Mark Zuckerberg’s Delusion of Consumer Consent | Hacker News Reader

Mark Zuckerberg’s Delusion of Consumer Consent

nytimes.com

94 pointsmunk-a36 comments

The research here is amazingly flawed.

They ASKED users what they wanted.

If you've every done anything with behavioral analysis online you'll quickly learn that users say they want one thing and then often behave the exact opposite.

First. If you ask users if they would use a site that has ads, the percentage that say they don't want ads (which is probably a majority) are also the same ones that won't pay for the site.

This is a demonstration of consumer irrationality. It's usually either A or B.. not neither A nor B.

There are basically three main revenue models online:

1. ads. 2. paid content. 3. you're the product.

Now #3 might not ALWAYS be bad. Duolingo for example can use the feedback they get from users using the app to improve the service and some users DO pay to remove the ads. When you're using it in a freemium capacity you're actually paying to help train Duolingo.

With Facebook they're mostly #3...

A better way to do this would be behavioral analysis.

The first is to find out if consumers want ads or would they rather pay for a service directly.

The answer is overwhelmingly in favor of them NOT paying directly. They would rather be the product or see ads.

Don't believe me? Do you see any social networks that charge money? There are some somewhat freemium platforms like Wordpress (which still has ads) but for the most part the vast majority of the revenue online does not come directly from consumers.

Now... do users want customized ads?

Again. The data is overwhelming here.

Between two ads, one tailored to the user , and another random ad, the more targeted it is the greater conversion rate.

> If you've every done anything with behavioral analysis online you'll quickly learn that users say they want one thing and then often behave the exact opposite.

Then people don't do what they want. Because they're weak-willed and/or being manipulated.

If you give someone cake and they eat it, does that indicate that they want to be fat?

It’s always so difficult to discuss issues like this due to a limitation of English. In particular the words “they” and “want” are far too ambiguous.

That only proves that users click on tailored ads, not that they necessarily want them. Perhaps many users would rather ads be unrelated to their interests, so that they would be easier to ignore. Perhaps there is an unwanted psychological burden associated with going to a website for a specific purpose, and being distracted by something that is somewhat related to their general interests, such that it becomes more difficult to use that website purposefully.

So consumers want a free lunch. It may not be logical from a site owner's perspective, but it makes sense to consumers.

> So consumers want a free lunch. It may not be logical from a site owner's perspective, but it makes sense to consumers.

Note that users never visit websites that don't exist.

Websites that run ads actually exist and are profitable.

By visiting the sites they're admitting that this is what they "want" ...

It's a weird definition of "want" but consumers are being irrational.

They say they don't want ads but they constantly go to sites that offer ads.

If you ask them do they want Facebook spying on them they say no yet the line up to give their data to companies that are spying on them.

Also, between two ads, if the user does click on an ad they click on the better targeted ad. So by definition they like targeted ads.

I visit the movie theatre but I don't 'want' to slog through a cold parking lot or jockey at the popcorn stand for my slushy.

We want the sites that offer the info we seek. Ads come and go, and when they get obnoxious we complain. Of course we do.

I think culturally facebook could never make the transition with any sort of customer confidence, but I really think they could offer a paid facebook with no ads and more transparency on the data. People would pay $10 a month for that. I mean, slanging user data and social manipulation tooling to any guy with a stack of cash is probably way more lucrative, but a move like that would even sway me a bit to wonder if they could turn around into something that isn't cancer.

The issue is that a paid Facebook wouldn't make any money. This wouldn't even impact the bottom line.

Services like Evernote have < 5% of the userbase paying.

I think "wouldn't make any money" isn't true. They could keep offering the current product but offer one for people who wanted to pay. Like I said, I think this would be less lucrative than their current platform, but it would demonstrate that they have an idea to "disrupt" their own business model with something that resembles morals or actual innovation.

It won't happen and they'll keep shifting and never be able to keep up with their expected growth as people abandon them over the next 10 years. I'm pretty sure they don't care and the point of their platform is international psyops and piles of gross data bucks.... It is possible that they could find a soul and do something interesting instead of predictable and lame.

The problem here is that Facebook squandered any possibly remaining trust in the company with their constant shenanigans.

My assumption nowadays is that when Facebook does anything it's hostile towards their users and only good towards their bottom line

A further assumption of mine is that whenever a Facebook spokes drone opens her or his mout they lie.

And whenever you think this foul and disgusting pustule of a company has reached the height of depravity they come up with an even worse surprise to prove you wrong and that they can behave in an even worse manner.

So Facebook claiming that they won't track me in exchange for money to me would be uttely untrustworthy.

In theory if you outbid all the advertisers you could more or less achieve this. But I’ve read some reports saying that users are worth on average something like 50 bucks a quarter, and have users would be worth way more, so it would be pricey.

Or make less money and produce a platform that isn't exploitative. Whatever. Seems reasonable. It'll all eat itself anyway, it'll be fun to watch.

This is only good news for sociopaths looking for ways to engineer more effective reinforcement disorders on a civilisational scale.

Key takeaway: don't be proud of hijacking consumer irrationality.

I'm a little confused. When I looked at the study they linked, they don't pose an alternative question, like, "Or ads that aren't tailored to your interests." If you only ask if they want to see ads, wouldn't they obviously say no?

Why don't we just create a database with all of our interests and the let companies use that database to send offers directly to us and then have tools that we can use to sort through those offers...

i like the idea in principle, but who hosts the database?

a non-profit.

There are many other companies which collect the same amount or more data than Facebook does and they use it for the same purpose: targeted advertising. Putting the other issues Facebook had with Cambridge analytica or getting 50 million users' info hacked aside, I'm struggling to understand why articles like this from NYTimes are pointed just only to Zuckerberg and Facebook as in they are the only ones who provide targeted advertising platform. As I mentioned that's the whole multi-billion dollar industry that allows companies to do the targeted and programmable advertising and yes, it's pretty much the business model of the internet.

At this point, I feel like they are just abusing the situation and writing everything like Facebook did yet another more terrible thing.

> I'm struggling to understand why articles like this from NYTimes are pointed just only to Zuckerberg and Facebook as in they are the only ones who provide targeted advertising platform.

Facebook has a recognizable face that can make statements that can be critiqued, the ill-defined "many other companies" do not. Focusing on Facebook make the issue easier to understand, but the issues raised apply to all targeted advertising companies that try to justify themselves to consumers.

> Focusing on Facebook make the issue easier to understand, but the issues raised apply to all targeted advertising companies that try to justify themselves to consumers

Then they should also mention that in their articles. Because in the existing form, for a not techie people it sounds like _only_ Facebook has been doing this and that's not the case.

"Many other companies" includes Google, Twitter, Ad networks like Adroll etc. I don't think there is a need to list all of them in here :)

The cited survey was from 2012. The questions were mostly in this vein:

x 64% of Americans say their likelihood of voting for a candidate they support would decrease (37% say decrease a lot, 27% say decrease somewhat) if they learn a candidate’s campaign organization buys information about their online activities and their neighbor’s online activities—and then sends them different political messages it thinks will appeal to them. [This activity is common during the 2012 election.]

Nowhere in the survey did they ask "would you rather see targeted ads or random ads?"

The results are still somewhat surprising, as clearly voters are not backing up these numbers at the polls.

Wow. This article got punished for some reason. I’d love to see the algorithm behind this if it wasn’t done by a moderator.

35 points in 34 minutes was #1 now #17.

FB employees and/or "reputation managers" abusing the flag button, I'm guessing.

Just dropped down to #34, on the second page.

I posted about this before and I think it's relevant here again. Automated personalization (Predominant existing implementation of AI) and privacy are incompatible [1].

That's the case that Zuckerburg is making. However he goes further and effectively says "...and this level of personalization is what people have told us they want."

Now this NYT piece says that, in fact, people have explicitly said they don't want that.

Doubly so when they understand what it takes to get that level of personalization. So the conversation is important, and I think people need to make it with clear eyes.

[1] https://medium.com/@andrewkemendo/artificial-intelligence-an...

Its only a delusion if you're naive enough to think he believes it. His output is much better understood as political, propaganda, and marketing exercises rather than good faith communication.

IDK, perhaps it's my bias against NYT (for too many years of too little too late reporting) but this type of analysis feels...well...um...like too little too late. It's not like anyone on FB is going to read this and suddenly reconsider their relationship with FB and/or their opinion of Mr Z.

Finally, Z has no delusions. He knows exactly what FB is, as well as what (and then some) the masses will be willing to forfeit in order to bolster FB's bottom line.

Facebook could sell less invasive adds targeting without selling you. E.g. based on groups. E.g. if I join group called "cat lovers", they could show me cat related adds when I go to that group page, or if my current visible stream has that groups' posts. But what they actually do is they package me as sellable with all my private info and perhaps whatever I have written ever or any sites I have visited.

Regardless of how one feels about Facebook, has anyone stopped to ask why Facebook and Zuckerberg are getting such an avalanche of negative coverage from the mainstream media? Why have they suddenly united against him?

I think it’s as simple as: the general public will consume this because they’ve heard about the data breach and it’s something that will get their attention. I think it will last for a few more months and then they will find something else to write about as people will become agnostic towards anything Facebook related

It is a bit odd Facebook is getting all the negative attention, but it definitely deserves a lot of negative attention. Perhaps other companies in a similar position (MSFT, Google, Apple) are seen as contributing something of value while Facebook solely exists to broker your data to a third party.

I believe it's valuable to society that FB is revealed as the advertising giant they are, but there are other companies with their fingers in the pie that should be treated similarly - maybe our bandwidth just isn't sufficient to sustain negative coverage against multiple targets, that actually wouldn't surprise me.

Facebook has made a lot of enemies:

- Traditional online media has been looking for an online advertising giant to attack for a while, Facebook was the first to be involved in a national scandal (Google is bigger but they're "Not Evil"). They want to regain some control of their advertising income

- Democrats blame Facebook for electing Trump

- Republicans blame Facebook for moderating from the left (doesn't help Zuckerberg was courting the Clintons and actively assisting her during the election).

- Privacy advocates want a focal point for the issue of online privacy and data mining.

The real question is: who doesn't hate Facebook right now?

ad revenue

Partly Trump derangement syndrome, plus he won't crack down on speech and thought the way the free press wants him to.

https://outline.com/x2v2Sm

Mark Zuckerberg is a sociopath, the world would probably better off if he had a stroke five years ago.

I'm shocked that shareholders have kept him around - his personal brand is a huge liability for the company.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com