3 ms·

There’s a subtle error in your beliefs about the motivations of FB and Google. They are incentivized not to give users useful ads, but effective ones. The goal

There’s a subtle error in your beliefs about the motivations of FB and Google. They are incentivized not to give users useful ads, but effective ones. The goal isn’t to improve your life. For example, something you buy because its marketed very well, but then never use, is a success for FB or Google and a loss for you. You should frame them less positively as a consequence. I also want to point out that it’s not skittishness; skittishness implies animalistic irrationality. People are right to be afraid of the control that a powerful actor can exert over them if it knows everything they do.

randomdata 2y ago
Nobody would buy something without an understanding of it being beneficial. I'll grant you that understandings can be faulty. One may learn that there was no benefit. But that's outside of the ad itself. Invalidating your hypotheseses is an important part of the scientific method.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  Explain sugar cereals, soda, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc. The advertisements create the misunderstanding. "Lucky Charms are part of a complete breakfast" etc. No normal person under normal circumstances would think that marshmallows or cookies are part of a healthy meal if you asked them directly to think about it.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    What's to explain? They feel good when consumed, and thus improve one's life, even if only for a fleeting moment. Who is buying Lucky Charms because they find them disgusting, but somehow see them as being important? Let's be real: People only (continue to, at least – they may buy once just to try) buy Lucky Charms if they like consuming them.
    - sebastiennight 2y ago
      > Who is buying Lucky Charms because they find them disgusting, but somehow see them as being important? Have... you met a teenager? I'm failing to see the point of this example, as I don't think I've never met a single person who found their first cigarette enjoyable. Is your experience that people buy their first and second pack out of enjoyment of the taste?
      - randomdata 2y ago
        I have never met a teenager who is concerned about eating a "whole" breakfast, no, especially if that "whole" breakfast requires eating something that is otherwise unpleasant. Even if this so-called whole breakfast was some scientific truth, proven to improve health outcomes, what teenager would care? Have... you met a teenager? I don't really see the point of the example either, frankly, but it is what we were given. I expect the contextual parent was just desperately trying to come up with something in the absence of having something meaningful to say.
        ndriscoll 2y ago
        The point of the example is that there are plenty of things that have no benefit at all, and in fact have obvious downsides that everyone knows about. However, there is an immense amount of marketing around those things to try to make them seem "cool" and minimize their perceived harm. People get addicted to these things, and struggle to stop consuming them even when they know they're literally dying from it. No one in their right mind would ever give their kids Oreos for breakfast, but somehow advertisements make people feel comfortable giving them Oero O's. Any person of sound mind would say that giving that to your kids as a meal is neglect, but people do it, and it's "normal". This is the harm that marketing is capable of. Cookies are, in fact, not a part of a complete breakfast. Evidently, you can convince people that they are by just repeating the message thousands of times to them. I don't see how the people who are involved in making those ads (or the products) can live with themselves. Convincing people to e.g. set their kids up for a life of obesity and early T2 diabetes from poor dietary habits is pure evil, and that's just one example of horrible (yet completely mundane for them) things marketers do. Just imagine being a person who wakes up in the morning and thinks about how to best convince children to try ingesting poison[0]: > Juul Labs, the vaping company that has long insisted it never marketed its products to teenagers, purchased ad space in its early days on numerous youth-focused websites, including those of Nickelodeon, the Cartoon Network, Seventeen magazine and educational sites for middle school and high school students, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Massachusetts attorney general. Everyone involved in something like that should be put in prison. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/juul-vaping-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/juul-vaping-lawsui...
ndriscoll 2y ago
Even if it's something you want, if there is competition in the space, then since Internet ads work on a real-time auction system, you can expect that the winning bidder is the entity that has the most available margin to make. i.e. it is the worst possible deal for you the customer. So e.g. when you search for something on Amazon and see sponsored results, you can expect that those are the worst possible deal.

randomdata 2y ago

Nobody would buy something without an understanding of it being beneficial. I'll grant you that understandings can be faulty. One may learn that there was no benefit. But that's outside of the ad itself. Invalidating your hypotheseses is an important part of the scientific method.

ndriscoll 2y ago
Explain sugar cereals, soda, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc. The advertisements create the misunderstanding. "Lucky Charms are part of a complete breakfast" etc. No normal person under normal circumstances would think that marshmallows or cookies are part of a healthy meal if you asked them directly to think about it.
- randomdata 2y ago
  What's to explain? They feel good when consumed, and thus improve one's life, even if only for a fleeting moment. Who is buying Lucky Charms because they find them disgusting, but somehow see them as being important? Let's be real: People only (continue to, at least – they may buy once just to try) buy Lucky Charms if they like consuming them.
  - sebastiennight 2y ago
    > Who is buying Lucky Charms because they find them disgusting, but somehow see them as being important? Have... you met a teenager? I'm failing to see the point of this example, as I don't think I've never met a single person who found their first cigarette enjoyable. Is your experience that people buy their first and second pack out of enjoyment of the taste?
    - randomdata 2y ago
      I have never met a teenager who is concerned about eating a "whole" breakfast, no, especially if that "whole" breakfast requires eating something that is otherwise unpleasant. Even if this so-called whole breakfast was some scientific truth, proven to improve health outcomes, what teenager would care? Have... you met a teenager? I don't really see the point of the example either, frankly, but it is what we were given. I expect the contextual parent was just desperately trying to come up with something in the absence of having something meaningful to say.
      - ndriscoll 2y ago
        The point of the example is that there are plenty of things that have no benefit at all, and in fact have obvious downsides that everyone knows about. However, there is an immense amount of marketing around those things to try to make them seem "cool" and minimize their perceived harm. People get addicted to these things, and struggle to stop consuming them even when they know they're literally dying from it. No one in their right mind would ever give their kids Oreos for breakfast, but somehow advertisements make people feel comfortable giving them Oero O's. Any person of sound mind would say that giving that to your kids as a meal is neglect, but people do it, and it's "normal". This is the harm that marketing is capable of. Cookies are, in fact, not a part of a complete breakfast. Evidently, you can convince people that they are by just repeating the message thousands of times to them. I don't see how the people who are involved in making those ads (or the products) can live with themselves. Convincing people to e.g. set their kids up for a life of obesity and early T2 diabetes from poor dietary habits is pure evil, and that's just one example of horrible (yet completely mundane for them) things marketers do. Just imagine being a person who wakes up in the morning and thinks about how to best convince children to try ingesting poison[0]: > Juul Labs, the vaping company that has long insisted it never marketed its products to teenagers, purchased ad space in its early days on numerous youth-focused websites, including those of Nickelodeon, the Cartoon Network, Seventeen magazine and educational sites for middle school and high school students, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Massachusetts attorney general. Everyone involved in something like that should be put in prison. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/juul-vaping-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/juul-vaping-lawsui...

ndriscoll 2y ago

Even if it's something you want, if there is competition in the space, then since Internet ads work on a real-time auction system, you can expect that the winning bidder is the entity that has the most available margin to make. i.e. it is the worst possible deal for you the customer. So e.g. when you search for something on Amazon and see sponsored results, you can expect that those are the worst possible deal.