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Comment by jamesknelson | Hacker News Reader

This is a really interesting point. And to be honest, I don't even really mind that I'm being shown ads after purchasing a subscription. The thing is, the ads have to be in good taste.

When I was searching for a way to disable the video ads, somebody made the point that the New York Times' business model has involved showing ads to subscribers for longer than I've been alive. The difference is, those ads didn't move around the page and start screaming at you.

Like most things, there's a sensible middle ground here. Show people with buying power ads, but don't drive those people away with your desperation.

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> The thing is, the ads have to be in good taste.

That will never be the case, except may be for some isolated incidents. As far as ads are concerned from NYT's perspective -- we are not the customers (we are the product), advertisers are. In fact, they are so much the customers, that they not only control the ads, they also control the content (by saying which content their ads can be shown on (hence for which content they will pay to be produced) -- but I digress).

Now, you might say, advertisers would want to have ads in "good taste" -- yes, but you know what they'd want even more -- those ads to leave an imprint on your consciousness. So if they can't make an ad in good taste, or the ad in good taste is less effective than an obnoxious ad -- they'll choose the latter, any day, 10 out of 10. That is why we'll rarely have "tasteful" adds.

Another thing tangentially related to taste: how many times exactly you'd want to see a "tasteful ad"? 1, 3, 5 or 500? After how many repetitions the "tasteful ad" becomes "distasteful"?

As it was aptly put in "Ready Player One" -- ad industry will only stop putting ads on your screen once you start having seizures (because at this point it will physically prevent you from buying their stuff). Until then anything goes.

Hoping that you can pay and no longer see ads is naive. Ad revenue is so lofty, nothing end users can pay can even remotely match advertising budgets of the giants.

If I have seen your ad multiple times and not taken action, it is time to show me another ad, or fix your checkout flow.

In general though ad tech is so primitive it is embarrassing. I am an Atheist (and have plugged this into Facebook), then they try to sell me ads for magic crystals. An Atheist would by definition not be interested in that.

Then they tried to sell me gas, from a gas company 300 kilometers away. Then, after I had filled out the section about my education, showed me ads for the exact degree from the exact university I had told them I got the degree from.

I am a single man, so Facebook decided I wanted to be showed crappy for pay dating sites[0]. The only dating sites where I would have a chance are the big sites and you don't get big in the dating space by charging.

I searched for and got an apartment, then google showed me six months worth of ads for a crappy apartment finder site.

Google any electronics and you get ads for it weeks after you buy it.

Instead of figuring out what people by after and then show ads for that -- I might still be interested in buying custom fitted curtains, for example.

There must be products and services out there that would actually benefit me, and I certainly have the capacity to purchase them, but somehow those never show up.

[0]: you should never use them http://static.izs.me/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dat...

> In general though ad tech is so primitive it is embarrassing

It's not that it's primitive, it's that it's still run by humans. At least from what I saw while working in ad tech, targeting is very much a manual process. There's no algorithm deciding that you might be interested in magic crystals, there's a magic crystal seller targeting their ads at people in whatever demographic you're in. They decided that (for example) people ages 25-34, in certain income brackets, who are interested in fitness might also be interested in crystals, and Facebook was happy to take their $0.001/impression in exchange. To my knowledge most ads aren't targeted with a scheme like "hey targeting server, figure out who might like this kind of ad", or at least they weren't as of this time last year when I couldn't take working in the industry anymore.

That makes a lot of sense, actually. I mean I am totally in the demographic for the comp sci degree, I just already had it.

I killed my subscription largely because of the ad issue - if I’m paying I don’t want ads. Thankfully most premium streaming services work this way.

Funnily enough they don't. Netflix is pretty big in product placement.

https://ben.productplacement.com/

I do mind. I mean it used to be that ads paid for print costs and also that they where somewhat useful -- I would be unlikely to hear about a sale in any other way.

Now though, well I have clicked on two ads that I remember being interested in, in all the time I have been on the internet -- why? Because what we are producing is generally shit, or already known, or priced too high (not surprisingly, guess who has to pay for those ads)?

If they ever actually cure cancer, or get a weightloss pill that works, I will probably hear about it. Until then?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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