Sounds like a pretty unethical way to make money.
But yeah, Demand Media is terrible and their employees are not on my Christmas card list.
Which is a perfectly rational question/argument.
> Expecting people to behave against their own self interest in the short term, for the good of strangers in the long term, will always end in disappointment.
I agree. This is a systemic problem, and appeals to ethics won't work (and the advertisers won't change their metrics because of them) - one needs to attack the economic incentives underlying their current strategies.
How is that rational at all? That question is referencing the common practice of blaming rape victims rather than the rapists, by questioning what the victim was wearing.
It doesn't matter what society implies.
Note that I can say that while unequivocally condemning rape and providing zero cover to rapists. I am describing what is, not what I think ought to be.
I don't understand - how is that not victim blaming, and going against your last line? And how exactly do you take precautions against rape, especially when you factor in the fact that the perpetrators are far more likely to be people who wield some kind of authority over the victim, including family members, bosses at work, police and security forces, etc. which is true at least where I come from (West Africa), and leads to chronic under reporting / decisions by families to either blame the victim or sweep the whole thing under the rug. Or am I somehow misunderstanding your meaning?
uh. That isn't what I was doing - one party's act in self interest can benefit third parties (even if accidentally)... like electing to not set yourself on fire in a crowded Museum of Yarn and Flammables.
> ...attack the economic incentives underlying their current strategies.
That has been going on since the first ad click payment. I'm guessing that the ideal solution is one that would require a scale of economy that is outside the capabilities of the majority of the market participants, and that is why we still have catch the monkey ads.
Disagree. Thats a personal value judgment and an ethical perspective viewing efficient corporations as utilitarian bodies fulfilling the greater good.
This is why we can't have nice things. Because people adopt a FYGM attitude. Because they piss in the pool we all have to swim in.
...all that harm can be removed simply by...
...quitting smoking? Throwing away the prescription pain meds? Giving up junk food?
How about not robbing people of their valuable time and money? How about moving past negative-sum business models where the distributed costs far outweigh the concentrated gains?
That pretty much describes living in the US and even Europe to a degree compared to most of the world.
How deep should morality go? Almost all of us in the US consume an order of magnitude more than most of the world for instance.
I do. That's probably why I won't be running an effective business any time soon. Being nice and not fucking people over doesn't get you far in highly competitive markets.
I strongly second what 'nitrogen wrote[0]. This is very much about ethics.
> Is it ethical for a shop to advertise its products in the shop windows when the people running the shop know that there are higher quality products available in a competitors store?
In my opinion, no. Basically, if you know your product is shit, you are morally obliged to make it better or find something else to sell; lying to people to make them buy your stuff instead of something objectively better is fucking them over for your own gain.
Think about it the next time you find yourself on the receiving end of such businessmen.
> lying to people to make them buy your stuff instead of something objectively better is fucking them over for your own gain
Thanks, this needed to be said. I'm in the same position. I will probably never be able to run a business either because I hold these same views.
That said, most of my peers who are objectively better than me are already employed, and it's up to employers to select from the available pool of employees. My responsibility is to truthfully present my skills during interview.
In hiring analogy, it would be as if I couldn't code at all, but could talk my way through the interviews - and so instead of actually learning to code, I'd earn money by getting employed at companies and trying to extract as many paychecks and benefits as I can and then quitting before they figure out I'm a fraud.
Me investing my time to get a job through pure charisma, without bringing any merit to the table, is like selling products on pure marketing. Pretty dishonest, and also poisons the ecosystem for everyone.
... but a warning sign that an argument is probably too broad, too absolute, too confidently stated, and has ten thousand exceptions that you didn't consider.
Not sure about Mad Men, but HoC doesn't "glorify" its subject. And tons of great art is about "assholes".
The thing is, and this is a very christian message, assholes are people too.
(hey it works in the advertising industry. I attack your humanity on multiple levels and then show you garbage that... kind of, almost, but not really restores your humanity. Of course, you really need next months update, or you're just subhuman again! )
Ethically, self-interest is fine. Failing to help others isn't a huge deal either. It's the part where you're actively and deliberately harming others (by polluting search results - impairing both search engines, as a company, and their users) that we're objecting to.
Demand Media has strong brands. They aren't anonymous/fly by night operators. If they were promising content and not delivering with any sort of regularity they'd lose viewers. They're not doing that though. The content when you click on an ehow or livestrong article is exactly what you'd expect from an ehow or livestrong article. That you find this content undesirable is very much subjective. Plenty of people seem to enjoy it.