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There's a peevish backlash against advertising that permeates a lot of our culture and especially places like HN[1]. Some of it is founded, especially in older

There's a peevish backlash against advertising that permeates a lot of our culture and especially places like HN[1]. Some of it is founded, especially in older times, when it literally meant (paraphrasing PG) that you are subjected to X amount of abuse for Y amount of content. Some platforms are still like that (TV - for instance advertising tampons to me, is a little silly), but a lot (Google, Amazon, Netflix) aren't. I think in the backlash I often see there's some discomforting thing that people want to express, as if we feel like like we're being had by advertising. It certainly feels that way during the political campaign, and I can sympathize. But on the other hand advertising has certainly helped me out and I can even remember some very real examples. I had no idea the new intel chipset was out until an ad pointed it out. I had no idea that certain clothing and furniture brands existed until ads pointed them out. I had no idea Honda remade the Honda Elite moped in 2010 until an ad pointed that out. All of these were really useful to me, and all of them eventually lead me to buying something. I bought all these things but I don't feel like I've been had. Both the products and the advertisements provided a lot of utility. We don't know what we don't know, as Donald Rumsfeld poetically said. Sometimes advertising can do the good of filling that gap. They deserve that much. Some of the best books I've ever read were not recommended to me by my friends, who, if they share my tastes in books, only share them incidentally. Amazon on the other hand has done something great and given me real, concrete suggestions (read: advertisements) supported by the data I've given them whilst buying and browsing. We have to give them at least a little credit. Advertising, especially for Google/Amazon/Netflix, is solving real problems for both the companies and the consumers. [1] Stories that bubble to the top have titles like "work on something real, not ads" and remind me of phrases like "real women have curves". Both of which seem unnecessarily narrow and just plain mean to me.

jamesbritt 14y ago
But on the other hand advertising has certainly helped me out and I can even remember some very real examples. I had no idea the new intel chipset was out until an ad pointed it out. I had no idea that certain clothing and furniture brands existed until ads pointed them out. I had no idea Honda remade the Honda Elite moped in 2010 until an ad pointed that out. All of these were really useful to me, and all of them eventually lead me to buying something. I have an ad-supported Kindle, and the ads are not terribly annoying. But they're kind of stupid. Amazon knows who I am, and knows how to provide recommendations, but all I see are ads for crap I will likely never care about.
dumbdumbda 14y ago
OK, so why can't ads be optional then? If you want the benefits, then you just "turn on" ads (=helpful suggestions). If ads are beneficial why would they charge you extra to turn them "off"? Under your reasoning, we should be paying extra to see ads, because we'd get helpful suggestions. Your argument makes little sense.
- DeadMonkey321 14y ago
  His point there was that not all ads are evil. As someone who has purchased things based off of Facebook ads that I've seen, I share his "lack of hatred" for ads, provided they're not annoying or malicious. If they keep services I like free or cheaper as a result of their existence, then I'm not going to complain about them too much.
  - dumbdumbda 14y ago
    Your last sentence is intriguing. Do you believe that ads are the only means to keep services "free" or "cheaper"? If you do, then that would explain why you have come to accept them as "necessary" for services to be "free" or "cheap". (i.e., you've made a causal link between ads and "free/cheap") If you don't, then I have more questions for you to answer.
DanBC 14y ago
Some people are determined to never see any ads. I kind of understand that - having an ad for smileys that shouts "HELLO" if you accidentally mouse over it is infuriating. Some ads are obnoxious, or are vectors for malware, or are just very slow. And even if they're not malware, nor obnoxious, nor slow, they're often not at all relevant. This, coupled with no other way to pay for content, (and perhaps a refusal from many people to pay for content) means that ads are a frustrating experience even for someone like me who is pretty ad tolerant. Some people genuinely enjoy good relevant ads, and would be happy to have those displayed to them. And some of the people who hate ads would gladly pay to have ads removed. Much worse that those ads though is the pollution of WWW space with vapid, empty, useless corporate sites that are just huge ads, and which do nothing to give me useful information. Combine that with Google's preference for some domains and web searching is a horrible experience now. And using Google as a reference tool means you'll have weeks of ads served based on the one query you made to discover what a Widget is used for.

jamesbritt 14y ago

But on the other hand advertising has certainly helped me out and I can even remember some very real examples. I had no idea the new intel chipset was out until an ad pointed it out. I had no idea that certain clothing and furniture brands existed until ads pointed them out. I had no idea Honda remade the Honda Elite moped in 2010 until an ad pointed that out. All of these were really useful to me, and all of them eventually lead me to buying something. I have an ad-supported Kindle, and the ads are not terribly annoying. But they're kind of stupid. Amazon knows who I am, and knows how to provide recommendations, but all I see are ads for crap I will likely never care about.

dumbdumbda 14y ago

OK, so why can't ads be optional then? If you want the benefits, then you just "turn on" ads (=helpful suggestions). If ads are beneficial why would they charge you extra to turn them "off"? Under your reasoning, we should be paying extra to see ads, because we'd get helpful suggestions. Your argument makes little sense.

DeadMonkey321 14y ago
His point there was that not all ads are evil. As someone who has purchased things based off of Facebook ads that I've seen, I share his "lack of hatred" for ads, provided they're not annoying or malicious. If they keep services I like free or cheaper as a result of their existence, then I'm not going to complain about them too much.
- dumbdumbda 14y ago
  Your last sentence is intriguing. Do you believe that ads are the only means to keep services "free" or "cheaper"? If you do, then that would explain why you have come to accept them as "necessary" for services to be "free" or "cheap". (i.e., you've made a causal link between ads and "free/cheap") If you don't, then I have more questions for you to answer.

DanBC 14y ago

Some people are determined to never see any ads. I kind of understand that - having an ad for smileys that shouts "HELLO" if you accidentally mouse over it is infuriating. Some ads are obnoxious, or are vectors for malware, or are just very slow. And even if they're not malware, nor obnoxious, nor slow, they're often not at all relevant. This, coupled with no other way to pay for content, (and perhaps a refusal from many people to pay for content) means that ads are a frustrating experience even for someone like me who is pretty ad tolerant. Some people genuinely enjoy good relevant ads, and would be happy to have those displayed to them. And some of the people who hate ads would gladly pay to have ads removed. Much worse that those ads though is the pollution of WWW space with vapid, empty, useless corporate sites that are just huge ads, and which do nothing to give me useful information. Combine that with Google's preference for some domains and web searching is a horrible experience now. And using Google as a reference tool means you'll have weeks of ads served based on the one query you made to discover what a Widget is used for.