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Comment by nopreserveroot | Hacker News Reader

I do not understand how anyone in 2018 finds the internet remotely usable without some form of ad blocker. This is how you ignore the modern salesman.

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Given the sophistication that we just now start to fully realize, adblockers probably dont help that much - i mean they get the obvious stuff out of the way, which is great. But there other forms of tracking (like super cookies), and others we might not even be aware of. The entire combination of what information some companies gather and exchange behind the scene is not that well understood at scale.

They can collect all they like, but if you never see any advertisements, it has little influence over you. I was not commenting on the violation of privacy these bad actors commit through the collection.

It's easy to ignore the ads if you know they are ads. What about sponsered content in movies, music, tv, news, etc? We have seen all of these used. The drive to promote a message to someone goes waay beyond advertising.

This discussion is veering off course. Well made adblocking removes 'native' ads as well. Product placement is irrelevant to my point, as it does not utilize my stolen demographic info to drive marketing decisions. And though you delude yourself into thinking that you are successfully ignoring ads they are still influencing you in subtle ways.

Exactly. Or that innocuous Medium post that just seems like some guy talking, when in fact it is a carefully crafted piece of psychological manipulation.

Lifestyle marketing isn't a new idea. It's part of what made tabacoo successful. But they were making educated guesses on what might work, i.e. the cowboy smoking.

The difference I see is that there is feedback on the ads other than sales and it seems like you could closely tailor ads to specific demographics.

Hmmm, how about amateur psychological manipulation that went viral because it's emotionally effective?

I think this is the risk we pay by reading the Internet? The filtering implicit in things going viral is a mixed bag.

I think the implications are way beyond what you see in your browser and perceive as ads.

Imagine a billboard, you drive and the content changes because your GPS is close to that billboard and stuff like that - real world changes like that will happen, if not already.

There is also the product placement and as Cambridge Analytica describes entire personas and website being made just to target individuals and change their perception and opinions - this can all be automated at scale with current technology.

Imagine a billboard, you drive and the content changes because your GPS is close to that billboard

Or your Google self-driving car just happens to pick a route past certain billboards and retailers...

On the occasions that I have disabled my ad blocker and visited major new sites, I found the ad experience made me greatly question the judgment of the sites editors.

How can I trust the authority of a news site, when I am also seeing clearly deceptive ads playing right next to their content?

I do not understand how anyone in 2018 finds the internet remotely usable without some form of ad blocker. This is how you ignore the modern salesman.

It's actually pretty simple. You just don't visit sites with ads that bother you.

EDIT: Ads bother me because they are a security hole, so you're saying I should only visits sites without them? Please.

If your point was about security then you should have stated that. It seems unhelpful to assume that someone responding to your post is a mind-reader.

If the reason the ads bother me is relevant to your point, you should have stated that.

Why would the reason ads bother you be relevant to my point. I was responding to your point about not being able to use the internet without an adblocker, which is something that's quite easy to do.

Maybe you meant to respond to a different comment thread? You seem to be confused as to the topic of this one.

Hopefully my edit makes it more clear for you.

The issue isn’t the ads that bother you. Its the ones that don’t. Everyone thinks of themselves as sceptical people, but we’re only sceptical of things we already don’t believe. The ads that don’t bother you, and the ones you don’t recognize as advertising are working on you just as much as the ones you don’t like.

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