7 ms·

Well being in times of algorithms

73 points by articsputnik 10mo ago

shrewdcomputer 10mo ago
> With the AI slop being promoted on the major social media platform’s algorithm, I believe we will go back to following real humans. Back to followers, where we decide who we want to see. This is a nice thought but I think it's wrong. If TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts have proven anything, it's that people don't want to decide they want to consume. It's cynical but it's what the data has shown time and again works for these platforms. Passive consumption is easier for the user and companies know it keeps us online longer. When you ask people, they will say they want to see who they follow but their behaviour, incentivised by companies, says otherwise.
- raincole 10mo ago
  It is funny that people on Hackernews are (acting as if they were) against algorithmic feeds. This very site is one of the trailblazers that found out how much people prefer algorithmic feeds to chronological ones.
  - intothemild 10mo ago
    I think you'll find that people who are against algo-feeds are against that being the only choice.
    - raincole 10mo ago
      Personally speaking I think the issue is personalized algorithmic feeds. I want the algorithm to analyze spammers' behavior and filter them out for everyone. Not analyzing my behaviors to filter content for me.
      - intothemild 10mo ago
        Yes! exactly
      - boldcode69 10mo ago
        [dead]
  - tayo42 10mo ago
    On its own an algorithmic feed is fine. Automatically give people what they want to see. Like TV without flipping channels. It just turned into something out of control with unintended side effects and immoral goals.
  - andrepd 10mo ago
    In what sense is HN an algorithmic feed? It is neither personalised nor does it have a significant discretionary boost beyond "age" and "upvotes". It's qualitatively a different thing.
    - akersten 10mo ago
      Sort by weighted upvotes vs time decay is an algorithm. You can review the psedocode here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013 Note that there is also "censorship" (!) - `gag_factor` - even in this free thought paradise. The lesson is that no matter your scale, suppressing certain content is necessary to prevent low quality posts and spam from turning your site into a swamp. Correct, it is not personalized. So we need a different word than 'algorithmic'. People keep saying that word when they want to "ban" a certain kind of math. But they should at least be particular about what they don't like (sort your friends' posts chronologically is also a personalized algorithm, after all..)
      - andrepd 10mo ago
        The comments in that link claimed that gag = joke, not gag as in gag order :p
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 10mo ago
  << It's cynical but But is it cynical if it is accurate.
- nicbou 10mo ago
  Perhaps it's a bit like people preferring snacking to a home-cooked meal. At the end of a long day it's nice to be effortlessly entertained, but you can't have just bite-sized experiences. At some point you need to go deeper, to be creative, to chip in.
dkdcio 10mo ago
this feels incomplete without mentioning why everything is trying to keep our attention: paid digital advertisement. remove the incentive for the slopfest and “the algorithm” becomes far less of a problem (see HackerNews)
- netdevphoenix 10mo ago
  Just saying paid digital advertisement feels incomplete without mentioning why digital advertisement exists: most of the public would refuse to pay for services they take for granted such as email services, social media, etc at a level enough that companies would not feel compelled to sell out to third party advertisers. The struggles of Medium exemplify this very well. Ads are like the processed meat of our internet diet.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 10mo ago
    No. It has been proven by now that even if the public DOES pay, the advertising offers another channel of revenue, which executives loathe to ignore.
    - artemonster 10mo ago
      Source?
      - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 10mo ago
        << Source Eh. Sure, lets start at Netflix as a the edge of streaming wars for a quick example: https://nscreenmedia.com/netflix-ad-values-5-dollar-increase/ https://nscreenmedia.com/netflix-ad-values-5-dollar-increase... https://nypost.com/2025/12/12/entertainment/streamers-are-rising-prices-at-an-astonishing-rate-heres-how-much-more-youre-paying/ https://nypost.com/2025/12/12/entertainment/streamers-are-ri... https://deadline.com/2024/10/netflix-price-hikes-executives-q3-earnings-call-1236119418/ https://deadline.com/2024/10/netflix-price-hikes-executives-... I would like then point to exec statement in last one: “Our approach to pricing has been remarkably consistent over many, many years,” Co-CEO Greg Peters said. “Our core theory is, we’ve got to work really, really hard to make sure we are delivering more value to members every quarter. Then, we assess based on how that’s going, through metrics like engagement, acquisition and retention, did we do a good job there? How we actually deliver that promise of more value. If we do, then we occasionally ask members to pay a bit more, so we can invest that forward and keep that whole process going.” I don't have use my corporate to human translator machine..
ursAxZA 10mo ago
I prefer “rare” to “well-done” — in steak, and in life. Algorithms tend to optimize us toward well-being as “well-done”: predictable, consistent, uniformly cooked. Safe, measurable, repeatable. But human experience is closer to “rare”: uneven, risky, asymmetric, and still alive. The parts that matter most are often the ones that don’t fit cleanly into metrics. If everything becomes optimized, nothing remains interesting. And more importantly, we risk replacing well-being with the monitoring of well-being. When a life is constantly optimized, scored, nudged, and corrected, it gradually stops being a life that is actually experienced.
- purple_basilisk 10mo ago
  Thank you for this deeply revealing take. I think this is the dynamic at the core of what matters here. Reminds me of Dostoevsky's take on what people really want - here's an interesting short piece that direction. https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/freedom/these-are-barbarous-times https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/freedom/these-are-barbarous...
  - ursAxZA 10mo ago
    Thanks for sharing this. It made me wonder where a future goes when it keeps trying to define both barbarism and normalcy. As a small tribute in return, three films came to mind: Bicentennial Man, Gattaca, Fight Club. I’ve always preferred Ivan the Fool — choosing to live, rather than living inside a definition.
aeonfox 10mo ago
> To get away from algorithms, away from being locked in and dependent on the platform, away from big tech chasing our attention, back to real connections as opposed to losing our followers with the Death of the Follower. We need open platforms such as Open Social Media and an open web Nah. We need move back to the real world being the destination instead of the screen. If the technology is not augmenting your life in meatspace, it's slowly robbing you of your somatic experience and turning you into something more machine-like. Doesn't matter whether the technology is open web or proprietary, the effect is the same.
- davnicwil 10mo ago
  I think I disagree, if I understand you correctly. Technology is augmenting real world experiences all the time, and not always in positive ways. Whenever anyone does anything with the real world as the destination, the phone comes too, and all that comes with the phone intersects with whatever it is you're doing. Again not always in positive ways. I completely agree that the nature of the technology / platform doesn't matter or affect this.
  - sokka_h2otribe 10mo ago
    How are you disagreeing? I think your point is separate? Poster above is making a claim about what brings us into our body-experiences, or what takes us out. Technically mostly noting that technology takes us out of the somatic experience. Accessibility? Meditation apps? There are things with technology that allow us to be more connected with each other and ourselves in some ways. But not really to the somatic experience of their body, the world around them. Generally if I understand OP correctly, I strongly agree. As a techie it took me a long time to understand the somatic experience as the missing part to my world view and thinking.
    - davnicwil 10mo ago
      I agree, I think we were just talking to slightly different points!
  - 10mo ago
FergusArgyll 10mo ago
I know this is unrelated but the title reminded me of the great book. Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions Book by Brian Christian, Thomas L. Griffiths, and Tom Griffiths
mrweasel 10mo ago
> I feel that people are fed up with the internet for the first time since its creation. At least for a great number of people, I believe this to be true. The things that initially made me interrested in the internet, computers and and software are gone from the mainstream. The web has developed in to a perverted Minitel, it's a place I go to order something, if I can't find it in local stored, I read a little news, I look up documentation, and then I check out again. Much the same for TV really, there's no real reason for me to watch the news, movies and shows. The news is poorly covered and just rehashes of the same reporting. Movies and TV shows are commercialized to the point where I'm not even going to try, on the off chance that I hit something good. The stuff I buy is also often highly selective, as the chance of buying juke is at an al time high, better to buy nothing. I feel like we're close to a major reset, at least for a portion of the population. Many simply can't stand sad state of algorithms, shareholder interests, subscriptions and just pure greed at the expense of everything else. If the reset isn't going to be society wide (which it probably isn't because a large part of the population also seem to not give a shit or they are actively profiting of the current state of affairs), then we're going to see one group quietly distancing themselves from media, technology and modernity. We'll use technology only to the extend where it helps us to our jobs and function in society, taking care to not compromise our humanity, then log right back off. The original author escapes me, but the quote: "The future has lost it's appeal to me" seem increasingly true with every passing day.
- reactordev 10mo ago
  I feel this way. I used to spend so much time online, learning, coding, playing. Through the dot com boom and bust. Through the financial crisis after financial crisis. Web 2.0. Social media. I’ve checked out on pretty much everything except for OSS. I’m looking for land and an RV to start homesteading because I feel like that’s the only thing that will distract me from doom scrolling news.
  - Aurornis 10mo ago
    > I’m looking for land and an RV to start homesteading because I feel like that’s the only thing that will distract me from doom scrolling news. One anecdote: An old acquaintance from college did something like this, more or less. Instead of making her more offline, it made her more bored and more removed from in-person social interactions. It only increased desire to scroll online content. If you really want to be less online, go out into the world with other people and do things. Or even just join an initiative or company where people are working on something together.
blenderob 10mo ago
I want to vent about the way the word "algorithm" is increasingly used as shorthand for AI-driven, attention-sucking systems. "Algorithm" is a beautiful and very old word. Long before recommender systems and engagement metrics, it meant precise problem-solving methods. Quicksort is an algorithm. Binary search is an algorithm. GCD is an algorithm. Most of modern technology exists because of algorithms in this broader, richer sense. It is one of the foundations of CS. Yes, machine-learning systems are also algorithms. But collapsing the term to mean only opaque, attention-maximizing mechanisms strips it of its meaning and history. It taints a neutral technical concept as something manipulative by default. It's more so disappointing when this comes from people in tech. We should be more careful with our vocabulary. Maybe we should call these systems what they are. Maybe "engagement engines", "recommender systems", or "attention-suckers" instead of letting one narrow and disturbing use redefine the word altogether.
- zetanor 10mo ago
  The Algo™ does solve the problem of turning man-hours into 3 dollars per hour of shareholder value.
ViktorRay 10mo ago
It’s frustrating to me to see this article promote Bluesky. Both Bluesky and Mastadon can lead to the same negativity, mental health issues, and addiction and misery and so on as all of the other social media platforms. Maybe the Bluesky and Mastadon algorithms are or are not as addiction producing as Twitter or Facebook. I don’t know. But the harms are still there.
- Aurornis 10mo ago
  I agree. I was optimistic that one of Bluesky, Mastodon, or Threads would emerge as a better version of Twitter without the problems, but that hasn't been the case for me. In fact, a lot of the people I followed who migrated to those platforms have seemingly spiraled deeper into negativity and doom on those platforms. One person I followed described Bluesky as the place to go if you want to be viciously attacked and torn apart by people who 98% agree with what you're saying.
  - enether 9mo ago
    +1. Bluesky is a left-leaning political mess - I strictly follow tech-only accounts yet get posts on the timeline about what this week's monstrous White House act was. This is not a judgement against the left, but rather against Bluesky. As another example - the Bitcoin/cypherpunk community went to Nostr. Nostr today is the same slop as Bitcoin Twitter was before. It has a tiny bit more of an organic feel to it - but it basically spiralled to the same cookie-cutter attention-grabbing content. Things like mindless cat videos. X as we know is already problematic. Basically the current state is that all platforms suck
artemonster 10mo ago
On the topic of ads on the web: can someone confirm they provide any positive ROI at all? Not once an ad was ever relevant, and I have clicked one maybe once or twice in my life.
- digitalsushi 10mo ago
  i'm probably using an informal fallacy but if online advertisers earn hundreds of billions of dollars, someone must be finding some return on their investment. i might be wrong, it might just be a huge grift, but i dont know how to come to that conclusion
  - artemonster 10mo ago
    My suspicion that is a huge grift ? This is what I want to find out. I know very little people in my social circle that used internet ads successfully for their business and very little that found them useful at all
    - phainopepla2 10mo ago
      I know some artisans who have had some success with very micro targeted Instagram ads
- charcircuit 10mo ago
  It helped me find mobile games that were fun.
- add-sub-mul-div 10mo ago
  Before the current shiny thing replaced it, a whole generation of tech labor was wasted on ad tech. 20 years in, if it wasn't worth the investment I'd hope all the data engineering and data science would have surfaced that.
- wmeredith 10mo ago
  Google made $35,000,000,000 on ads in Q1 2025. Do you think that's 35 billions accidents? Doubtful. The far more likely answer is that your propensity to click ads is not in line with most.
fedeb95 10mo ago
block google tracking and search history (minor downside for a major gain). Disable the youtube homepage. Use services that keep out as much trackers as possible: duckduckgo (you can still use google with !g), an email that's not google, a browser that's not chrome. All this reduces the algorithms power over your choices. Use social networks in a healthy way: avoid scrolling on the home/main page. Search for the information you want yourself and don't rely on what's handed to you. This works in general, TV, papers, ...

73 points by articsputnik 10mo ago

> With the AI slop being promoted on the major social media platform’s algorithm, I believe we will go back to following real humans. Back to followers, where we decide who we want to see. This is a nice thought but I think it's wrong. If TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts have proven anything, it's that people don't want to decide they want to consume. It's cynical but it's what the data has shown time and again works for these platforms. Passive consumption is easier for the user and companies know it keeps us online longer. When you ask people, they will say they want to see who they follow but their behaviour, incentivised by companies, says otherwise.

raincole 10mo ago
It is funny that people on Hackernews are (acting as if they were) against algorithmic feeds. This very site is one of the trailblazers that found out how much people prefer algorithmic feeds to chronological ones.
- intothemild 10mo ago
  I think you'll find that people who are against algo-feeds are against that being the only choice.
  - raincole 10mo ago
    Personally speaking I think the issue is personalized algorithmic feeds. I want the algorithm to analyze spammers' behavior and filter them out for everyone. Not analyzing my behaviors to filter content for me.
    - intothemild 10mo ago
      Yes! exactly
    - boldcode69 10mo ago
      [dead]
- tayo42 10mo ago
  On its own an algorithmic feed is fine. Automatically give people what they want to see. Like TV without flipping channels. It just turned into something out of control with unintended side effects and immoral goals.
- andrepd 10mo ago
  In what sense is HN an algorithmic feed? It is neither personalised nor does it have a significant discretionary boost beyond "age" and "upvotes". It's qualitatively a different thing.
  - akersten 10mo ago
    Sort by weighted upvotes vs time decay is an algorithm. You can review the psedocode here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013 Note that there is also "censorship" (!) - `gag_factor` - even in this free thought paradise. The lesson is that no matter your scale, suppressing certain content is necessary to prevent low quality posts and spam from turning your site into a swamp. Correct, it is not personalized. So we need a different word than 'algorithmic'. People keep saying that word when they want to "ban" a certain kind of math. But they should at least be particular about what they don't like (sort your friends' posts chronologically is also a personalized algorithm, after all..)
    - andrepd 10mo ago
      The comments in that link claimed that gag = joke, not gag as in gag order :p
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 10mo ago
<< It's cynical but But is it cynical if it is accurate.
nicbou 10mo ago
Perhaps it's a bit like people preferring snacking to a home-cooked meal. At the end of a long day it's nice to be effortlessly entertained, but you can't have just bite-sized experiences. At some point you need to go deeper, to be creative, to chip in.

dkdcio 10mo ago

this feels incomplete without mentioning why everything is trying to keep our attention: paid digital advertisement. remove the incentive for the slopfest and “the algorithm” becomes far less of a problem (see HackerNews)

netdevphoenix 10mo ago
Just saying paid digital advertisement feels incomplete without mentioning why digital advertisement exists: most of the public would refuse to pay for services they take for granted such as email services, social media, etc at a level enough that companies would not feel compelled to sell out to third party advertisers. The struggles of Medium exemplify this very well. Ads are like the processed meat of our internet diet.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 10mo ago
  No. It has been proven by now that even if the public DOES pay, the advertising offers another channel of revenue, which executives loathe to ignore.
  - artemonster 10mo ago
    Source?
    - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 10mo ago
      << Source Eh. Sure, lets start at Netflix as a the edge of streaming wars for a quick example: https://nscreenmedia.com/netflix-ad-values-5-dollar-increase/ https://nscreenmedia.com/netflix-ad-values-5-dollar-increase... https://nypost.com/2025/12/12/entertainment/streamers-are-rising-prices-at-an-astonishing-rate-heres-how-much-more-youre-paying/ https://nypost.com/2025/12/12/entertainment/streamers-are-ri... https://deadline.com/2024/10/netflix-price-hikes-executives-q3-earnings-call-1236119418/ https://deadline.com/2024/10/netflix-price-hikes-executives-... I would like then point to exec statement in last one: “Our approach to pricing has been remarkably consistent over many, many years,” Co-CEO Greg Peters said. “Our core theory is, we’ve got to work really, really hard to make sure we are delivering more value to members every quarter. Then, we assess based on how that’s going, through metrics like engagement, acquisition and retention, did we do a good job there? How we actually deliver that promise of more value. If we do, then we occasionally ask members to pay a bit more, so we can invest that forward and keep that whole process going.” I don't have use my corporate to human translator machine..

ursAxZA 10mo ago

I prefer “rare” to “well-done” — in steak, and in life. Algorithms tend to optimize us toward well-being as “well-done”: predictable, consistent, uniformly cooked. Safe, measurable, repeatable. But human experience is closer to “rare”: uneven, risky, asymmetric, and still alive. The parts that matter most are often the ones that don’t fit cleanly into metrics. If everything becomes optimized, nothing remains interesting. And more importantly, we risk replacing well-being with the monitoring of well-being. When a life is constantly optimized, scored, nudged, and corrected, it gradually stops being a life that is actually experienced.

purple_basilisk 10mo ago
Thank you for this deeply revealing take. I think this is the dynamic at the core of what matters here. Reminds me of Dostoevsky's take on what people really want - here's an interesting short piece that direction. https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/freedom/these-are-barbarous-times https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/freedom/these-are-barbarous...
- ursAxZA 10mo ago
  Thanks for sharing this. It made me wonder where a future goes when it keeps trying to define both barbarism and normalcy. As a small tribute in return, three films came to mind: Bicentennial Man, Gattaca, Fight Club. I’ve always preferred Ivan the Fool — choosing to live, rather than living inside a definition.

aeonfox 10mo ago

> To get away from algorithms, away from being locked in and dependent on the platform, away from big tech chasing our attention, back to real connections as opposed to losing our followers with the Death of the Follower. We need open platforms such as Open Social Media and an open web Nah. We need move back to the real world being the destination instead of the screen. If the technology is not augmenting your life in meatspace, it's slowly robbing you of your somatic experience and turning you into something more machine-like. Doesn't matter whether the technology is open web or proprietary, the effect is the same.

davnicwil 10mo ago
I think I disagree, if I understand you correctly. Technology is augmenting real world experiences all the time, and not always in positive ways. Whenever anyone does anything with the real world as the destination, the phone comes too, and all that comes with the phone intersects with whatever it is you're doing. Again not always in positive ways. I completely agree that the nature of the technology / platform doesn't matter or affect this.
- sokka_h2otribe 10mo ago
  How are you disagreeing? I think your point is separate? Poster above is making a claim about what brings us into our body-experiences, or what takes us out. Technically mostly noting that technology takes us out of the somatic experience. Accessibility? Meditation apps? There are things with technology that allow us to be more connected with each other and ourselves in some ways. But not really to the somatic experience of their body, the world around them. Generally if I understand OP correctly, I strongly agree. As a techie it took me a long time to understand the somatic experience as the missing part to my world view and thinking.
  - davnicwil 10mo ago
    I agree, I think we were just talking to slightly different points!
- 10mo ago

FergusArgyll 10mo ago

I know this is unrelated but the title reminded me of the great book. Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions Book by Brian Christian, Thomas L. Griffiths, and Tom Griffiths

mrweasel 10mo ago

> I feel that people are fed up with the internet for the first time since its creation. At least for a great number of people, I believe this to be true. The things that initially made me interrested in the internet, computers and and software are gone from the mainstream. The web has developed in to a perverted Minitel, it's a place I go to order something, if I can't find it in local stored, I read a little news, I look up documentation, and then I check out again. Much the same for TV really, there's no real reason for me to watch the news, movies and shows. The news is poorly covered and just rehashes of the same reporting. Movies and TV shows are commercialized to the point where I'm not even going to try, on the off chance that I hit something good. The stuff I buy is also often highly selective, as the chance of buying juke is at an al time high, better to buy nothing. I feel like we're close to a major reset, at least for a portion of the population. Many simply can't stand sad state of algorithms, shareholder interests, subscriptions and just pure greed at the expense of everything else. If the reset isn't going to be society wide (which it probably isn't because a large part of the population also seem to not give a shit or they are actively profiting of the current state of affairs), then we're going to see one group quietly distancing themselves from media, technology and modernity. We'll use technology only to the extend where it helps us to our jobs and function in society, taking care to not compromise our humanity, then log right back off. The original author escapes me, but the quote: "The future has lost it's appeal to me" seem increasingly true with every passing day.

reactordev 10mo ago
I feel this way. I used to spend so much time online, learning, coding, playing. Through the dot com boom and bust. Through the financial crisis after financial crisis. Web 2.0. Social media. I’ve checked out on pretty much everything except for OSS. I’m looking for land and an RV to start homesteading because I feel like that’s the only thing that will distract me from doom scrolling news.
- Aurornis 10mo ago
  > I’m looking for land and an RV to start homesteading because I feel like that’s the only thing that will distract me from doom scrolling news. One anecdote: An old acquaintance from college did something like this, more or less. Instead of making her more offline, it made her more bored and more removed from in-person social interactions. It only increased desire to scroll online content. If you really want to be less online, go out into the world with other people and do things. Or even just join an initiative or company where people are working on something together.

blenderob 10mo ago

I want to vent about the way the word "algorithm" is increasingly used as shorthand for AI-driven, attention-sucking systems. "Algorithm" is a beautiful and very old word. Long before recommender systems and engagement metrics, it meant precise problem-solving methods. Quicksort is an algorithm. Binary search is an algorithm. GCD is an algorithm. Most of modern technology exists because of algorithms in this broader, richer sense. It is one of the foundations of CS. Yes, machine-learning systems are also algorithms. But collapsing the term to mean only opaque, attention-maximizing mechanisms strips it of its meaning and history. It taints a neutral technical concept as something manipulative by default. It's more so disappointing when this comes from people in tech. We should be more careful with our vocabulary. Maybe we should call these systems what they are. Maybe "engagement engines", "recommender systems", or "attention-suckers" instead of letting one narrow and disturbing use redefine the word altogether.

zetanor 10mo ago
The Algo™ does solve the problem of turning man-hours into 3 dollars per hour of shareholder value.

ViktorRay 10mo ago

It’s frustrating to me to see this article promote Bluesky. Both Bluesky and Mastadon can lead to the same negativity, mental health issues, and addiction and misery and so on as all of the other social media platforms. Maybe the Bluesky and Mastadon algorithms are or are not as addiction producing as Twitter or Facebook. I don’t know. But the harms are still there.

Aurornis 10mo ago
I agree. I was optimistic that one of Bluesky, Mastodon, or Threads would emerge as a better version of Twitter without the problems, but that hasn't been the case for me. In fact, a lot of the people I followed who migrated to those platforms have seemingly spiraled deeper into negativity and doom on those platforms. One person I followed described Bluesky as the place to go if you want to be viciously attacked and torn apart by people who 98% agree with what you're saying.
- enether 9mo ago
  +1. Bluesky is a left-leaning political mess - I strictly follow tech-only accounts yet get posts on the timeline about what this week's monstrous White House act was. This is not a judgement against the left, but rather against Bluesky. As another example - the Bitcoin/cypherpunk community went to Nostr. Nostr today is the same slop as Bitcoin Twitter was before. It has a tiny bit more of an organic feel to it - but it basically spiralled to the same cookie-cutter attention-grabbing content. Things like mindless cat videos. X as we know is already problematic. Basically the current state is that all platforms suck

artemonster 10mo ago

On the topic of ads on the web: can someone confirm they provide any positive ROI at all? Not once an ad was ever relevant, and I have clicked one maybe once or twice in my life.

digitalsushi 10mo ago
i'm probably using an informal fallacy but if online advertisers earn hundreds of billions of dollars, someone must be finding some return on their investment. i might be wrong, it might just be a huge grift, but i dont know how to come to that conclusion
- artemonster 10mo ago
  My suspicion that is a huge grift ? This is what I want to find out. I know very little people in my social circle that used internet ads successfully for their business and very little that found them useful at all
  - phainopepla2 10mo ago
    I know some artisans who have had some success with very micro targeted Instagram ads
charcircuit 10mo ago
It helped me find mobile games that were fun.
add-sub-mul-div 10mo ago
Before the current shiny thing replaced it, a whole generation of tech labor was wasted on ad tech. 20 years in, if it wasn't worth the investment I'd hope all the data engineering and data science would have surfaced that.
wmeredith 10mo ago
Google made $35,000,000,000 on ads in Q1 2025. Do you think that's 35 billions accidents? Doubtful. The far more likely answer is that your propensity to click ads is not in line with most.

fedeb95 10mo ago

block google tracking and search history (minor downside for a major gain). Disable the youtube homepage. Use services that keep out as much trackers as possible: duckduckgo (you can still use google with !g), an email that's not google, a browser that's not chrome. All this reduces the algorithms power over your choices. Use social networks in a healthy way: avoid scrolling on the home/main page. Search for the information you want yourself and don't rely on what's handed to you. This works in general, TV, papers, ...