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I don't know why my opinion is so out of the mainstream but I really think it's good that people's information is used vs not used... I think it's a great boon

I don't know why my opinion is so out of the mainstream but I really think it's good that people's information is used vs not used... I think it's a great boon for ads to become more relevant instead of less relevant. Wasting time looking at ads that aren't for me sucks, it's much better if they could actually improve my life. Literally think making children have less relevant ads is doing them harm.

passwordoops 3y ago
You should pitch your local college on giving a master class in sarcasm
jtbayly 3y ago
Ads are not “relevant,” or not. They are effective or not. Generally effective means manipulative. Screening children from this seems quite beneficial at first glance.
c-fe 3y ago
Ads, targeted ones even more so, make you buy things you don’t need. If you need them, you would go out of your way to buy them without requiring an ad manipulating you.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  That’s not necessarily true because you might not have known about them. Some ads can be informative and provide you with consumer surplus. For example I recently went to a concert based on an ad and it was a great time. I would have never heard about it normally. Actually the most manipulative ads are “brand” ads for things like Coke or BMW. These have no significant difference to their competitors so their only strategy is to manipulate you into associating them with more positive emotions.
- ahahahahah 3y ago
  There's almost nothing that people need. The vast majority of my spending is on things I want, not need. I get value from spending on those things.
taneq 3y ago
Sales is an asymmetric information game. The more the seller knows about you, compared with what you know about them, the worse a deal you get. The goal of companies like Facebook and Google is to know everything about you while you only know what they want you know.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  The argument seems to suggest the victims of Facebook are the buyers, ie the advertisers? Kinda weird then
beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago
You could make ads relevant the old fashioned way: asking people what they are interested in or actually doing consumer research, instead of simply using their data they "give up" with a freemium service to make ads more "relevant". I used quotes on 'relevant' because I have never, ever, felt that advertising has suddenly become wildly more relevant or successfully targeted with the advent of social media or google. Most ads are still garbage and completely irrelevant to my interests; the targeting is usually pretty pathetic. I find more relevant advertising in a magazine or when it's self managed by a blog (the owner straight up just selling adspace old-school style) than online these days. It's not like it needs to work the way it does online right now or it can't work at all. Facebook just likes the way it works because that's their business model.
- aczerepinski 3y ago
  Agreed. I subscribe to a jazz magazine partly for the ads - I want to know about album releases and jazz festivals. Maybe FB has improved in the years since I deleted my account but I never received ads as relevant to my interests as what I see in magazines.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  Just as a tear I opened Facebook at looked at the ads (I usually skip them subconsciously). They are actually quite specific to me. For example there is one for a cooking gadget (I love cooking and trying new techniques), one for a children’s art kit (I might buy this), one for jigsaw puzzles (one of my hobbies), and one for productivity software (I might check it out). That’s just the first four I saw and I’d say that’s actually phenomenal targeting. It’s some very niche things that apply to me quite well.
josephg 3y ago
I visited a friend a couple of years ago. His son was about 3, and they put on a movie while he was eating dinner. The kid’s fork had food on it and it froze halfway to his mouth while he watched the movie. He held it there for half an hour or something, hovering in the air while his eyes were glued to the screen. Do you think kids are smart enough to understand advertising? Or resist the temptations they bring? Personally I think all advertising targeted at children should be banned completely. Little Jimmy doesn’t need to be bombarded with ads for Peppa Pig merch. Especially if those ads are targeted just for him. Gross!
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  Why does it matter? It’s not like non advertising TV is going to be good for Little Jimmy either. In your example story it’s not even an ad! I think parents have some responsibility to teach their children how to interact with the world. I’ve been teaching mine about the difference between ads and non-ad content. That will prepare them for life as adults. Childhood is actually a great time to learn about ads because your parents prevent you from wasting too much money on it.
vlovich123 3y ago
Why do you feel this way for under 18? I think it’s particularly weird to target people who likely don’t have disposable income and that income should be influenced through targeted advertising that’s trying to not only to cause you to shift your spending but also on increasing your overall spend, usually on useless shit you don’t actually need and scams. I would in fact encourage this go the other way and ads become more highly regulated/banned outright because mass propaganda feels unhealthy but this might crash our economy and the economics of the internet considering how so many business plans and large amounts of revenue in large businesses don’t work without that (and all that would be also politically infeasible / and the US’s free speech amendment might prevent it in America so it would have to come out of the EU and Canada first). It would be offset by businesses running more cheaply but I suspect that’s not much compared to a potentially reduced amount of income overall from consumers on “frivolous shit they don’t need”.
ahahahahah 3y ago
Not only that, affordable effective ad targeting makes niche businesses more viable. It's really great to see a business that provides a widget or a service that I particularly value much more than the mainstream does. Those businesses are often only possible due to the effectiveness of this targeted advertising.

passwordoops 3y ago

You should pitch your local college on giving a master class in sarcasm

jtbayly 3y ago

Ads are not “relevant,” or not. They are effective or not. Generally effective means manipulative. Screening children from this seems quite beneficial at first glance.

c-fe 3y ago

Ads, targeted ones even more so, make you buy things you don’t need. If you need them, you would go out of your way to buy them without requiring an ad manipulating you.

zeroonetwothree 3y ago
That’s not necessarily true because you might not have known about them. Some ads can be informative and provide you with consumer surplus. For example I recently went to a concert based on an ad and it was a great time. I would have never heard about it normally. Actually the most manipulative ads are “brand” ads for things like Coke or BMW. These have no significant difference to their competitors so their only strategy is to manipulate you into associating them with more positive emotions.
ahahahahah 3y ago
There's almost nothing that people need. The vast majority of my spending is on things I want, not need. I get value from spending on those things.

taneq 3y ago

Sales is an asymmetric information game. The more the seller knows about you, compared with what you know about them, the worse a deal you get. The goal of companies like Facebook and Google is to know everything about you while you only know what they want you know.

zeroonetwothree 3y ago
The argument seems to suggest the victims of Facebook are the buyers, ie the advertisers? Kinda weird then

beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago

You could make ads relevant the old fashioned way: asking people what they are interested in or actually doing consumer research, instead of simply using their data they "give up" with a freemium service to make ads more "relevant". I used quotes on 'relevant' because I have never, ever, felt that advertising has suddenly become wildly more relevant or successfully targeted with the advent of social media or google. Most ads are still garbage and completely irrelevant to my interests; the targeting is usually pretty pathetic. I find more relevant advertising in a magazine or when it's self managed by a blog (the owner straight up just selling adspace old-school style) than online these days. It's not like it needs to work the way it does online right now or it can't work at all. Facebook just likes the way it works because that's their business model.

aczerepinski 3y ago
Agreed. I subscribe to a jazz magazine partly for the ads - I want to know about album releases and jazz festivals. Maybe FB has improved in the years since I deleted my account but I never received ads as relevant to my interests as what I see in magazines.
zeroonetwothree 3y ago
Just as a tear I opened Facebook at looked at the ads (I usually skip them subconsciously). They are actually quite specific to me. For example there is one for a cooking gadget (I love cooking and trying new techniques), one for a children’s art kit (I might buy this), one for jigsaw puzzles (one of my hobbies), and one for productivity software (I might check it out). That’s just the first four I saw and I’d say that’s actually phenomenal targeting. It’s some very niche things that apply to me quite well.

josephg 3y ago

I visited a friend a couple of years ago. His son was about 3, and they put on a movie while he was eating dinner. The kid’s fork had food on it and it froze halfway to his mouth while he watched the movie. He held it there for half an hour or something, hovering in the air while his eyes were glued to the screen. Do you think kids are smart enough to understand advertising? Or resist the temptations they bring? Personally I think all advertising targeted at children should be banned completely. Little Jimmy doesn’t need to be bombarded with ads for Peppa Pig merch. Especially if those ads are targeted just for him. Gross!

zeroonetwothree 3y ago
Why does it matter? It’s not like non advertising TV is going to be good for Little Jimmy either. In your example story it’s not even an ad! I think parents have some responsibility to teach their children how to interact with the world. I’ve been teaching mine about the difference between ads and non-ad content. That will prepare them for life as adults. Childhood is actually a great time to learn about ads because your parents prevent you from wasting too much money on it.

vlovich123 3y ago

Why do you feel this way for under 18? I think it’s particularly weird to target people who likely don’t have disposable income and that income should be influenced through targeted advertising that’s trying to not only to cause you to shift your spending but also on increasing your overall spend, usually on useless shit you don’t actually need and scams. I would in fact encourage this go the other way and ads become more highly regulated/banned outright because mass propaganda feels unhealthy but this might crash our economy and the economics of the internet considering how so many business plans and large amounts of revenue in large businesses don’t work without that (and all that would be also politically infeasible / and the US’s free speech amendment might prevent it in America so it would have to come out of the EU and Canada first). It would be offset by businesses running more cheaply but I suspect that’s not much compared to a potentially reduced amount of income overall from consumers on “frivolous shit they don’t need”.

ahahahahah 3y ago

Not only that, affordable effective ad targeting makes niche businesses more viable. It's really great to see a business that provides a widget or a service that I particularly value much more than the mainstream does. Those businesses are often only possible due to the effectiveness of this targeted advertising.