4 ms·

> Luckily we already have this cool innovation called a market economy Market economy got us into the situation where the most brilliant minds in the world are

> Luckily we already have this cool innovation called a market economy Market economy got us into the situation where the most brilliant minds in the world are researching best ways to make internet advertisements as addictive as they can be. Very cool innovation, indeed. Ever read The Space Merchants?

a4a4a4a4 4y ago
> the most brilliant minds in the world are researching best ways to make internet advertisements as addictive as they can be. They're doing a great job, ads are so addictive I've even turned off my Ad blocker so I can get more of them! Won't someone save me!
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  I assume you're saying that ads are irrelevant because we have AdBlock? Ads would always exist, but think about how many great (even lifesaving) solutions we're missing out on because market decided they aren't worthy of pursuit.
  - a4a4a4a4 4y ago
    I'm saying ads aren't "addictive", because they're pretty despised. They might be effective, when people see them, but I don't think anyone is "addicted" to ads.
    - adrianN 4y ago
      Every influencer is basically an ad on two legs.
      - a4a4a4a4 4y ago
        Are we talking about influencers, or “the world’s brightest minds”?
        bheadmaster 4y ago
        They're working together. Youtube algorithms compute the most likely influencer that is going to occupy your attention and serve you advertisements in the process. "Nobody is addicted to ads" is true if you think only about the pop-ups and couple-second videos as "ads" - but the concept of advertisements is much wider than that. Some adverisements may not even be presented as such - they may be presented as "useful content", but which is chosen above other such useful content by the virtue of being paid for to the advertising company.
    - bheadmaster 4y ago
      You're nitpicking an irrelevant detail. Expand "ads" in my comment to "screen time" (for the sake of serving ads) generally and the "despised" counterargument falls apart. The whole point of my comment is that brilliant minds are working on making stuff more addictive to people, instead of making the world a better place.
    - smcin 4y ago
      It's the content (and personalized curation, based on what the platform's learned you want to see) that's addictive, not the ads. Users are addicted to the content creators, and watching ads is the price they have to pay to sit through to watch free content. Picking ads that are relevant, or at least not annoying enough to make you switch off, is part of the platform's experience. And there are creators who blend ads in as organic content, or at least a personalized endorsement which doesn't come across as phony, which MrBeast said gets the most positive response. I recently turned off tracking, and suddenly started getting served ads for 'green cremation'. I guess statistically few people are interested in that, but conversions are lucrative, although the 99% of users who don't want to see it probably get mildly annoyed.
jwestbury 4y ago
How about an even better -- and more salient -- example? Quant trading firms are gobbling up promising researchers in fields like physics and mathematics. These are people getting funded Ph.Ds at top universities (Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, etc.), and they end up just going to companies which exist solely for the purpose of making rich people richer.
- pembrook 4y ago
  Quant firms provide value to society, hence why they are compensated for it. Liquidity and price discovery are useful things. Nobody would pay them otherwise.
  - jabradoodle 4y ago
    If the definition of providing value to society = making a profit, then is selling heroin providing value to society?
  - bheadmaster 4y ago
    > Liquidity and price discovery are useful things. Nobody would pay them otherwise. Is there any other evidence of their usefulness beyond "people pay for it"?
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      On the liquidity side, would you pay more for a security that you could easily and quickly sell with small slippage than you would for a security that could not be easily sold or only sold with a large slippage? "People pay for [that]" because it's a genuinely useful property of an investment vehicle.

a4a4a4a4 4y ago

> the most brilliant minds in the world are researching best ways to make internet advertisements as addictive as they can be. They're doing a great job, ads are so addictive I've even turned off my Ad blocker so I can get more of them! Won't someone save me!

bheadmaster 4y ago
I assume you're saying that ads are irrelevant because we have AdBlock? Ads would always exist, but think about how many great (even lifesaving) solutions we're missing out on because market decided they aren't worthy of pursuit.
- a4a4a4a4 4y ago
  I'm saying ads aren't "addictive", because they're pretty despised. They might be effective, when people see them, but I don't think anyone is "addicted" to ads.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    Every influencer is basically an ad on two legs.
    - a4a4a4a4 4y ago
      Are we talking about influencers, or “the world’s brightest minds”?
      - bheadmaster 4y ago
        They're working together. Youtube algorithms compute the most likely influencer that is going to occupy your attention and serve you advertisements in the process. "Nobody is addicted to ads" is true if you think only about the pop-ups and couple-second videos as "ads" - but the concept of advertisements is much wider than that. Some adverisements may not even be presented as such - they may be presented as "useful content", but which is chosen above other such useful content by the virtue of being paid for to the advertising company.
  - bheadmaster 4y ago
    You're nitpicking an irrelevant detail. Expand "ads" in my comment to "screen time" (for the sake of serving ads) generally and the "despised" counterargument falls apart. The whole point of my comment is that brilliant minds are working on making stuff more addictive to people, instead of making the world a better place.
  - smcin 4y ago
    It's the content (and personalized curation, based on what the platform's learned you want to see) that's addictive, not the ads. Users are addicted to the content creators, and watching ads is the price they have to pay to sit through to watch free content. Picking ads that are relevant, or at least not annoying enough to make you switch off, is part of the platform's experience. And there are creators who blend ads in as organic content, or at least a personalized endorsement which doesn't come across as phony, which MrBeast said gets the most positive response. I recently turned off tracking, and suddenly started getting served ads for 'green cremation'. I guess statistically few people are interested in that, but conversions are lucrative, although the 99% of users who don't want to see it probably get mildly annoyed.

jwestbury 4y ago

How about an even better -- and more salient -- example? Quant trading firms are gobbling up promising researchers in fields like physics and mathematics. These are people getting funded Ph.Ds at top universities (Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, etc.), and they end up just going to companies which exist solely for the purpose of making rich people richer.

pembrook 4y ago
Quant firms provide value to society, hence why they are compensated for it. Liquidity and price discovery are useful things. Nobody would pay them otherwise.
- jabradoodle 4y ago
  If the definition of providing value to society = making a profit, then is selling heroin providing value to society?
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  > Liquidity and price discovery are useful things. Nobody would pay them otherwise. Is there any other evidence of their usefulness beyond "people pay for it"?
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    On the liquidity side, would you pay more for a security that you could easily and quickly sell with small slippage than you would for a security that could not be easily sold or only sold with a large slippage? "People pay for [that]" because it's a genuinely useful property of an investment vehicle.