3 ms·

> Ads are simply a sneaky and dishonest way to get at end users' money without them realizing it. Really? If I make a living by selling shoes, and put a banner

• eevilspock 12y ago
  I could have worded that final sentence more clearly, but it seems to me you ignored the previous 8 paragraphs and cherry picked the one sentence open to misinterpretion (but only if you ignored the previous 8 paragraphs!) My entire comment is about the fact that "it's a lie that ads give people content and services for free." To use your example: You hand out shoes sponsored by Chrysler. You tell everyone the shoes are "free". The shoes have the Chrysler logo, and you collect personal information that Chrysler pays you to use to send targeted Chrysler flyers. Chrysler pays you enough to cover the cost of the shoes, the added logo, and the personal information collection and targeting system. But Chrysler adds the amount they are paying you (plus what they pay other parties involved in the ads ecosystem) to the price of their cars. So as I explained above, your shoe customers are still paying you, only they do it via the hidden markup on the cars they buy, a markup significantly higher than what the straight up price of the shoes would be. They just don't realize this. And the feeling of "free" keeps them coming to you rather than your competitor who sells shoes straight up, with no logos, 100% designed to please the wearer instead of Chrysler, at a straight up price. That is what I mean by "sneaky and dishonest way to get at end users' money without them realizing it."