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Exactly. In the old world, ads were attached to matching content, which gave an incentive to produce insightful pertinent content (and develop a reputation in a
by FabHK 5y ago
Exactly. In the old world, ads were attached to matching content, which gave an incentive to produce insightful pertinent content (and develop a reputation in a certain content subject area). Those ads were not much of a problem.
Today, the ad industry tracks the user, and ads are attached to matching user interest, which gives an incentive to produce arbitrary, but addictive content, with most of the benefit accruing to the ad oligopolies instead of the content producers.
- bobthepanda 5y agoalso, while ads were certainly dispersed through magazines and the like, a huge chunk of them were really just in the back and not with the main stuff.
- dwaite 5y agoAlso, it was unlikely you'd see the same set of five ads on every page of every article. Because such a thing would not just be pointless, but counterproductive. Today's statistically-driven advertising does not relate to the context and thus has no bridge for engagement. We are all desensitized to them, so they just have to block content, flash more incessantly, and make the dismiss click box smaller (or just start putting fake dismiss boxes to trick people into more engagement). I think the scammy/dark side of advertising is driven by the cost of impressions being so low. This is because of the pricing disparities allowed by the advertising broker tracking attributions rather than the business themselves. Legitimate products suffer as a result, similar to the effect of spam on email.
- bobthepanda 5y agoThis is a good point. I don't need to see the same GoDaddy or St. Jude's ad 200+ times a week.