4 ms·

The mental loops the author jumps to justify/accept ads themselves is interesting. We agree any of these is bad: - I used to treat my employees well, but my ag

The mental loops the author jumps to justify/accept ads themselves is interesting. We agree any of these is bad: - I used to treat my employees well, but my agency was not sustainable with it so now I crank the whip every time someone wastes few minutes. - I used to sell fresh food, but my restaurant was not profitable so now I sell low quality food while claiming it's organic. Both of these are also clearly immoral, but in these fields it's clear that they don't become moral because of the profit factor. However the author seems to be saying because the business is not profitable that makes ads morally correct*? That doesn't seem good reasoning, I'm all for changing your own morality over time and each person having a custom set of rules but "profitability" is/should def not be what makes something moral or immoral. Maybe the author unknowingly had a more complex set of rules to define ads as moral under certain circumstances, maybe they just changed them, or maybe they are doing something they themselves consider immoral, but I find it strange to say profitability is part of moral. *Edit: actually the author doesn't talk about morality so these are more my rumblings/ideas based on the article than a correct review of the article. Probably because right now I have a somewhat strong moral belief, fairly weakly held, about ads and I'm thinking about similar questions as the author :)

fleddr 5y ago
As you self-admitted, there's important nuances. When you say: "you can read all the content on my website for one year for $2". ...nobody will give you $2. Because they're conditioned that content is free. Because payment is a hassle. Because they may not know one year ahead what the value is. Same thing with games in the app store. A game you love and play a lot, clearly would be fairly priced at 5$. And still game developers are forced to make them free to play with in-game purchases to make up for it. People really do not want to pay for anything in the digital space. They won't pay a fixed fee, hate subscriptions too, and don't really donate at scale. As still people eagerly consume all this stuff anyway, I think the ethical point is incredibly one-sided if not hypocritical. You claim that the economic value is zero yet consume it anyway. Ads are the only model widely usable to overcome this. No other successful model has emerged. Nobody wants to run ads, they have to, because the "customers" are in fact the immoral ones. With no immediate successor on the horizon, I think ads should be redesigned to be less invasive. No excessive tracking, no absurd resource usage, and security protection.
- brailsafe 5y ago
  I think steam and world of warcraft would say otherwise with respect to gaming. Most of my friends have large catalogues of $60+ games that they've bought on a whim and probably never played much.
  - fleddr 5y ago
    Yes, and people also pay for Netflix. But focusing on the exceptions is missing the forest for the trees.
    - brailsafe 5y ago
      No, I think that's absurd. People pay for all kinds of shit all the time, and it's silly to say that game developers are forced to do anything. They're certainly incentivized to try and make the most money possible, but that doesn't mean that fixed price digital or subscription games are exceptions. Every console platform has some kind of subscription service, and wouldn't be around if people didn't buy fixed price games. Blizzard and Activision's main cash cows are fixed price and subscription products (that also have additional superfluous purchases) and were just purchased for $70b. Ya there are a ton of super profitable free to play games, I play one of them, but I originally bought it before it was free. But it's not freemium exclusively.
      - fleddr 5y ago
        Steam isn't mobile gaming. You're ten thousand miles outside the scope of the discussion. You might as well say that people pay for bread, if the point is that people do pay for some things.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  > Ads are the only model widely usable to overcome this. No other successful model has emerged. Nobody wants to run ads, they have to, because the "customers" are in fact the immoral ones. This is why I don't think the ethics are worth considering - this isn't a failing on individual users making personal choices. The ad industry has essentially made parts of the economy anticompetitive. Facebook and Google pick winners and losers via the ad market (whether intentionally or not), subsidized by private equity, which most of the actual producers of games do not want to participate in, but have no choice. Consumers may or may not be getting the best products, they are getting the products promoted by the ad industry. I don't see how any reasonable legislator or regulator can look at that situation as healthy, competitive or sustainable.
projektfu 5y ago
It turns out that the employees prefer the whip and before that they complained about not being paid enough. And new studies show that organic food is not particularly different and the suppliers are lying anyway, so people really just want to feel good about what they're buying. /s
jacobobryant 5y ago
> However the author seems to be saying because the business is not profitable that makes ads morally correct*? As your edit admits, this is not at all what I said. To expand a bit--I think there's a big distinction between advertisement in a fundamental sense and how advertisement often is implemented today. I think that advertising can be done in a good way, and I'm concerned that too many people dismiss advertising altogether because of things like real-time bidding.
- exyi 5y ago
  So some advertising is ok, while the vast majority of online advertising today falls into the bad category? I think I could agree that advertising is acceptable if we'd have: * No personalisation * Full transparency (must be publicly available who is paying for this, ...) * No brainwashing, lies, propaganda, ... * No advertising of certain controversial things (alcohol, tabacco,... I don't know who'd define what's ok) Since we have basically no restrictions today on what is allowed, I'll still use ad blocker, advice everyone to do the same. And of course I'll rant how ads are bad on the internet.
  - jacobobryant 5y ago
    > So some advertising is ok, while the vast majority of online advertising today falls into the bad category? I have no idea, it's an extremely complicated problem, especially considering trade-offs between privacy and competition. > No advertising of certain controversial things (alcohol, tabacco,... I don't know who'd define what's ok) That last bit is the kicker ;).
- xmonkee 5y ago
  You never really answered the question "Why I changed my mind" in your post. You adopted a new model and that allows you to look at advertising favorably, but why you made that change in the first place isn't clear. Advertising hasn't changed, nor did you discover any new information about it. Your post reminds me of a friend who was an ardent Bernie Sanders supporter in the 2016 primaries, until Bernie lost to Hillary, and this man became a huge Hillary champion overnight. It wasn't enough for him to vote for an odious candidate for practical reasons. Now, Hillary was always the best candidate because she's very "qualified" or "details oriented". Nothing about Hillary changed, nor did he learn any new information about her. But he changed his mental model of Hillary to support his "change of mind".
taurath 5y ago
To your credit I agree that it takes a particular type of person to be very thoughtful about ads but not have any thought whatsoever on their morality but rather in their utility. How anyone can look around with even the foggiest of eyes at the current incentive structures around ads and say “this is providing a moral and helpful service” is a bit beyond me.

fleddr 5y ago

As you self-admitted, there's important nuances. When you say: "you can read all the content on my website for one year for $2". ...nobody will give you $2. Because they're conditioned that content is free. Because payment is a hassle. Because they may not know one year ahead what the value is. Same thing with games in the app store. A game you love and play a lot, clearly would be fairly priced at 5$. And still game developers are forced to make them free to play with in-game purchases to make up for it. People really do not want to pay for anything in the digital space. They won't pay a fixed fee, hate subscriptions too, and don't really donate at scale. As still people eagerly consume all this stuff anyway, I think the ethical point is incredibly one-sided if not hypocritical. You claim that the economic value is zero yet consume it anyway. Ads are the only model widely usable to overcome this. No other successful model has emerged. Nobody wants to run ads, they have to, because the "customers" are in fact the immoral ones. With no immediate successor on the horizon, I think ads should be redesigned to be less invasive. No excessive tracking, no absurd resource usage, and security protection.

brailsafe 5y ago
I think steam and world of warcraft would say otherwise with respect to gaming. Most of my friends have large catalogues of $60+ games that they've bought on a whim and probably never played much.
- fleddr 5y ago
  Yes, and people also pay for Netflix. But focusing on the exceptions is missing the forest for the trees.
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    No, I think that's absurd. People pay for all kinds of shit all the time, and it's silly to say that game developers are forced to do anything. They're certainly incentivized to try and make the most money possible, but that doesn't mean that fixed price digital or subscription games are exceptions. Every console platform has some kind of subscription service, and wouldn't be around if people didn't buy fixed price games. Blizzard and Activision's main cash cows are fixed price and subscription products (that also have additional superfluous purchases) and were just purchased for $70b. Ya there are a ton of super profitable free to play games, I play one of them, but I originally bought it before it was free. But it's not freemium exclusively.
    - fleddr 5y ago
      Steam isn't mobile gaming. You're ten thousand miles outside the scope of the discussion. You might as well say that people pay for bread, if the point is that people do pay for some things.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
arrosenberg 5y ago
> Ads are the only model widely usable to overcome this. No other successful model has emerged. Nobody wants to run ads, they have to, because the "customers" are in fact the immoral ones. This is why I don't think the ethics are worth considering - this isn't a failing on individual users making personal choices. The ad industry has essentially made parts of the economy anticompetitive. Facebook and Google pick winners and losers via the ad market (whether intentionally or not), subsidized by private equity, which most of the actual producers of games do not want to participate in, but have no choice. Consumers may or may not be getting the best products, they are getting the products promoted by the ad industry. I don't see how any reasonable legislator or regulator can look at that situation as healthy, competitive or sustainable.

projektfu 5y ago

It turns out that the employees prefer the whip and before that they complained about not being paid enough. And new studies show that organic food is not particularly different and the suppliers are lying anyway, so people really just want to feel good about what they're buying. /s

jacobobryant 5y ago

> However the author seems to be saying because the business is not profitable that makes ads morally correct*? As your edit admits, this is not at all what I said. To expand a bit--I think there's a big distinction between advertisement in a fundamental sense and how advertisement often is implemented today. I think that advertising can be done in a good way, and I'm concerned that too many people dismiss advertising altogether because of things like real-time bidding.

exyi 5y ago
So some advertising is ok, while the vast majority of online advertising today falls into the bad category? I think I could agree that advertising is acceptable if we'd have: * No personalisation * Full transparency (must be publicly available who is paying for this, ...) * No brainwashing, lies, propaganda, ... * No advertising of certain controversial things (alcohol, tabacco,... I don't know who'd define what's ok) Since we have basically no restrictions today on what is allowed, I'll still use ad blocker, advice everyone to do the same. And of course I'll rant how ads are bad on the internet.
- jacobobryant 5y ago
  > So some advertising is ok, while the vast majority of online advertising today falls into the bad category? I have no idea, it's an extremely complicated problem, especially considering trade-offs between privacy and competition. > No advertising of certain controversial things (alcohol, tabacco,... I don't know who'd define what's ok) That last bit is the kicker ;).
xmonkee 5y ago
You never really answered the question "Why I changed my mind" in your post. You adopted a new model and that allows you to look at advertising favorably, but why you made that change in the first place isn't clear. Advertising hasn't changed, nor did you discover any new information about it. Your post reminds me of a friend who was an ardent Bernie Sanders supporter in the 2016 primaries, until Bernie lost to Hillary, and this man became a huge Hillary champion overnight. It wasn't enough for him to vote for an odious candidate for practical reasons. Now, Hillary was always the best candidate because she's very "qualified" or "details oriented". Nothing about Hillary changed, nor did he learn any new information about her. But he changed his mental model of Hillary to support his "change of mind".

taurath 5y ago

To your credit I agree that it takes a particular type of person to be very thoughtful about ads but not have any thought whatsoever on their morality but rather in their utility. How anyone can look around with even the foggiest of eyes at the current incentive structures around ads and say “this is providing a moral and helpful service” is a bit beyond me.