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Hot take. As long as ads are clearly indicated, and non-promoted results are easily accessible and usable, I don't have a problem with Google relying on ad fund
by julienb_sea 4y ago
Hot take. As long as ads are clearly indicated, and non-promoted results are easily accessible and usable, I don't have a problem with Google relying on ad funding for their main development efforts. The amount of behavior they have made accessible to anyone for free has produced an immense amount of qualitative societal value. IMO this far outweighs the annoyance of ads present on various search results.
- thfuran 4y agoThe problem with ads isn't that they're present on screen (though that can get annoying), it's that their presence causes a fundamental misalignment of incentives. A paid service without ads is primarily incentivized to provide value to the customer. An entirely ad supported service is incentivized to provide value to advertisers first, potentially to the detriment of the users, and to users only to the extent that it brings in more ad money.