe be the inside voice to say No this is way too far etc. It certainly doesn't particularly interest me - maybe there are interesting problems if your big on ML - but I wouldn't turn down the best offer I had just because it was in adtech and I wish it didn't exist to go to anyone.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > but I'm of the view that 'if I don't someone else will', and so in a way I'd rather learn more about it, maybe be the inside voice to say No this is way too far etc. I can't remember where I saw it, but I once read a rather convincing article that made the case that's the exact attitude the allows immoral things to happen, especially at scale. Basically "participate, but try to change it from the inside" pretty much simplifies into just "participate." You give them your talent, and either your attempts at change fail or are so small to be pointless (e.g. winning the fight to not pack Jews in so tightly in the boxcars that are still going to the concentration camp).
  - OJFord 5y ago
    I'm not saying I'd be actively trying to blow things up from inside, my job wouldn't last long, and my whole point was that I'm not an activist about it: someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me (if I don't have a better offer). In your horrible analogy, I suppose what I mean is something like (but come on, not remotely close to!) 'why are we burning books and looting art, this is terrible, oh well someone else will if not me, and hey, I like art', but then 'you want to do a holocaust?! No, that is absurdly too far, whistle blow'.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me (if I don't have a better offer). And maybe that person is worse at it than you, or without you they don't have enough people with the right skills to succeed. > In your horrible analogy, I suppose what I mean is something like (but come on, not remotely close to!) 'why are we burning books and looting art, this is terrible, oh well someone else will if not me, and hey, I like art', but then 'you want to do a holocaust?! No, that is absurdly too far, whistle blow'. Fat lot of good whistle-blowing would do in that example. There's also the aspect where the last step was too far for you, but you helped take every step before that which enabled that last step to be taken without you. If your attitude is "someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me," you probably should just drop idea that you could change things from the inside, since it amounts to a BS rationalization to take the money.

nawgz 5y ago

Isn't it basically known that FAANG pays the most because they have the most invasive & powerful adtech, and adtech is actually just a euphemism for outreach and control? And I hate to say it, but they justify their work really easily: they get paid very well for it and someone else would if they didn't anyways The real battles were fought and lost long ago in this domain, and the chances of success were never high. Power is an addiction and powerful people are the most addicted, they always have and always will aim to subjugate and control, to be a pawn of such a person is definitely sad but maybe worth the lofty goal of having true financial independence

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jklinger410 5y ago

I vote with my conscious, but I work for whoever will pay me the most money.

fortyseven 5y ago
Yeah, that's uh... "cool".
- jklinger410 5y ago
  Not everyone can just "choose" what field they want to be in. If I got to choose what I did every day, I'd be a writer or a musician. No ethical concerns there.
  - chitowneats 5y ago
    You don't have to work in ads or tracking technologies. Unless you are quite junior and needed to accept whoever was willing to take you. But based on your knowledge of the industry it seems you've spent quite a bit of time there.
  - dkersten 5y ago
    Most people who work for eg google s engineers have plenty of other decent paying options, especially right now. Sure, not everyone diodes, but most do.
chitowneats 5y ago
Does this mean that you would vote for a candidate who promised to impose meaningful regulations on your industry? Even if that meant harming a company you work for / may have equity in? Is there some other solution to this tracking proliferation? My question assumes you believe the work your industry is doing is unethical but that seems to be implied by your posts.
- jklinger410 5y ago
  Absolutely. I'm not an owner and I don't have any equity.
- jklinger410 5y ago
  > Is there some other solution to this tracking proliferation? Not in capitalist countries. Serving someone an ad that is actually relevant to them is good business. The government doesn't need web cookies to find you, they can just call your ISP or your phone carrier, or check surveillance cameras, ask your bank, so-on. No one from these private companies has the time to look at the data, you are just a number to them. Though it might feel like it, you aren't being spied on in any meaningful sense. You are just being profiled, as a tax to use all of the free services you have access to. Paid services that don't sell your data are the way to go, if that kind of thing scares you. But the ads you see online are going to suck.
  - chitowneats 5y ago
    Ah, so you don't find it unethical. Makes sense then you have no qualms accepting your paycheck. For the record, "capitalist" countries can and do regulate businesses. Those that are democracies do so based on the general interest of the citizenry. Unless you consider anything beyond absolute libertarianism to be "not capitalist". I find these semantic arguments often confuse the issue at hand. I would love to pay for services that don't track me. You mentioned in another comment it's becoming hard to own a car, have a bank account, insurance, without tracking being baked in. I'm interested in ways we can work to change this. I don't subscribe to your belief that there is no solution, or that the level of tracking involved in the status quo is not "meaningful".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
freen 5y ago
https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/0/3357/files/2016/05/Happy-Nazis-24q3gq1.jpg https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/0/3357/files/20...

marketingtech 5y ago

There are many immoral players in the industry, but there's nothing inherently immoral about advertising. I help people discover products and services that they love. I help thousands of business owners find more customers, so they can support their families and create jobs for others. There's a lot of bad behavior from marketers and sketchy business owners, but I know the work that I'm personally doing has a tangible, positive impact on the lives of thousands of people.

y4mi 5y ago
> but there's nothing inherently immoral about advertising. That's debatable or at least strongly depends on your definition of advertising. moral advertisment could in my opinion only tell a person about something when they actually need that thing. For example telling the person what kind of options are available if a person needs to travel from x to y. Any other form eventually ends right where we are right now, with with scientists and psychologists trying to figure out how to manipulate people into doing things they wouldn't otherwise.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

Note theres a difference between advertising and surveillance. "Adtech" proponents are likely to conflate the two since adtech relies on surveillance.

OJFord 5y ago

Not GP, don't work in ads (actually I think my former colleagues probably think I left because our role pivoted that way) but I'm of the view that 'if I don't someone else will', and so in a way I'd rather learn more about it, maybe be the inside voice to say No this is way too far etc. It certainly doesn't particularly interest me - maybe there are interesting problems if your big on ML - but I wouldn't turn down the best offer I had just because it was in adtech and I wish it didn't exist to go to anyone.

tablespoon 5y ago
> but I'm of the view that 'if I don't someone else will', and so in a way I'd rather learn more about it, maybe be the inside voice to say No this is way too far etc. I can't remember where I saw it, but I once read a rather convincing article that made the case that's the exact attitude the allows immoral things to happen, especially at scale. Basically "participate, but try to change it from the inside" pretty much simplifies into just "participate." You give them your talent, and either your attempts at change fail or are so small to be pointless (e.g. winning the fight to not pack Jews in so tightly in the boxcars that are still going to the concentration camp).
- OJFord 5y ago
  I'm not saying I'd be actively trying to blow things up from inside, my job wouldn't last long, and my whole point was that I'm not an activist about it: someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me (if I don't have a better offer). In your horrible analogy, I suppose what I mean is something like (but come on, not remotely close to!) 'why are we burning books and looting art, this is terrible, oh well someone else will if not me, and hey, I like art', but then 'you want to do a holocaust?! No, that is absurdly too far, whistle blow'.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me (if I don't have a better offer). And maybe that person is worse at it than you, or without you they don't have enough people with the right skills to succeed. > In your horrible analogy, I suppose what I mean is something like (but come on, not remotely close to!) 'why are we burning books and looting art, this is terrible, oh well someone else will if not me, and hey, I like art', but then 'you want to do a holocaust?! No, that is absurdly too far, whistle blow'. Fat lot of good whistle-blowing would do in that example. There's also the aspect where the last step was too far for you, but you helped take every step before that which enabled that last step to be taken without you. If your attitude is "someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me," you probably should just drop idea that you could change things from the inside, since it amounts to a BS rationalization to take the money.