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At scale, though, it just pushes poorer people into accepting it, since it frees up cash for other uses. So it turns into a propaganda and monitoring device th
by tyingq 3y ago
At scale, though, it just pushes poorer people into accepting it, since it frees up cash for other uses. So it turns into a propaganda and monitoring device that mostly targets a pretty specific group.
- londons_explore 3y agoAnd those poorer people aren't very valuable to advertisers, since they have far less money to spend on frivolous extras, so it's hard to run 'free stuff' services like this.
- idopmstuff 3y agoThis is the real issue with it - the people who opt in are almost certainly the least valuable from an advertisers' perspective. I would definitely wonder what kind of assumptions they built into their model about how much ad revenue folks would generate when deciding whether this was a viable business model. I wouldn't be shocked if they just used an average, ignoring the fact that this group is likely to be below average, and that renders the whole business infeasible.
- rg111 3y agoI don't see this as an issue. Sure, there are expensive stuff that get advertised which poor people are shy to spend money on. But there are lots of stuff that poor people do buy. Like toothpaste, mobile phones, shoes, clothes, dishwashers, deodrant, soft drinks. Although these stuff are cheap, they are billion dollar industries. And manikng a lot of people switch from one toothpaste to another will make a company a lot of money.
- SturgeonsLaw 3y agoThe thing about low income earners is that they spend pretty much 100% of the money they make, and there are a lot of them
- hiatus 3y agoYes but you are thinking that the ads would lead to increased spend instead of redirecting spend to the advertised alternatives.
- moolcool 3y agoThere's lots of bottom feeders who love separating poorer people from their money. Gambling companies, payday loans, pyramid schemes, etc...
- londons_explore 3y agoTrue, but those advertisers still don't expect to pay much per ad impression. The ballpark of what I've heard is that type of ad impression is worth only between 1% and 10% of what a typical ad impression is worth.
- londons_explore 3y agoThis is the reason that companies like twitter don't allow their paying members to see stuff ad-free. If they did, then ad revenue from the non-paying members would drop a lot, since now advertisers know that they are no longer targeting the general public, but instead the general public who refuse to pay $8 for a better experience.
- adriancr 3y ago> And those poorer people aren't very valuable to advertisers Their vote is still valuable, just feed them propaganda towards your candidates