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Comment by janpot | Hacker News Reader

Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But the result of the tracking is not only that you get "relevant" ads, it's that your timelines and your feeds and your news gets tweaked in ways that makes you engage with ads as much as possible.

Not only do you get manipulated in buying stuff you didn't ask for (ads in general). You're also getting spoonfed content that tries to make you as vulnerable as possible to this manipulation. Up to a point that this is downright threatening democracy and our way of life.

I guess you could call this a form of censorship. Content gets suppressed, simply because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue. It's this type of censorship on "social" media that I consider much more harmful than the type that usually gets most of our attention.

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> I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads

I froze up the first time someone said this to me. Of course I prefer random ads, cause this way they're less likely to push the right buttons on my vulnerable monkey-ass brain. Do people think tailored ads are good for them instead of consumerism triggers? Messed up worldview.

Random ads are effectively noise. Targeted ads occasionally are of value. If there's going to be an ad, better it be a targeted one.

I also have no problem with companies tracking for the purpose of seeing which ads work.

I do *not* like the retargeting ads--if I didn't buy the item there's a reason! Either I didn't want it or I'm waiting for a better price, neither of which you're going to solve unless you're telling me about a sale on an item.

And the biggie is how intrusive they get. I'd like to see a system where the browser sends an acceptable-ad policy, a site can either comply or refuse to serve the page.

Ads should be targeted to the content, not the recipient IMO. If you're reading about California wine in an article, advertise based on that - travel, wine, whatever.

But surely, there are car enthusiasts who read about cars that would never read an article about California wine, but would benefit from knowing about it.

In your world, that person misses out on the pleasures of california wine

This is an amusing example. I'd guess that car enthusiasts are aware of Sonoma for various reasons. I suspect they'd get some exposure to California wine inadvertently through that connection.

You can go to any gas station in the nation and walk out with a bottle of California wine for about $3.

I guess fancy pants California wine then. I know the valley grows a lot of grapes. I interpreted the thread as Napa /Sonoma

You missed the reference: Sonoma has a famous race track; hence car enthusiasts already know about Sonoma and its location in California wine country.

No, you seem to construct some kind of straw man where you can't randomly make ads for California wine? But you can. Don't use profiling, though.

Absolutely - And we already have this in the form of e.g. TV commercials, and, more recently, youtube sponsored segments. I vastly prefer getting ads relevant to what I'm currently looking at to something entirely different based on what The Algorithms decided I wanted to see.

Also, retargetting ads are intrusive as they are the equivalent of a salesperson of a store following me after I left the store, asking me if I want to buy the item I looked at, when I am trying to do something else.

I’m a photographer, and I right now I’m targeting local teenagers and their moms for high school senior portrait sessions. I would think they’d rather see that, be reminded it’s time to get them done, and possibly learn about a better photographer than seeing an ad for an ice cream maker or what have you.

In other words you want to manipulate them into buying something they wouldn’t have if they hadn’t seen your ad. That doesn’t sound like a good thing for the person on the other side of the transaction.

This seems like an extreme way of thinking about it. Maybe they like taking/looking at/sending the pictures, but between work, summer camp, soccer lessons, making sure everyone's fed, etc, they just forgot to book a session, and seeing the ad reminds them to do it. In this light, it seems like a great thing for both sides of the transaction.

A common view is that both sides in an economic transaction gain some sort of benefit. Nonetheless sentiments like "all labor is exploitation" are fairly common, so I can see why that view exists, given the power disparity.

I believe your first point and disbelieve the second.

That doesn't get away from the basic fact that all advertising is an attempt at manipulation. The advertiser is trying to encourage a transaction when there wouldn't otherwise have been one. It would be pointless if this wasn't the case.

If you don't want to be manipulated at all (my preference) then it's better not to see targeted adverts.

Hmm, if manipulation means intending a change in behavior in the recipient then this is true. But by that definition many things are manipulative, like regulation / tax codes (which create behavior changes). So I'm not sure if I quite understand this idea of seeking a change in behavior being distasteful.

Maybe it's that some advertisers create the problem they're solving (e.g. body image issues, etc)? Or that it's used for commercial ends? Or that the best product recommendations typically come from friends and family so why bother having ads anyways?

Having bought some products I discovered from ads myself, I can't help but think that I have benefited from the arrangement in a similar way that both parties benefit in economic exchanges. Obviously I'd rather have had my friend tell me but that might have taken... who knows how long.

> A common view is that both sides in an economic transaction gain some sort of benefit.

Yes, assuming 0% force is involved and both agents are 100% rational. Just like spherical cow, the real world is not that simple.

Most people (in my area) hire a photographer to take senior photos. They may hire me because they see my ad instead of someone else they already know of because they like my work better.

Or, let's say they decided to just do it on their own/have a friend do it...until they see one of my images and go "wow."

The second may be spending money when they wouldn't, but that's pretty rare. If they do it's because they decided it was worth it. The others are just being shown another option that they might not have known existed, meaning they're more informed about where they're going to spend their money.

I don't see who is getting hurt in this scenario. I get work that I need to survive and they're getting photos that they're excited about.

Not a mom, but if I want to learn about a better [photographer/plumber/mechanic/whatever] I will use the tools that list and attempt to give accurate information about businesses (yelp, angi, BBB, ?), inadequate though they may be. My brain doesn't register your ad. If it does, I'm probably less likely to consider your business, because you shoved an intrusive internet ad in my face.

I mostly "boost" posts to my page, for what it's worth.

Also, all three of those are worthless for photographers. We're not like a plumber where as long as the job is done right and priced well you're good. Our style is why you're hiring us, so an ad showing one of my images makes a lot of sense.

I had not thought of that. I'd still rather see it on a local billboard, but as the sibling post says, my opinion is irrelevant anyway.

Everyone says this about advertising, it's a tired narrative that has been disproven countless times in the aggregate. Advertising works. Even if you are correct about yourself (many people don't realize the subliminal impact of ads), the loss of your business is more than made up for by others.

I'm a bit suspicious of Yelp being a better alternative to anything. They've been caught doing more shady stuff than anyone.

You'd be better off doing very local advertising in your area and school districts. Bus stops/billboards/etc all "target" your audience. Contact parent orgs etc, give discounts to word-of-mouth referrals.

Most people will be more annoyed than anything else at seeing a "random" ad, in the same way it's just more painful, for example, for a guy to sit through a 30 second women's shampoo TV commercial than a car commercial.

I'd say most people don't even realize they may or may not be triggered, they simply don't want to suffer through a completely irrelevant ad.

Isn't a women's shampoo TV commercial filled to the brim with beautiful women? I don't care what they are saying.

There are products out there that would increase my quality of life that I'm not aware of or not actively thinking about. In an ideal world ads are about informing the consumer, so absolutely ads can provide value to you as well. One of the recent life improving products I never thought about before an ad is an electric toothbrush - honestly I saw them but I considered it a silly gadget. Saw a plug in a random video, got some cheap version and was really surprised how useful it is I upgraded to a decent model. Likewise I never used an electric razor, tried Philips one blade after seeing an ad and it's also a great improvement. Point being there are products out there that would improve your life if you knew about them.

That being said I dislike tracking not because I might get manipulated - I also prefer relevant ads. I dislike the fact that they can better target vulnerable groups - like depressed people with addictive personalities and gaming - this is the majority of app stores profit, I would bet it's a huge ad% as well - mobile gaming is basically milking people with low impulse control and nothing better to do with their time. It's just like those scamming telemarketing scum targeting old people

Yes, there are plenty of products out there that I would like to discover. But these are one in a hundred. I'd gladly sacrifice the few valuable ones. In fact I already do this, because I use adblockers and pi-hole as much as I possibly can.

I'm not completely against marketing. I pretty often buy things advertised in podcasts, stuff that obviously paid for product placement in specific places. But those are ads that fit the medium, usually they're very related to the topic at hand. This is not at all the case with all random bullshit that shows up on Facebook and YouTube. Those are most often than not ads full of toxic subtleties like unreasonable standards of living, body image and success.

What have you bought from podcast ads? I’ve never heard an interesting one. Possibly ever.

Sometimes ads bring items into your life that improve it. That’s not going to be the majority of cases though, usually ads will bring products into your life for the good of someone else, which is bad.

If you didn’t have ads, your dentist would have told you about electric toothbrushes.

>In an ideal world ads are about informing the consumer, so absolutely ads can provide value to you as well.

I agree with you that learning about new products can be a genuinely good thing. I don't think ads are the best way to deliver this information, though.

My wife joined a Facebook group dedicated to house cleaning, and the products the ladies have recommended (Bar Keeper's Friend, Scrub Daddy, Bissell SpotClean) have all been fantastic.

The paid ads on her Facebook are either scams, AliExpress crap sold at full price, or established brands we already know (Amazon, Big W.)

You are lucky you started with the one blade, it is much better than every other electric razor which has been on the market forever.

>That being said I dislike tracking not because I might get manipulated - I also prefer relevant ads. I dislike the fact that they can better target vulnerable groups - like depressed people with addictive personalities and gaming - this is the majority of app stores profit, I would bet it's a huge ad% as well - mobile gaming is basically milking people with low impulse control and nothing better to do with their time. It's just like those scamming telemarketing scum targeting old people

It is more push pull thing. - pull request for relavant ads, when I actively searching for something (and a search engine would be better). - push request for ads that is random. If I see something I like I'll click it.

This is why, of all the ad based companies, I like Pinterest best. It's basically a digital magazine. You show up and say, "I'd like to see pictures of cute wicker baskets, and mid-century modern couches please!" and they deliver.

Right -- but the solution here is simple, it just destroys much of the business model for the advertisers themselves:

The answer is, "advertisers, open up to all of us exactly how it all works. Tell me honestly and truthfully what it is you would like to track and what you would like to know about me, and how you intend to use it and from that I will decide what to tell you."

As an aside, my favorite ads on Pandora are the ones in languages I don't speak.

For me when I say relevant ads, I truly mean ads that are based on the things I do, the things I buy and the interests I have. If I bought a new 4wd car, I wouldn't mind seeing ads for bull bars or tow bars because these are things I'd potentially be searching for anyway.

If I had random ads as you say (truly random), I don't want/or need to see tampon ads in my feed as a male. Which is what you might end up with. Conversely, if I just purchased a new 4WD, I don't need to see ads for a new Sedan.

If I'm going to see ads I may as well see ones that are somewhat relevant right? Advertisements are truly that, consumerism triggers and the only way to stop that is to stop ads altogether.

Happy to discuss my thoughts, but that's my line of thought.

I don't use social media and aggressively block all ads, but my wife does so I've seen how it works. While scrolling through she sometimes she's clothing or jewellery that matches her style and will engage with them to see what's available and how much it costs. Nevertheless she hardly ever converts.

The ads themselves aren't a problem from what I've seen, rather it is the incessant stream of memes and emotive content that keeps you scrolling through the feed.

Agreed, memes and crap content that has filled our feeds completely lowers the quality of information we're obtaining from these applications.

But content is another story altogether.

Content was a different story, until ads started showing up in the same place on the page as content. Now ads aren't something on the side you can passively ignore; they are sponsored content.

I have yet to see a relevant ad that is actually relevant to me. 99% of the time I just get things recommended that I either just bought or have generally no interest in. I get better results from random ads, sometimes I find interesting links in those.

I've had numerous people say that to me over the years and I still never have a reply, because for me it's just such a mind-bogglingly foreign way of thinking. I just cannot put myself into that kind of mindset enough to actually figure it out.

> Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But...

You don't even need your "but" (so hold on to it), because this is a classic false dichotomy anyway. Targeting does not require spying nor does spying tend to improve targeting. Basic immediate context (what you're doing, not who you are) works better for both advertisers and willing consumers than personally invasive intrusion does.

You should rather ask whether they prefer relevant ads that put them at risk by aggregating everything about their lives into databases that regularly get breached or relevant ads that don't put them at risk. They can get relevant ads either way. They've just been sold a bill of goods on the need for personal invasion to do it.

I'd have no problem telling advertisers that I am between 30-40 years old, male and live in a certain region. And that's information that would help advertisers (if they did not have it yet) very much. So just ask your users to give some information and tell them how they will use it and maybe they will give it, but don't spy on your users every secret.

But not Facebook. That ship has sailed. I can't and won't trust them.

> 30-40 years old, male and live in a certain region. And that's information that would help advertisers

Region, sure, that makes sense for a local business. But targeting gender or age is discrimination.

how would you sell bras for women over 50?

When the user indicates they are looking to buy bras for women over 50.

so you would keep user input forever without any personalised prediction forever?

First of all, what makes a bra only suitable if you are over 50, other than discrimination?

You can always find an example of a product that is easier to sell to a specific niche group of people. That doesn’t give the advertiser the right to know that fact about everyone. For the specific case of bras - how would you sell bras for women with large breasts if you don’t know who has large breasts? Do you think that slight inconvenience on behalf of the advertiser should give them the right to keep a database of everyone’s cup size?

>First of all, what makes a bra only suitable if you are over 50, other than discrimination?

Breasts tend to sag with age. As natural elasticity declines, a woman may require additional support.

Like we did before Facebook. Find sites that are relevant to my target audience and target those.

At least that way, if done right, you won't be simply invisible to half of the internet users.

> Basic immediate context (what you're doing, not who you are) works better for both advertisers and willing consumers than personally invasive intrusion does

How are you quantifying this?

In the early years of ads on facebook they had targeted ads in the sidebar, but the news feed was left untouched. One change that happened is that Likes started giving pages access to space in your feed. Eventually pages that I didn't explicitly like started gaining access there. After that the algorithm for ordering the feed changed (probably more than once).

I was okay with the targeted ads in the sidebar, when that's all it was. I opted not to block ads on facebook with adblock plus. I learned of all sorts of products that I probably never would have heard of had I been getting random ads, or ads intended to appeal to a wide audience. I never felt manipulated.

The tweaking of the news feed feels wrong though even without ads. Maybe it was an inevitable result of the quest for profits, but if I could go back to targeted ads the way they used to be, I would do it in a heartbeat.

The reality is that I've been fed targeted ads all my life, but the targeting wasn't was optimized. Automotive magazines are more likely to have ads for spark plugs than hair products. A cooking website is more likely to have ads for spatulas than tractors. At least, that's how it used to be. With ads fed from Google, ads are likely to be related to what I've recently searched for with their search engine. The result is often comical: I no longer see ads relevant to what I'm interested in at the time, but to what I was interested in 30 minutes ago. I'm not clicking any of those ads; I've already moved on.

> Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads".

My response to that is "I prefer random ads, because relevant ads are an indication that I'm being spied on". My objection to ads isn't the ads themselves -- I'm going to ignore those no matter what -- it's all the spying the ads bring with them.

I don’t necessarily think engagement is the wrong metric, and I don’t mind some personalized tracking of that engagement to increase ad revenue.

The issue is allowing any old engagement.

I’d like to see the hacker news system scaled.

Some things that could make moderators actions go further to keep the cost down:

- outrage detection: before you hit post, you’re warned that your possibly inflammatory post will be flagged for moderation.

-timeouts: if a moderator finds outrage or outrage bait in a post, the poster gets a seven day timeout (cannot log on). ANYONE who replied to or liked the offending post gets a one day timeout.

Why would I ever do anything but lurk in such a forum? The risk/reward ratio would be so out of whack that even if I wanted to learn something, I would rather not risk a drive-by ban if who I'm talking to turned out to make the moderator mad.

I don't see a 1 day ban as much of a punishment. If there's a platform involved it could just block posting/voting for a day.

As far as incentives to lurk, I see quite the opposite. I don't comment on reddit unless I have something funny to say because outrage, point scoring and comedy is what rises to the top rather than reasoned argument.

I’m always shocked at how non-relevant the ads I see are. How many Ph.D’s at Google have dedicated their careers to targeting me more correctly, and yet: constant ads for stretchy water-wicking pants (I don’t go camping), solid brass pencil shavers (can’t remember the last time I used a pencil), and dating sites for seniors (I’m married and in my 30’s). Are these people just bad at their jobs?

Don’t get me wrong, I prefer it this way. But you’d think they’d be better at it by now.

Google does seem utterly incompetent relative to their brainpower and budget.

> I guess you could call this a form of censorship. Content gets suppressed, simply because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue.

Absolutely. I've seen entire websites completely reinvent themselves because someone complained to Google about some "offensive" page and got their ads pulled. Stuff I used to like got deleted because of advertisers.

If this "sanitized advertiser friendly web" is the future, I'd rather not have a web at all.

Honestly one of the few things worse than advertisers are the engineers who work to enable them.

Some things are worth more than money.

Agreed.

This would include most Facebook and Google engineers, no?

Do people really prefer relevant ads? I just disregard them, and it doesn't matter to me whether they are relevant or off the wall.

The only ads I specifically don't like are the ones Youtube have randomly showed my wife and I. It's only happened twice to each of us, but they were a bit adult themed. Having a child in the house, I was pretty peeved.

I vastly prefer irrelevant ones. If I browse e-book readers because my coworkers were talking about them and I was curious about the current state of the art, I don't want ads to pester me into buying something I don't need. On the other hand, no amount of ads will manipulate me into buying diapers or a timeshare.

My favourite (in terms of how can this even happen) was an 43 minute ad of someone reading the Koran between 2 maybe 10 minute videos.

"Content gets suppressed, simply because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue."

Why is it that the only the first page of search results in a search engine "matter". (Some search engines are now showing a total of 5 (!) results. Brave's new search engine does not even have a page 2!)

Why is it that an "app store" has limited search discoverability but instead provides "Top 10" or "Top 20" lists. And more recently, "recommended apps".

Why is it that a video hosting service has "recomendations" enabled by default, recommended videos show up in search results and the top "recommended videos" always have the highest view counts.

"Tech" has no viable "business model" except advertising. (Time will tell if this "model" is actually sustainable.) This is because they are nothing more than middlemen. They do not produce content and offer nothing of value that they in fact own. Whatever they offer can be obtained directly from its true owners, provided there is motivation (e.g., avoiding payment to a middleman). If "tech" did have something of value they own, it stands to reason they would charge for it. This would provide others with the motivation to cut out the middleman. Hence, "tech" cannot charge "users" money for middleman services.

I'm curious how much manipulation people think is involved in terms of buying things you didn't want. Enough to absolve someone of their financial responsibility for buying?

Why or why not?

I think it's more enlightening to view it from the other side.

If desktop and mobile advertising didn't have a material impact, why would profit-maximizing companies do it?

If profit-maximizing companies are interested in this type of advertising, what is it about Facebook and Google that captures almost all their spend?

> I'm curious how much manipulation people think is involved in terms of buying things you didn't want. Enough to absolve someone of their financial responsibility for buying?

Well, marketing has some famous stories where seemingly counterintuitive things resulted in more buys, eg. Actimel (not sure whether it is called the same in the US as well, but this fruity milk drink with some added vitamins) was having trouble selling at their original price, but increasing the price and thus making it appear a more luxury item did the think for them. There are many small “hacks” in the human brain that are actively exploited by marketing so while I would not say that we are not responsible for our financing, we are at the very least heavily manipulated when shopping - and also, some people are easier to manipulate than others.

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