| ▲ | adrr 6 days ago |
| I am on the purchasing side. Google is very efficient when delivering traffic especially their Max Performance product. Probably the cheapest of all platforms. So they are serving relevant ads to users who engage with the ads. This is win for me and I assume also a win for publishers who get revenue due to higher engagement. Also users should benefit because they are getting relevant ads. Linear tv is notorious for non relevant ads like all the drug ads for conditions you don’t have. If you’re forced to see ads, wouldn’t you want ads that are relevant? |
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| ▲ | pclmulqdq 6 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| No, I personally want to see ads that are as irrelevant as possible. I hate getting a sales pitch forced on me, and would rather see something funny or entertaining showing off an irrelevant product in a clever way than whatever your customers want to shove in front of my eyes. This is why I block all ads, but still appreciate super bowl commercials. And I have discovered that this actually works on me. I like the Nike ads, so on the occasions when I buy sportswear, I have positive feelings about Nike stuff. I spend 100-10000x more on stuff that isn't sportswear, but I think Nike gets more value from me watching that ad than anyone who advertises some "relevant" SaaS product or whatnot. |
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| ▲ | MichaelZuo 5 days ago | parent [-] | | This doesn’t make sense. Why would any advertiser pay the same in such a scenario? They would obviously value your attention much less on average if that was a hard limit. | | |
| ▲ | pclmulqdq 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't give a shit what advertisers want. I was merely pointing out to someone in the ad business that I don't want to see relevant ads when they made the statement that I do. This is something that people in advertising say a lot, but it's generally not true. I do not want or benefit from you having "better" ad targeting - I will find your product if I want it without the sales pitch. | | |
| ▲ | MichaelZuo 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Why does your individual opinion matter to Google (or advertisers or their markets) then? It’s probably not even possible for decision makers to discern it from noise. | | |
| ▲ | Dylan16807 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The advertisers are the ones trying to claim that it's a win-win situation because people like relevant ads. Pointing out that many people don't like relevant ads is then a significant thing to acknowledge. You're acting like pclmulqdq brought up the idea out of nowhere, which is very much not the case. What people think about ads does matter, and does affect the bottom line. And it's just annoying for you to act like the dislike is just an "individual opinion" but the "people like relevant ads" claim isn't equally anecdotal. | | |
| ▲ | MichaelZuo 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I’ll be charitable, what is your actual argument? In case you didn’t see, the user has already claimed to believe the entire comment chain is irrelevant, so your a bit late. | | |
| ▲ | Dylan16807 4 days ago | parent [-] | | They specifically said their original point still stands, and I agree with them. > what is your actual argument Was it not clear? Okay I can try again. When advertisers claim that relevant ads are something people want, that's very far from being universally true. Lots of people don't want that. Don't let them use that unsupported claim to support tracking. Note that the desires of advertisers are not part of this particular argument. It's a simple claim and counterclaim. | | |
| ▲ | MichaelZuo 3 days ago | parent [-] | | How does that follow? And why is your agreement relevant either? Anyone can have an unlimited number of irrelevant opinions that they believe to possess this or that attribute, they may even genuinely believe so, yet it doesn’t amount to anything. Even if the claimed argument was flawless… it seems strange to put a non sequitor at the beginning. |
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| ▲ | pclmulqdq 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | My individual opinion is (presumably) not unique. They also absolutely can tell who is a decision maker: around 2015, people used to serve facebook ads specifically to VCs to get investment in their startups. I'm sure targeting has only improved. | | |
| ▲ | MichaelZuo 5 days ago | parent [-] | | This doesn’t make sense as a reply, it’s not relevant how many others share your opinion, because it’s not aggregations of people replying to each other on HN, but specific users. Each user’s comment has to stand up under its own weight so to speak | | |
| ▲ | pclmulqdq 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Cool, yours is as irrelevant as mine. The original point stands, though: not everyone benefits from better ad targeting. | | |
| ▲ | MichaelZuo 5 days ago | parent [-] | | > Cool, yours is as irrelevant as mine. So then why did you reply if you already knew your comment and the rest of the comment chain was irrelevant? |
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| ▲ | maujun 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It doesn't make sense financially. But money is not the only thing that matters. My emotions matter. If I see a scary person who is not my friend, I yell "put him down" in my head, and take actions. If that scary person knows more about me than I know about myself. I bark like a small dog. Arf! Arf! Arf! In English, that roughly translates to "Get out of my sight! Get out of my head! Then I'll feel fine again." If this doesn't make sense to you, then you are suggesting a world where money/truth matter more than emotions. But then why do people make money, if not just to survive? Arf! Arf! Arf! (This originally translated to: "Don't engage with me unless you value low-status people") | | |
| ▲ | MichaelZuo 5 days ago | parent [-] | | This still doesn’t make sense. Since everyone values emotions differently... there would still need to be some intermediary, like money, for emotions to have any agreed upon value at all beyond narrow circles. Otherwise what’s stopping, e.g. nihlists, from valuing your emotions at zero or a negative value? | | |
| ▲ | maujun 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I like the idea. With money, we can value emotions. Since everybody has some money, everybody's emotions (outside of children) will have positive value. Relating to my original example: I, as a provider of PII, feel scared about my information being sold. If Google has a $100/year option to stop my PII from being spread, I would consider buying it. However, I predict now some people feel angry. They feel Google should not be allowed to do this. They won't pay Google to stop, they will go to the govt. Considering this problem, I wonder what is the next step we would need to do to ensure a world of positive emotions and money. > Otherwise what’s stopping, e.g. nihlists, from valuing your emotions at zero or a negative value? Well, I think a lot of people value my emotions negatively, especially angry people and corporations. In particular, corporations like to take money and make it time consuming for me to get a refund. As for people, I am at peace because I cannot change my skin color, face, or personality, but I can adjust my goals to be smaller/non-overlapping. | |
| ▲ | ambicapter 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | "The only way to understand emotions correctly is through money" What a take. | | |
| ▲ | pyrale 5 days ago | parent [-] | | We need a market for emotions. Want a good laugh with your friends? That'll be $10. A moment of peace with your so? That'll be $100. Rewards of up to $.50 for people willing to be scared to death (or, you know, moderate social media content). | | |
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| ▲ | greenchair 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I don't think relevant ads are healthy for the many people who do not have enough self-control to resist temptation. Ads are essentially playing mindgames triggering fear/jealousy on these people to steal their money. For the people who do have self-control, they don't need other people trying to tell them what to buy. |
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| ▲ | dgoldstein0 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That's a good argument against bad and exploitative ads. Not all ads are necessarily bad. Eg have you ever seen an ad for an event in your town? Maybe a play or a concert you'd want to see. Those to me feel more like "public notice: thing is happening" and every once in a while I'll actually go buy tickets. But technically, those are ads, just not the kind of exploitative ad you are talking about. A good ad informs, while leaving the decision up to you. A bad ad distracts you with garbage and/or tries to get you to indulge in your worse impulses | | |
| ▲ | viraptor 5 days ago | parent [-] | | > have you ever seen an ad for an event in your town? I get those on the local town board, online in the town group I explicitly joined, and from people around. I do not want those on a random page when I'm trying to do something else. | | |
| ▲ | johannes1234321 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Especially as the random page will be organized in a way to steer me towards the ad rather than the thing I want to do. |
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| ▲ | astrange 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Every ad on Reddit is currently from "hims" and has the message that your hair will fall out and your dick will stop working if you don't take their pills. |
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| ▲ | mehlmao 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| How about you and the people who want "relevant ads" opt in, and everyone else gets a sane default of not beong tracked and having dossiers compiled about them. You could even implement it with an HTTP header, maybe "Allow-Track"? |
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| ▲ | thfuran 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I choose option three in the false dichotomy: Render it illegal to attempt to force me to see ads. |
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| ▲ | adrr 5 days ago | parent [-] | | You can always pay for service. Kagi, YouTube Premium, Reddit Premium, Spotify Premium, ProtonMail etc. Platforms needs money to run. | | |
| ▲ | udev4096 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Ads are not only annoying but play an extremely crucial part on tracking you across the web. People defending google cannot seem to wrap their mind around the fact that it's one of the most lucrative way to carry out mass surveillance at scale. Paying for the service only partly avoids the service to stop giving you ads. What about the insane amount of telemetry they collect? It's a lost cause | |
| ▲ | ksec 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Thank You for saying this out now. Again we are finally back to may be Pre 2014 HN where we can talk a little about business and money. | |
| ▲ | thfuran 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes, platforms need money. So why should a platform not charging its users be permitted? It's dumping. It's anti-competitive behavior unfairly disadvantaging any other business that wants to enter the market the ad platform is pretending to be in. It also creates a ton of perverse incentives. |
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| ▲ | xnx a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This. $1 spent on ads at Google gets a better return for advertisers than that same $1 spent almost anywhere else. For publishers, no one generates more revenue per ad space than Google (without reputation destroying ads). |
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| ▲ | 9dev 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You phrase it like it would be a good thing to manipulate people into buying stuff they don’t need, to generate an artificial demand by exploiting others. |
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| ▲ | worik 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > If you’re forced to see ads, wouldn’t you want ads that are relevant Thank Dog that is a false dichotomy. I am not forced to see ads, my ad blockers are effective. Back in the day I moved mountains to get MythTV working so I could dodge the ads on linear TV I do not want those creepy greedy monkeys anywhere near my data No. A thousand times no! |
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| ▲ | econ 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| To me that reads like endless drug ads for the disease your loved one died from 10 years ago. |
