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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

There was a very interesting article posted here yesterday:

http://blog.sumall.com/journal/optimizely-got-me-fired.html (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10872359)

Take a good look at it. Ignore the surface-level content about fixing the stats behind A/B tests. Read what else is there.

This article literally admits that marketing industry is destroying itself from inside, by applying on each other the same dishonest tactics they use on us. Now I don't know if it'll be enough to help users - maybe it's only buying us time before they figure out how to effectively manipulate people, or maybe it just makes adtech a stable, self-perpetuating resource waster - but it does feel good.

The ad industry doesn't have a problem with ad blockers. It has a problem with basic human decency.

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There is a BIG problem with the current model of the advertising industry. It's based on STEALING attention from people. This is an outstanding lack of respect.

How about treating people like intelligent beings who know what they want for themselves and that stay informed ?

Make specialized advertising sites where companies can promote their products and services and let the users come when they want to check out what's new or look for something they need. They will come. And they will be happier and the companies will be happier.

This is a civilized advertising method in... my view.

>Make specialized advertising sites where companies can promote their products and services and let the users come when they want to check out what's new or look for something they need. They will come. And they will be happier and the companies will be happier.

You mean like a product website - or the physical version, a shopping mall?

So a product website has a one to one relationship with the product.

I'm referring to a website where various companies can ADVERTISE their various products and services in any way they want. Basically just present their ads in a civilized way, instead of shoving them down our throat like it currently happens anytime, anyplace, anyhow.

I suppose this could be an extra feature of a virtual market or just a standalone site or both.. but the ad should be tied with places where people WILLINGLY go to buy things or discover new things to buy.

I still think you're delusional, but at least I can think of an example of what you're talking about- the movie trailers page on the Apple QuickTime website. It was (still is?) the go-to place to get official HD movie trailers.

Would love your opinion of my site. I publish office design photo tours and then pair the content with ads for office furniture, plus a product listing area :)

There is a BIG problem with the current model of the advertising industry. It's based on STEALING attention from people. This is an outstanding lack of respect.

Not only that, but because advertising IS effective, it's like a trojan horse for your brain.

Turn your head and look in the wrong place, see an effective advert, and you are more likely to give your money to one company and less likely to another. And you probably don't even know it consciously - and you certainly haven't made the decision taking into account whether the company's wider actions make it one you want to support or not.

Advertising is an exploit. And like we close exploitable holes in software, like we try to guard against fallacious reasoning or biases in important decision making, we should also guard against exploitable holes in our thought processes when it comes to advertising.

We know advertising works, we know it makes people buy things based on what feels good/safe/trustworthy coming from a company with a good marketing department, rather than what's in a person's own interest. We know it works - that's why it shouldn't be allowed. Because it works.

And why we, individually, should block it aggressively.

> There is a BIG problem with the current model of the advertising industry. It's based on STEALING attention from people. This is an outstanding lack of respect.

Not to be flip, but when has advertising not been about trying to command the attention of those who would otherwise ignore what you have to say?

It always has been and that's precisely the problem. What is surprising is that so much of it is legal, and that it actually is a respectable occupation.

It seems HN likes to complain about the ad industry when in fact what they're really criticizing are ad tech firms. Ad tech makes up a small fraction of the ad industry. Defaming the ad industry because of ad tech firms is like slamming the entire automotive industry for faulty airbag manufacturers.

Isn't that exactly the point? If the competitive landscape (the industry) is such that enough of the firms are incentivized to make these bad decisions, then why not blame the industry?

Yes, I was criticizing the whole industry. Publishers abuse the tools ad tech provides to basically steal money from brands and often at the expense of consumers. Brands are so eager to cut costs, they ignore the basic principal that you get what you pay for. Big agencies use these tools to mask hidden profits. VCs invested gleefully at the opportunity to "disrupt" the agency business. And the anarchistic emergence of ad tech is what's made this all possible.

Marketers tricking marketers goes back to the first organism which disguised itself as something else in order to kill it or avoid being killed. Somehow things get better.

> Somehow things get better.

Yes. Eventually humans appeared, and they were able to escape (some of) the mechanics of "eat or be eaten" by creating civilization.

Multicellular organisms invented that a long time ago.

Yes, and we're reinventing it one level above.

What about families and tribes? Half a level?

This and another article I was reading a week ago got me thinking - is there an opportunity for a friendly ad network?

At the very least I'd like it to have:

- no tracking of visitors, it decides what ads to show based on the content of the site being viewed

- all ads are approved by a human before being displayed, and link bait will be banned

- ads are static images only, no js allowed

I'm also wondering about a feature so users can pay to support sites and in exchange they won't be shown ads.

If anyone wants to work on this, my email address is in my profile :-)

That idea sounds similar to The Deck: http://decknetwork.net/

Sounds just like banner ads back in the 90s!

Still looking for an idea in this thread that moves us forward...

Subset of JS permitted in a policy-declared Iframe, similar to CSP, limited to merely fixed rendering, no networking whatsoever, save the initial script exec. Ads go in here, or browser blocks them by default, as a spam-like prevention measure.

Someone else mentioned TheDeck, but another prominent place where this is the case is Reddit (very on topic, minimal % of content, no tracking, approved, etc.)

Two issues that come up:

- This pays less, not so much the static images and lack of link bait, but the lack of retargeting.

- They're still blocked by ad-blockers at the same rate as everything else

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