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"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Because nearly every internet business gets it's

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Because nearly every internet business gets it's revenue from advertising, a lot of good people jump through hoops to convince themselves that they have not made a deal with the devil. The downvotes[1] come fast when I point out this moral and cognitive dissonance, usually without any counter argument since they just want me to go away. When I talk to anyone who's livelihood doesn't rely on advertising or marketing, there is near unanimous agreement that advertising is fundamentally manipulative and dishonest. Besides the social cost of Advertising, there many other costs[2]. The idea that advertising gives us free web content and services is utter bullshit. - [1] The cowardly downvotes with no counter argument have already started. Upton Sinclair is the actual source of the quote at the top. A wise man who got a bunch of downvotes in his time. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7767811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7767811

profquail 12y ago
> "Because nearly every internet business gets it's revenue from advertising" Citation please? There are many "internet businesses" that don't derive their revenue from advertising, e.g., AWS, Dropbox, Netflix. Spotify derives some revenue from advertising, but their core business is subscriptions. ad nauseum
- eevilspock 12y ago
  Count all of the web content you've consumed and all the web services you've used in the past year. Now count all the ones you've paid for. Also, those paid-for services you mention are of such high quality (to you, not advertisers) because you pay for them. You are the customer not the product, as they say.
  - gizmo686 12y ago
    That isn't entirely fair. There are some websites that offer a free tier in the hopes that enough users will buy the paid tier. I suppose one could call this a form of advertising, but Dropbox giving me 2gb free does not seem to the type of manipulative advertising you are referring to (and is not a revenue source for them).
    - eevilspock 12y ago
      Granted. But it does't change the numbers very much. Keep counting.
  - enraged_camel 12y ago
    You're right, and it's depressing that you're being downvoted. Then again, HN can be a very hostile place if you bring an unpopular perspective to a discussion, even if that perspective is presented with clarity of thought and reason.
    - vdaniuk 12y ago
      Unpopular? Really? "Advertising is bad" is one of the most supported memes on HN.
    - eevilspock 12y ago
      Thanks. The vote total on my original comment has swung up and down so many times that I know it's getting lots of downvotes. The same goes for many of my previous comments in this vein. As to vdaniuk's claims of an anti-advertising meme on HN, I say: "show me". I've seen little.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Most people don't pay for Wikipedia, how are they the product? Many people pay for Hulu and many other services, and still get ads, how are they not the product? That cliché can't die soon enough.
    - jamesisaac 12y ago
      It's quite representative of the problem if you can't identify the difference between Wikipedia - a non-profit which is entirely ad-free and runs exclusively on donations, compared with the majority of other free sites which are funded by subjecting their visitors to advertising. No wonder Wikipedia has so to push so hard with its annual donation drives, if people can't even recognise the benefits of keeping it free from commercialism. Hulu is an example which mixes both approaches - clearly an $8/mo premium subscription isn't enough to support their business model, so it has to be supplemented with ads. Not sure why this needs explaining. TV is obviously an industry very tightly coupled with ads, making it more difficult to disrupt with a fully ad-free approach.
      - icebraining 12y ago
        I can identify the difference - the cliché can't! That's my whole point! Wikipedia is the proof the paying is not always required to not "be the product", unlike claimed. Hulu proves that it's also not sufficient.
        jamesisaac 12y ago
        Fair enough - I thought you were claiming the cliché was generally incorrect, not that there are a few exceptions which break it. Obviously I can't argue with that. It's intended as a rule of thumb and applies to the vast majority of the internet. Especially if you count a donation-driven site like shareware software - an encouraged, but optional, request for payment.
    - wpietri 12y ago
      Wikipedia is not a business, so that's irrelevant. Hulu's just funny to me. You're paying to be a product. It means the business decision makers will respect you a little, but how much depends on how much of the revenue you're bringing in and what sort of industry it is. The cliché is an excellent guide to the situation. So many people don't seem to understand why ad-supported businesses work they way they do, and in particular why they don't seem to have the customer's best interests in mind.
vdaniuk 12y ago
When I talk to anyone who starts raging about ethics of advertising, I often ask: are you talking about deontological or consequentialist ethics? Because that changes everything. Also, do you not understand that entities buying and selling advertising are currently in a Nash equilibrium and no amount of internet whining will change that.
- eevilspock 12y ago
  So you start out dismissing my point be labeling it "raging" and "whining". In fact, by labeling it "whining", you've made it a foregone conclusion that it will be ineffectual. Mostly consequentialist. Such should be evident from what I wrote above and in the linked comment. Even if I were to grant your point about a Nash equilibrium (you fail to convince, but succeed to condescend), buyers and sellers of advertising are not the only players involved. You also beg the question by assuming everyone is driven purely by self-interest.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
EdwardDiego 12y ago
> When I talk to anyone who's livelihood doesn't rely on advertising or marketing, there is near unanimous agreement that advertising is fundamentally manipulative and dishonest. Besides the social cost of Advertising, there many other costs. Such as? Keen to hear. :) Also, what would you propose in lieu of the current advertising supported model that is dominant today?
- eevilspock 12y ago
  Please read the linked comment for an explanation of other costs. It's not exhaustive. I didn't write about other costs, such as the stifling of competition (advertising favors the establishment, the rich get richer) and negative sum arms races[1]. I'm implicitly proposing that people pay directly for the products they use. Be the customer, not the product. Reward businesses that put the user first, with no advertiser conflict of interest. We need to evolve a way to do this efficiently, since people aren't going to pull out their credit card for every different site they use, especially not the one-offs. The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks. – Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manager of Facebook Data Team, founder of Cloudera If we can redirect just a fraction of those best minds at coming up with a micropayment system for the web, it won't take long to solve. Some people make themselves feel better about advertising by saying it helps the poor (who can't, presumably, afford to pay for Gmail or Facebook or whatever online journalism they read). These same people conveniently forget that the poor spend a greater share of their income on goods, thus a greater share goes to advertising costs, which could mean that the ad-supported web model we have today is regressive (as in regressive tax). - [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7927862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7927862
- wpietri 12y ago
  For me the biggest problem with it is the enormous waste of talent. If we banned all advertising tomorrow, nothing particularly bad would happen. People would still learn about products; companies would still gain and lose customers. Indeed, that whole process might be more effective. But suddenly the US would have $500 billion or so worth of labor and goods to devote to some purpose that is actually productive. Actual smart humans waste their entire lives doing something that adds zero net value the system. When I think of my friends in advertising, it always makes me a little sad. What good things could they have done with their lives?
jamesisaac 12y ago
As someone who worked in an advertising-industry startup for 2 years before questioning what I was doing, I agree with everything you've said (in your linked post too), and sorry to see you're getting downvoted. The project I subsequently started operates on a very simple $5/mo pausable subscription with a 30-day free trial. I'm _much_ happier with this model than anything I've ever worked on which is ad-based - it feels like a completely fair and fulfilling exchange of value. I, too, feel like if the web was free from advertising, and instead was home to services supported by paying customers and/or donations, it would be a much better place and have far-reaching benefits. This is something I genuinely want to make a difference on, so feel free to get in touch if you want to see if we can combine our efforts in some way (contact details in profile).
- eevilspock 12y ago
  Thank you! I most certainly will get in touch. I want to both evangelize the problem and spur solutions (I have a few). I'm very serious about this, in much the same way as people are serious about open source, privacy and net neutrality. I am so glad you are too :)
gfodor 12y ago
Why is advertising "fundamentally manipulative and dishonest?" People aren't stupid. Give them more credit. Truly effective advertising gives more credit to its viewers than you seem to. Have you ever run an advertising campaign? Do you know anything about marketing a product? Cynically manipulating people may help you in the short run, but good sales and marketing is about informing people of value you can provide in a way that respects their time and intelligence.
- eevilspock 12y ago
  The Co-Founder and CTO of Adtuitive, an ad platform startup, defending advertising! You make Upton Sinclair proud! Like I said, "When I talk to anyone who's livelihood doesn't rely on advertising or marketing, there is near unanimous agreement that advertising is fundamentally manipulative and dishonest." People can be stupid. People can be manipulated. Propaganda works. Take political ads. Which ones work best, the ones that manipulate your perceptions and emotions and ignorance, or the ones that "respect [your] time and intelligence" with the honest whole truth?
  - gfodor 12y ago
    Nice ad hom, but it turns out my ad tech startup (which was now many years ago) focused on ads that simply delivered product names, images, and prices that were contextually relevant. So pretty much the most non-manipulative form of advertising possible, and it worked well. I think working in this space for a few years at one point in my career (but no longer) lends more credibility to my argument, not less. I never said there isn't such a thing as manipulative advertising, what I said was that advertising is not inherently manipulative and dishonest. It's a tool for communicating, and in my experience in general people see though manipulation tactics, such like they do when you try to sell them something by bullshitting them. Well written Google ads, well written marketing for websites, etc, all generally flow from a central theme of communicating clearly and honestly to the reader what value you are offering, and giving them reasons to want to pursue your business. It's salesmenship, and I guess only if you think salesmanship is inherently dishonest and manipulative then you'd think advertising is too.

profquail 12y ago

> "Because nearly every internet business gets it's revenue from advertising" Citation please? There are many "internet businesses" that don't derive their revenue from advertising, e.g., AWS, Dropbox, Netflix. Spotify derives some revenue from advertising, but their core business is subscriptions. ad nauseum

eevilspock 12y ago
Count all of the web content you've consumed and all the web services you've used in the past year. Now count all the ones you've paid for. Also, those paid-for services you mention are of such high quality (to you, not advertisers) because you pay for them. You are the customer not the product, as they say.
- gizmo686 12y ago
  That isn't entirely fair. There are some websites that offer a free tier in the hopes that enough users will buy the paid tier. I suppose one could call this a form of advertising, but Dropbox giving me 2gb free does not seem to the type of manipulative advertising you are referring to (and is not a revenue source for them).
  - eevilspock 12y ago
    Granted. But it does't change the numbers very much. Keep counting.
- enraged_camel 12y ago
  You're right, and it's depressing that you're being downvoted. Then again, HN can be a very hostile place if you bring an unpopular perspective to a discussion, even if that perspective is presented with clarity of thought and reason.
  - vdaniuk 12y ago
    Unpopular? Really? "Advertising is bad" is one of the most supported memes on HN.
  - eevilspock 12y ago
    Thanks. The vote total on my original comment has swung up and down so many times that I know it's getting lots of downvotes. The same goes for many of my previous comments in this vein. As to vdaniuk's claims of an anti-advertising meme on HN, I say: "show me". I've seen little.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Most people don't pay for Wikipedia, how are they the product? Many people pay for Hulu and many other services, and still get ads, how are they not the product? That cliché can't die soon enough.
  - jamesisaac 12y ago
    It's quite representative of the problem if you can't identify the difference between Wikipedia - a non-profit which is entirely ad-free and runs exclusively on donations, compared with the majority of other free sites which are funded by subjecting their visitors to advertising. No wonder Wikipedia has so to push so hard with its annual donation drives, if people can't even recognise the benefits of keeping it free from commercialism. Hulu is an example which mixes both approaches - clearly an $8/mo premium subscription isn't enough to support their business model, so it has to be supplemented with ads. Not sure why this needs explaining. TV is obviously an industry very tightly coupled with ads, making it more difficult to disrupt with a fully ad-free approach.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      I can identify the difference - the cliché can't! That's my whole point! Wikipedia is the proof the paying is not always required to not "be the product", unlike claimed. Hulu proves that it's also not sufficient.
      - jamesisaac 12y ago
        Fair enough - I thought you were claiming the cliché was generally incorrect, not that there are a few exceptions which break it. Obviously I can't argue with that. It's intended as a rule of thumb and applies to the vast majority of the internet. Especially if you count a donation-driven site like shareware software - an encouraged, but optional, request for payment.
  - wpietri 12y ago
    Wikipedia is not a business, so that's irrelevant. Hulu's just funny to me. You're paying to be a product. It means the business decision makers will respect you a little, but how much depends on how much of the revenue you're bringing in and what sort of industry it is. The cliché is an excellent guide to the situation. So many people don't seem to understand why ad-supported businesses work they way they do, and in particular why they don't seem to have the customer's best interests in mind.

vdaniuk 12y ago

When I talk to anyone who starts raging about ethics of advertising, I often ask: are you talking about deontological or consequentialist ethics? Because that changes everything. Also, do you not understand that entities buying and selling advertising are currently in a Nash equilibrium and no amount of internet whining will change that.

eevilspock 12y ago
So you start out dismissing my point be labeling it "raging" and "whining". In fact, by labeling it "whining", you've made it a foregone conclusion that it will be ineffectual. Mostly consequentialist. Such should be evident from what I wrote above and in the linked comment. Even if I were to grant your point about a Nash equilibrium (you fail to convince, but succeed to condescend), buyers and sellers of advertising are not the only players involved. You also beg the question by assuming everyone is driven purely by self-interest.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

EdwardDiego 12y ago

> When I talk to anyone who's livelihood doesn't rely on advertising or marketing, there is near unanimous agreement that advertising is fundamentally manipulative and dishonest. Besides the social cost of Advertising, there many other costs. Such as? Keen to hear. :) Also, what would you propose in lieu of the current advertising supported model that is dominant today?

eevilspock 12y ago
Please read the linked comment for an explanation of other costs. It's not exhaustive. I didn't write about other costs, such as the stifling of competition (advertising favors the establishment, the rich get richer) and negative sum arms races[1]. I'm implicitly proposing that people pay directly for the products they use. Be the customer, not the product. Reward businesses that put the user first, with no advertiser conflict of interest. We need to evolve a way to do this efficiently, since people aren't going to pull out their credit card for every different site they use, especially not the one-offs. The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks. – Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manager of Facebook Data Team, founder of Cloudera If we can redirect just a fraction of those best minds at coming up with a micropayment system for the web, it won't take long to solve. Some people make themselves feel better about advertising by saying it helps the poor (who can't, presumably, afford to pay for Gmail or Facebook or whatever online journalism they read). These same people conveniently forget that the poor spend a greater share of their income on goods, thus a greater share goes to advertising costs, which could mean that the ad-supported web model we have today is regressive (as in regressive tax). - [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7927862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7927862
wpietri 12y ago
For me the biggest problem with it is the enormous waste of talent. If we banned all advertising tomorrow, nothing particularly bad would happen. People would still learn about products; companies would still gain and lose customers. Indeed, that whole process might be more effective. But suddenly the US would have $500 billion or so worth of labor and goods to devote to some purpose that is actually productive. Actual smart humans waste their entire lives doing something that adds zero net value the system. When I think of my friends in advertising, it always makes me a little sad. What good things could they have done with their lives?

jamesisaac 12y ago

As someone who worked in an advertising-industry startup for 2 years before questioning what I was doing, I agree with everything you've said (in your linked post too), and sorry to see you're getting downvoted. The project I subsequently started operates on a very simple $5/mo pausable subscription with a 30-day free trial. I'm _much_ happier with this model than anything I've ever worked on which is ad-based - it feels like a completely fair and fulfilling exchange of value. I, too, feel like if the web was free from advertising, and instead was home to services supported by paying customers and/or donations, it would be a much better place and have far-reaching benefits. This is something I genuinely want to make a difference on, so feel free to get in touch if you want to see if we can combine our efforts in some way (contact details in profile).

eevilspock 12y ago
Thank you! I most certainly will get in touch. I want to both evangelize the problem and spur solutions (I have a few). I'm very serious about this, in much the same way as people are serious about open source, privacy and net neutrality. I am so glad you are too :)

gfodor 12y ago

Why is advertising "fundamentally manipulative and dishonest?" People aren't stupid. Give them more credit. Truly effective advertising gives more credit to its viewers than you seem to. Have you ever run an advertising campaign? Do you know anything about marketing a product? Cynically manipulating people may help you in the short run, but good sales and marketing is about informing people of value you can provide in a way that respects their time and intelligence.

eevilspock 12y ago
The Co-Founder and CTO of Adtuitive, an ad platform startup, defending advertising! You make Upton Sinclair proud! Like I said, "When I talk to anyone who's livelihood doesn't rely on advertising or marketing, there is near unanimous agreement that advertising is fundamentally manipulative and dishonest." People can be stupid. People can be manipulated. Propaganda works. Take political ads. Which ones work best, the ones that manipulate your perceptions and emotions and ignorance, or the ones that "respect [your] time and intelligence" with the honest whole truth?
- gfodor 12y ago
  Nice ad hom, but it turns out my ad tech startup (which was now many years ago) focused on ads that simply delivered product names, images, and prices that were contextually relevant. So pretty much the most non-manipulative form of advertising possible, and it worked well. I think working in this space for a few years at one point in my career (but no longer) lends more credibility to my argument, not less. I never said there isn't such a thing as manipulative advertising, what I said was that advertising is not inherently manipulative and dishonest. It's a tool for communicating, and in my experience in general people see though manipulation tactics, such like they do when you try to sell them something by bullshitting them. Well written Google ads, well written marketing for websites, etc, all generally flow from a central theme of communicating clearly and honestly to the reader what value you are offering, and giving them reasons to want to pursue your business. It's salesmenship, and I guess only if you think salesmanship is inherently dishonest and manipulative then you'd think advertising is too.