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when advertising is involved you the user are the product How about: If you're work at a startup where the business model is 'get acquired,' you are the produc
by netcan 13y ago
when advertising is involved you the user are the product
How about: If you're work at a startup where the business model is 'get acquired,' you are the product.
Incidentally, I don't really agree with either of these statements, at least not in their strong forms. The problem with advertising is usually bad advertising. Ads (especially online ads) are usually annoying in inverse proportion to their value. Spam is on the low value & annoying end of the spectrum. 90% of annoyance probably comes from 10% of the value. Regarding privacy, advertising is just the most visible part of something wider and the hidden part of this iceberg is the most worrying.
Anyway, that's besides the point. This "old" blog hints at something sort of hypocritical or schizophrenic about startup culture. On one hand its hackery and lone wolfish and disruptively anti establishment. We can beat you from our basement in our sandals. Hang your cubicles. We don't need bosses or talks from HR departments. We don't need to communicate in corporate speak. There's a hard to deny anti corporate drone streak.
On the other hand, the investment and incentive to found startups is based around the ability to get big fast. Huge. Very fast. Multi billion dollar acquisitions and IPOs in 5-10 years.
Huge means "corporate." Either the startup becomes a huge corporation or their product is put in the hand a big corporation. The real people feel o company where cute memes sound like 'don't be evil' start to sound like "for your convenience…"
I don't have any normative message.
- collyw 13y ago"Anyway, that's besides the point. This "old" blog hints at something sort of hypocritical or schizophrenic about startup culture." I had a similar thought just reading the title. But then again, as the CEO of Motorola said when I worked there, "Everyone is coin operated to some extent".
- LaGrange 13y agoYou're missing one more part of the issue with advertising: brainwashing. In some ways, I'd rather have a silly, mismatched and ugly ad than an ad that's actually effective at altering my behavior. Pretty much the only situation when I want to see an ad is when I'm looking for a specific product, and there always used to be venues that were very effective at that (specialist press, classifieds, or popular streets where restaurants have their windows). Pretty much anywhere else ads are unwelcome, even if they manage to be "nice", and effectively constitute selling chunks of my brain to get access to Facebook. And, for the other point, the "tiny, innovative, disruptive startup" is something I've never bought. At best, it's outsourcing the R&D risk, with very few exceptions. So much innovation happens either in academia, or in terrible, huge corporations like Boeing or Stadler.
- gordaco 13y agoI'd like to add something to this: we like to believe that we are immune to advertising, but we aren't. No matter how much self control and self awareness we may think we have. The consequences may not be as grave as they look at first sight, but it's still a very uncomfortable truth. Recognizing my own vulnerability to ads is one of the many reasons why I block advertising.
- cheepin 13y agoI personally don't think WhatsApp's goal was getting acquired. I think they got an offer they couldn't refuse, but I don't think they would have sold to a normal valuation.