4 ms·

>These shows take pseudo-commercial breaks and send you 2-3 ads tailored to you specifically. My wife didn't believe it until I did a simple Amazon search on my

by nvy 3y ago

>These shows take pseudo-commercial breaks and send you 2-3 ads tailored to you specifically. My wife didn't believe it until I did a simple Amazon search on my phone for automotive batteries. Not more than 30 minutes later the ads switched to some random LiPo battery for RVs. This is so depressing. We're living in the future and it's awful.

pxx 3y ago
I'd much rather my ads be targeted than generic. It increases value on both sides here. Comparing against the baseline of terrestrial broadcast, this is a far better experience than before.
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  You're making the mistake of assuming the ad is for the best offer you'd be interested in instead of the one that makes the most money from you (i.e. the worst one for you). The expected utility to you is negative.
  - Sebb767 3y ago
    > You're making the mistake of assuming the ad is for the best offer you'd be interested in instead of the one that makes the most money from you (i.e. the worst one for you) You are making the mistake of thinking that this is a zero-sum game. The product that makes the most money is not necessarily the worst one, it might actually just be one with higher margins or even an actually superior product that just lacks mindshare; in the end, buying it might still add value to your live.
    - ndriscoll 3y ago
      Markets like Amazon are already full of people who will sell the exact same product with a computer generated brand name at slightly different markup. Even "trustworthy" brands do this kind of thing, and have for a long time. A system that knows everything about you (their goal) and tailors ads to you (or manipulates your ability to find offers) will inevitably converge on something that sells you the same thing, but at the maximum price you can be expected to be duped into.
  - pxx 3y ago
    You're missing an important nuance. The best advertisement is for a product that, in expectation, makes the most money from me. My relative interest is still important, and you can't just jump from the fact that somebody is making money to the unfounded claim that the "expected utility is negative." When I buy an item I'm making a decision that the marginal value of that item to me is worth more than the marginal cost. If the ad is targeted, a transaction is more likely to happen. Transactions happen when both parties derive utility from them. If you advertise only high profit items without concern for the probability of transaction, your audience will not buy anything or end up buying the same item from somebody else.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - hibernator149 3y ago
      You assume that they value longterm profits over shortterm ones.
    - ndriscoll 3y ago
      It's not just that someone is making money. It's not a friendly old man at the local bookstore giving you recommendations based on your tastes. It's a system where all of the battery vendors are bidding in real time to be the one you see, and the most dodgy one with the best margins is the one that can place the best bid, causing you to get the worst possible deal. These systems are not for your benefit. They are meant to use any information they can to extract more from you.
    - mrighele 3y ago
      As a customer, you will try of course to get the best deal. The best deal for you is the worst for them, so the target of advertising is convincing you that you are getting the best deal while actually giving you the worst possible. Targeted advertising is not giving you better deals, but providing you with a greater mismatch between your expectation and the reality. You may get a better deal out of it, but that is an unintended side effect
      - deleted 3y ago
  - savanaly 3y ago
    >You're making the mistake of assuming the ad is for the best offer you'd be interested in instead of the one that makes the most money from you (i.e. the worst one for you). The expected utility to you is negative. A customer buying something isn't a zero-sum transaction. My default assumption is that the product that stands to make the most money from me is the one that would most benefit me. For example, the grocery store sells apples, which I love, and chicken gizzards, which I don't love. The product which I want most (apples) will stand to make the most money from me. If I didn't know that apples were for sale near me, or that a particular store had particularly delicious apples, I would benefit from that and so would they after I spent my money on them. Win-win, not zero-sum.
    - ndriscoll 3y ago
      That's again assuming the system is making good recommendations for you. That's not what they're meant to do. A much better analogy is you go to the grocery store. The clerk knows you like apples and says "hey, I've got a bag of Johnny's apples here for $6", and pulls out a bag with a sticker that says "Johnny's" on it. Next person comes in, and the clerk offers them a bag of Dan's apples for $3. The bags come from the same orchard. Same tree. You paid for a sticker. The clerk just knows you make enough money not to notice because they have a dossier on every person in town.
      - olyjohn 3y ago
        It's not even that... they aren't recommending Apples at all, but they're going to try to get you to buy something else that is more profitable. It's like going into the store and then they're like "Here's a bag of oranges."
        ndriscoll 3y ago
        If the system has a higher expectation that you will buy the apples, making them the more profitable option to offer, it'll do that. So people aren't entirely wrong in that way. But the point is even when it's "helpful" (by coincidence), it will still do everything it can to screw you. And yeah it'll happily offer you oranges if it thinks it can get you to bite. Or beer, particularly if it knows you're an alcoholic!
- owisd 3y ago
  Not necessarily, it could mean the ads get better at tricking you into buying something you never use, or that it adds greater costs to the supply chain for something that you would have found out about via conventional means anyway.
- t-3 3y ago
  "Targeted" ads are not targeted though, they're just trying to sell you the same thing you just bought. It's the most annoying, stupidest, and least effective form of targeting they could possibly use.
- Lammy 3y ago
  I wouldn’t because it means they spied on me more often and more effectively. Broadcast TV was one-way except for Nielsen people, and they at least got paid.
joezydeco 3y ago
Eh, it could be worse. For a while Hulu thought I was Hispanic and living in Texas. Got a lot of ads for the Texas Lottery with Spanish audio.
- nvy 3y ago
  Ads are ads as far as I'm concerned. They're all universally trash.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Ads, generically, are one thing. Car insurance when I'm not looking for car insurance. The problem with targeted advertising is when they're for something I didn't know I wanted. A band I like is coming to town, or a product that solves a problem I've been having. because then I'm spending money I wasn't previously going to spend.
    - gosub100 3y ago
      Car insurance ads when you know they are paying those millions of dollars out of the premiums that you pay, just so they can tell you how cheap their premiums are. That's what ticks me off!
      - jrockway 3y ago
        Insurance involves having a large pool of good drivers to subsidize the bad drivers. So the money they spend to make the pool larger could make things better from you; more good drivers, they pay out less claims, they charge you less. It's one business where the "network effect" really matters, and so it's not a guaranteed waste of money like advertising other products is. (For example, it really doesn't matter whether you drink Coke or Pepsi. Those ads are just inflating the cost of the product; there are no more efficiencies to be had in the production of sugar water.)
        gosub100 3y ago

by nvy 3y ago

pxx 3y ago

I'd much rather my ads be targeted than generic. It increases value on both sides here. Comparing against the baseline of terrestrial broadcast, this is a far better experience than before.

ndriscoll 3y ago
You're making the mistake of assuming the ad is for the best offer you'd be interested in instead of the one that makes the most money from you (i.e. the worst one for you). The expected utility to you is negative.
- Sebb767 3y ago
  > You're making the mistake of assuming the ad is for the best offer you'd be interested in instead of the one that makes the most money from you (i.e. the worst one for you) You are making the mistake of thinking that this is a zero-sum game. The product that makes the most money is not necessarily the worst one, it might actually just be one with higher margins or even an actually superior product that just lacks mindshare; in the end, buying it might still add value to your live.
  - ndriscoll 3y ago
    Markets like Amazon are already full of people who will sell the exact same product with a computer generated brand name at slightly different markup. Even "trustworthy" brands do this kind of thing, and have for a long time. A system that knows everything about you (their goal) and tailors ads to you (or manipulates your ability to find offers) will inevitably converge on something that sells you the same thing, but at the maximum price you can be expected to be duped into.
- pxx 3y ago
  You're missing an important nuance. The best advertisement is for a product that, in expectation, makes the most money from me. My relative interest is still important, and you can't just jump from the fact that somebody is making money to the unfounded claim that the "expected utility is negative." When I buy an item I'm making a decision that the marginal value of that item to me is worth more than the marginal cost. If the ad is targeted, a transaction is more likely to happen. Transactions happen when both parties derive utility from them. If you advertise only high profit items without concern for the probability of transaction, your audience will not buy anything or end up buying the same item from somebody else.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - hibernator149 3y ago
    You assume that they value longterm profits over shortterm ones.
  - ndriscoll 3y ago
    It's not just that someone is making money. It's not a friendly old man at the local bookstore giving you recommendations based on your tastes. It's a system where all of the battery vendors are bidding in real time to be the one you see, and the most dodgy one with the best margins is the one that can place the best bid, causing you to get the worst possible deal. These systems are not for your benefit. They are meant to use any information they can to extract more from you.
  - mrighele 3y ago
    As a customer, you will try of course to get the best deal. The best deal for you is the worst for them, so the target of advertising is convincing you that you are getting the best deal while actually giving you the worst possible. Targeted advertising is not giving you better deals, but providing you with a greater mismatch between your expectation and the reality. You may get a better deal out of it, but that is an unintended side effect
    - deleted 3y ago
- savanaly 3y ago
  >You're making the mistake of assuming the ad is for the best offer you'd be interested in instead of the one that makes the most money from you (i.e. the worst one for you). The expected utility to you is negative. A customer buying something isn't a zero-sum transaction. My default assumption is that the product that stands to make the most money from me is the one that would most benefit me. For example, the grocery store sells apples, which I love, and chicken gizzards, which I don't love. The product which I want most (apples) will stand to make the most money from me. If I didn't know that apples were for sale near me, or that a particular store had particularly delicious apples, I would benefit from that and so would they after I spent my money on them. Win-win, not zero-sum.
  - ndriscoll 3y ago
    That's again assuming the system is making good recommendations for you. That's not what they're meant to do. A much better analogy is you go to the grocery store. The clerk knows you like apples and says "hey, I've got a bag of Johnny's apples here for $6", and pulls out a bag with a sticker that says "Johnny's" on it. Next person comes in, and the clerk offers them a bag of Dan's apples for $3. The bags come from the same orchard. Same tree. You paid for a sticker. The clerk just knows you make enough money not to notice because they have a dossier on every person in town.
    - olyjohn 3y ago
      It's not even that... they aren't recommending Apples at all, but they're going to try to get you to buy something else that is more profitable. It's like going into the store and then they're like "Here's a bag of oranges."
      - ndriscoll 3y ago
        If the system has a higher expectation that you will buy the apples, making them the more profitable option to offer, it'll do that. So people aren't entirely wrong in that way. But the point is even when it's "helpful" (by coincidence), it will still do everything it can to screw you. And yeah it'll happily offer you oranges if it thinks it can get you to bite. Or beer, particularly if it knows you're an alcoholic!
owisd 3y ago
Not necessarily, it could mean the ads get better at tricking you into buying something you never use, or that it adds greater costs to the supply chain for something that you would have found out about via conventional means anyway.
t-3 3y ago
"Targeted" ads are not targeted though, they're just trying to sell you the same thing you just bought. It's the most annoying, stupidest, and least effective form of targeting they could possibly use.
Lammy 3y ago
I wouldn’t because it means they spied on me more often and more effectively. Broadcast TV was one-way except for Nielsen people, and they at least got paid.

joezydeco 3y ago

Eh, it could be worse. For a while Hulu thought I was Hispanic and living in Texas. Got a lot of ads for the Texas Lottery with Spanish audio.

nvy 3y ago
Ads are ads as far as I'm concerned. They're all universally trash.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Ads, generically, are one thing. Car insurance when I'm not looking for car insurance. The problem with targeted advertising is when they're for something I didn't know I wanted. A band I like is coming to town, or a product that solves a problem I've been having. because then I'm spending money I wasn't previously going to spend.
  - gosub100 3y ago
    Car insurance ads when you know they are paying those millions of dollars out of the premiums that you pay, just so they can tell you how cheap their premiums are. That's what ticks me off!
    - jrockway 3y ago
      Insurance involves having a large pool of good drivers to subsidize the bad drivers. So the money they spend to make the pool larger could make things better from you; more good drivers, they pay out less claims, they charge you less. It's one business where the "network effect" really matters, and so it's not a guaranteed waste of money like advertising other products is. (For example, it really doesn't matter whether you drink Coke or Pepsi. Those ads are just inflating the cost of the product; there are no more efficiencies to be had in the production of sugar water.)
      - gosub100 3y ago