4 ms·

The thing is, you don't want ads, period. There are no relevant ads you would want, it's either unbiased information or someone trying to con you into buying th

The thing is, you don't want ads, period. There are no relevant ads you would want, it's either unbiased information or someone trying to con you into buying their crap.

nebulous_two 4y ago
And yet we are bombarded with them. Thanks, market. You really gave us what we wanted. Oh wait -- that's not actually your objective!
bluGill 4y ago
That is false. If I have a mouse problem I want to know about your better mousetrap. It doesn't do me any good if you invent it but I never find out about it. Most ads are for garbage I don't want/need, and many are scams, but there are still a number of ads out there for things that I would buy if only I knew they exists.
- amelius 4y ago
  But do you want to be distracted by mouse traps every time you search for work related things? Why not put all ads into a website that is dedicated to ads, so that users who want them can look them up?
- shkkmo 4y ago
  If you have a mouse problem, you want to hear from an expert which trap works best in which circumstance. Having each mouse trap company bombard you with half truths and lies about their traps isn't really helpful.
  - mattw2121 4y ago
    How does the expert know what traps exist? How do we know the expert isn't being paid by the companies to give favorable reviews? Do we need a team of experts that certify the expert reviewers so we can trust the reviewers results? How do we know both sets of experts are being bribed?
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      None of those problems make advertising any better of a solution for getting information.
      - robbedpeter 4y ago
        Advertising incentivizes lying. The best presentation wins, in this current ad market. Metrics that track good faith interactions are needed, like eBay reputation - if someone isn't 98% or higher, they're going to be overlooked or bypassed in favor of someone with a higher score. Product reviews and ratings get gamed, because current systems don't reward good faith transactions - Amazon and Google customers purchase attention and shuffle facts around top maximize purchases. If quality reviews and curation were incentivized, there would be a thriving class of reviewers and experts playing a role in the marketplace. Their absence is glaring, and the horde of product influencers and professional reviewers underscore the deep corruption of adtech. Those people leech money from the market by selling the ability to lie. The lies are sanctioned by adtech firms, and often laundered through otherwise reliable data sources. Any legitimate attempt to compete threatens the entire adtech ecosystem, so a majority of all consumer marketplaces are incentivized to cultivate the corruption and prevent any changes or reform that threaten the sanctified lies. Things like Angie's List and product review vlogs and expert podcasts are stuck within the system, regardless of their intent or functionality when they start. They eventually converge into niches that support the system as a whole. Even reddit, requiring individual human dialog and interaction, has been infested by professional reviewers shilling crappy products. You can't trust the data sources because trustworthy sources are incompatible with adtech. Google has sufficient data to fix it, but they'd lose money by allowing reform, so they maintain the ethically gray areas ferociously. Their business is not quality search, it's maximizing advertising profits, and it's more profitable to have 50 people paying a premium for scraps than 5 high quality vendors with vetted products earning those spots through quality and service. The system is working as intended.
    - piaste 4y ago
      Ideally, the expert's advice would be a product in itself. For the expert to be incentivized to give unbiased* advice, 100% of their income needs to be from the customer, and 0% from the car maker. Which Bluntly put, this boils down to making marketing departments illegal. (Note that a car magazine with ads, where the experts' income depends on both readers' eyeballs and car makers' money, is still way, way better than relying on car ads.) * 'unbribed' would be more accurate, as there would still be some biases to make the readers feel happy to follow their advice, e.g. favouring short-term satisfaction over long-term safety, etc.

The thing is, you don't want ads, period. There are no relevant ads you would want, it's either unbiased information or someone trying to con you into buying their crap.

nebulous_two 4y ago

And yet we are bombarded with them. Thanks, market. You really gave us what we wanted. Oh wait -- that's not actually your objective!

bluGill 4y ago

That is false. If I have a mouse problem I want to know about your better mousetrap. It doesn't do me any good if you invent it but I never find out about it. Most ads are for garbage I don't want/need, and many are scams, but there are still a number of ads out there for things that I would buy if only I knew they exists.

amelius 4y ago
But do you want to be distracted by mouse traps every time you search for work related things? Why not put all ads into a website that is dedicated to ads, so that users who want them can look them up?
shkkmo 4y ago
If you have a mouse problem, you want to hear from an expert which trap works best in which circumstance. Having each mouse trap company bombard you with half truths and lies about their traps isn't really helpful.
- mattw2121 4y ago
  How does the expert know what traps exist? How do we know the expert isn't being paid by the companies to give favorable reviews? Do we need a team of experts that certify the expert reviewers so we can trust the reviewers results? How do we know both sets of experts are being bribed?
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    None of those problems make advertising any better of a solution for getting information.
    - robbedpeter 4y ago
      Advertising incentivizes lying. The best presentation wins, in this current ad market. Metrics that track good faith interactions are needed, like eBay reputation - if someone isn't 98% or higher, they're going to be overlooked or bypassed in favor of someone with a higher score. Product reviews and ratings get gamed, because current systems don't reward good faith transactions - Amazon and Google customers purchase attention and shuffle facts around top maximize purchases. If quality reviews and curation were incentivized, there would be a thriving class of reviewers and experts playing a role in the marketplace. Their absence is glaring, and the horde of product influencers and professional reviewers underscore the deep corruption of adtech. Those people leech money from the market by selling the ability to lie. The lies are sanctioned by adtech firms, and often laundered through otherwise reliable data sources. Any legitimate attempt to compete threatens the entire adtech ecosystem, so a majority of all consumer marketplaces are incentivized to cultivate the corruption and prevent any changes or reform that threaten the sanctified lies. Things like Angie's List and product review vlogs and expert podcasts are stuck within the system, regardless of their intent or functionality when they start. They eventually converge into niches that support the system as a whole. Even reddit, requiring individual human dialog and interaction, has been infested by professional reviewers shilling crappy products. You can't trust the data sources because trustworthy sources are incompatible with adtech. Google has sufficient data to fix it, but they'd lose money by allowing reform, so they maintain the ethically gray areas ferociously. Their business is not quality search, it's maximizing advertising profits, and it's more profitable to have 50 people paying a premium for scraps than 5 high quality vendors with vetted products earning those spots through quality and service. The system is working as intended.
  - piaste 4y ago
    Ideally, the expert's advice would be a product in itself. For the expert to be incentivized to give unbiased* advice, 100% of their income needs to be from the customer, and 0% from the car maker. Which Bluntly put, this boils down to making marketing departments illegal. (Note that a car magazine with ads, where the experts' income depends on both readers' eyeballs and car makers' money, is still way, way better than relying on car ads.) * 'unbribed' would be more accurate, as there would still be some biases to make the readers feel happy to follow their advice, e.g. favouring short-term satisfaction over long-term safety, etc.