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The author reflects how much we've all bought into the utter bullshit that advertising makes things free. There is no free lunch, and there is no free web. In

The author reflects how much we've all bought into the utter bullshit that advertising makes things free. There is no free lunch, and there is no free web. In truth ads actually make things much more expensive, as I'll explain below. In addition most ads are fundamentally manipulative if not dishonest, and thereby undermine democracy and rational free markets. Advertising simply shifts the cost of the "fee lunch" to the price of the advertised products. In other words we still end up paying. It may even shift costs regressively, toward lower incomes and the less educated, in which case the poor are subsidizing the better off. BUT IT'S WORSE... We end up paying a lot more than if we just paid for our content and services straight up. Not only are you still paying for the costs of the "free website", you are paying for all that advertising overhead, the costs of advertising technology and infrastructure (huge, btw), the agency and creative costs (Don Draper and company have to pay for the hookers and scotch somehow, not to mention what’s-his-name who basically just lounges in his office barefoot thinking Japanese), and big marketing departments that often outnumber the people who actually write or make things. You are also paying the opportunity cost of inferior product, because that’s what happens when websites have to design to please advertisers over pleasing us, the users. Dalton Caldwell makes this point comparing Sourceforge to Github: http://daltoncaldwell.com/an-audacious-proposal http://daltoncaldwell.com/an-audacious-proposal. Our identities and privacy are bought and sold to the highest bidders. So we foot the bill for those bids AND we pay the cost of lost privacy. A double whammy! It's personalization? Bullshit. Personalization means optimizing something for me, not optimizing for the advertiser. Again, who's the real customer? IT GETS EVEN WORSE... Think of the social costs of advertising. The web is infested with misinformation and manipulation. Beside the lying ads themselves, relying on a revenue stream entirely dependent on how many ads are seen severely affects the moral choices of those who decide what gets produced and how its presented. What are the costs of a misinformed and variously manipulated citizenry, of distortions to the free-market? Knowledge and discourse are the lifeblood of both democracy, free markets, progress. The web, from the little scammy websites to the big brand ones that so many blindly trust, has a huge influence on who we vote for, what we buy, and most importantly, what we believe.

icebraining 13y ago
First, it's scaremongering to claim that ads may be regressive. Yes, maybe they are, or maybe the inverse is true, since plenty of advertising targets more affluent demographics while lowering the costs of the services displaying it. Without more data, we can't know. As for being more expensive, that's based on the idea that higher costs necessarily lead to higher prices, which is far from a constant truth outside of the world of spherical cows and perfect competition. In some sectors, it could make it harder for startups to compete, raising the rent that an incumbent may be able to extract from consumers as profits. Besides, removing advertising would remove a vehicle but not the motivation, so it's to be expected that firms would continue to invest in ways of capturing customers, which may or may not be cheaper that advertising. Empirically, the results seem mixed, with the removal of advertising both lowering as well as raising prices in different sectors of the economy, so the conclusions aren't obvious. I dislike advertising and I work for a company that charges for its products, by the way.
temuze 13y ago
You are correct in saying there's no free lunch. However, I disagree with a couple things. 1) We, as consumers, do not pay for the ad tech infrastructure - the publishers do. Their purpose is to make the inventory more valuable and allow publishers to get more money than they normally would. Better targeted ads mean less ads. 2) The Dalton Caldwell argument doesn't hold up. Do television programs design for advertisers? Yes, but they also need to design for consumers. A television show that has commercials all the time will get less views and so will an ad infested website with a terrible experience. That fear of alienation is why Facebook isn't a giant display ad. 3) Websites aren't necessarily backed by the purchase of products through ads. There are such things as "brand recognition" ads that do not rely on instant action. After all, most television ads are not informomercials or "buy now" ads. I think we'll see more brand recognition ads online in the next couple years and online ads will become more mainstream. You'll see less scummy ads as the internet continues to grow more influential and the social cost will diminish.
- eevilspock 13y ago
  1) Where do you think publisher's get the money to pay for the infrastructure? Where do you think advertisers who pay publishers get that money? 2) Sure, they can't totally treat consumers as tools. But the product is less than what it would be if it were purely designed for users. Have you heard the argument that advertisers are Google's true customers, that we are the product? Google's once famous clean and neutral search results are now cluttered and biased (see [1]). From a Wired article [2]: "Lloyd made his pitch, proposing a quantum version of Google’s search engine whereby users could make queries and receive results without Google knowing which questions were asked. The men were intrigued. But after conferring with their business manager the next day, Brin and Page informed Lloyd that his scheme went against their business plan. “They want to know everything about everybody who uses their products and services,” he joked." 3) See #1 above. Why do brands spend money on brand recognition, and where does that money come from? You say you agree that there is no free lunch but your disagreements contradict that claim. --- [1] http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/new-banner-ads-push-actual-google-results-to-bottom-12-of-the-screen/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/new-banner-ads-push-... [2] http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/computers-big-data/all/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/computers-big-data...

icebraining 13y ago

First, it's scaremongering to claim that ads may be regressive. Yes, maybe they are, or maybe the inverse is true, since plenty of advertising targets more affluent demographics while lowering the costs of the services displaying it. Without more data, we can't know. As for being more expensive, that's based on the idea that higher costs necessarily lead to higher prices, which is far from a constant truth outside of the world of spherical cows and perfect competition. In some sectors, it could make it harder for startups to compete, raising the rent that an incumbent may be able to extract from consumers as profits. Besides, removing advertising would remove a vehicle but not the motivation, so it's to be expected that firms would continue to invest in ways of capturing customers, which may or may not be cheaper that advertising. Empirically, the results seem mixed, with the removal of advertising both lowering as well as raising prices in different sectors of the economy, so the conclusions aren't obvious. I dislike advertising and I work for a company that charges for its products, by the way.

temuze 13y ago

You are correct in saying there's no free lunch. However, I disagree with a couple things. 1) We, as consumers, do not pay for the ad tech infrastructure - the publishers do. Their purpose is to make the inventory more valuable and allow publishers to get more money than they normally would. Better targeted ads mean less ads. 2) The Dalton Caldwell argument doesn't hold up. Do television programs design for advertisers? Yes, but they also need to design for consumers. A television show that has commercials all the time will get less views and so will an ad infested website with a terrible experience. That fear of alienation is why Facebook isn't a giant display ad. 3) Websites aren't necessarily backed by the purchase of products through ads. There are such things as "brand recognition" ads that do not rely on instant action. After all, most television ads are not informomercials or "buy now" ads. I think we'll see more brand recognition ads online in the next couple years and online ads will become more mainstream. You'll see less scummy ads as the internet continues to grow more influential and the social cost will diminish.

eevilspock 13y ago
1) Where do you think publisher's get the money to pay for the infrastructure? Where do you think advertisers who pay publishers get that money? 2) Sure, they can't totally treat consumers as tools. But the product is less than what it would be if it were purely designed for users. Have you heard the argument that advertisers are Google's true customers, that we are the product? Google's once famous clean and neutral search results are now cluttered and biased (see [1]). From a Wired article [2]: "Lloyd made his pitch, proposing a quantum version of Google’s search engine whereby users could make queries and receive results without Google knowing which questions were asked. The men were intrigued. But after conferring with their business manager the next day, Brin and Page informed Lloyd that his scheme went against their business plan. “They want to know everything about everybody who uses their products and services,” he joked." 3) See #1 above. Why do brands spend money on brand recognition, and where does that money come from? You say you agree that there is no free lunch but your disagreements contradict that claim. --- [1] http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/new-banner-ads-push-actual-google-results-to-bottom-12-of-the-screen/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/new-banner-ads-push-... [2] http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/computers-big-data/all/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/computers-big-data...