We’re Dropping Google Ads (2017)
groundup.org.za
groundup.org.za
MS Edge's launch page is riddled with these ads, they appear on otherwise high profile news outlets.
The other irritating thing with the tracking. You could look for a fridge, find, buy, receive it. But you'll remain getting ads about fridges for a week. Repeated ads, go to the speedcheck website, I sometimes get the same thing plastered all over the page.
As long as the listicle websites receive traffic, there'll be buyers for these nonsense and scammy ads.
Most people who buy fridges have recently bought a fridge. Having done so is the single strongest signal for “will buy a fridge“ in existence.
The reason for this is that sometimes fridges immediately malfunction and the customer goes looking for another one, which happens far more often than buying one in the first place. Not that this makes it look any less strange.
Edit: I'd also like to see a statistic, re: "Most people who buy fridges have recently bought a fridge". If that's the case, then the fail rate for fridges on the market is egregiously high. You say "sometimes fridges malfunction", but I can't square away that "sometimes" with the phrase "most people" used earlier.
Maybe it’s just wastage that they can’t avoid.
I’m still getting political letters in my mailbox even though I’ve already voted.
They know I just bought one… and yet…
Probably time to buy fridges with warranty coverage. Which should be basically all of them, as long as you’re not buying stuff that “fell off the back of the truck”.
In the absolute worst case, wouldn't it be exactly as often (if every fridge immediately fails)?
Though now I'm imagining someone having a fridge fail and then buying two backup fridges just in case.
I don’t think this is true. First, I’m aware of probably 50 fridge purchases and none have immediate failed. Definitely an anecdote but better than your unsourced claim.
Second, if I bought a fridge that immediately failed it would be under warranty and it would be repaired or replaced with the same model.
Third, ConsumerReports.org rates fridges and none of the top brands report this problem.
I think it's helpful for viewers to put the year in the title, which is an important signal in that this site was able to survive for 5 years without ads.
I know money is nice, but I can’t imagine being so disrespectful to my users as to put unvetted display network ads like this. Don’t get me started on Taboola.
I suppose that the last time that happened should be _at least_ 5 years, because that was when started using ad blockers. Before that, I was just annoyed by them, so I suppose the last click was years before that, when maybe they made any sense.
Google sucks.
Put those two things together, and not surprisingly, the result is awful.
They’re a way for us to read articles, watch videos, see images, etc. without paying with our credit cards. Plus they’re a way for us to learn about new products and services we might be interested in.
What’s wrong with that?
I'm not sure whether your message is an advocacy for 0 click micro-payment, or whether it's assuming that consumers don't pay for the ads.
Please do not make the argument that I technically pay for my internet connection and so do in fact pay for ads. Please also do not make the argument that my time is money. It isn’t. I’m not interested in trading my time for money (outside of my day job).
Then you should oppose ads. You are literally trading your time to compensate for content, as opposed to trading your money for content.
I’m trading (part of) my attention and some of my data for content.
> You are literally trading your time to compensate for content
This is literally not trading time for money.
There is literally no difference between that, and selling your time for money and then buying the thing of value. Well, the latter takes two transactions to accomplish the same thing
Other than that you are correct that there is literally no difference between them.
So they aren’t the best new products and services.
Also they encourage behavior that harms the planet like overconsumption and buying things like Coca Cola and whatnot.
The world would be better without ads. And I think videos, articles, and images would be better with alternate forms of paying for them.
They also encourage buying solar panels and electric cars. Huge ad campaigns were run around the recent COVID vaccine as well.
> They are enormously biased toward people who can afford to pay for ads.
But they make content, videos, etc. more accessible to people who don’t have the means to choose to overcome a paywall.
I’m not for banning them. Like I don’t want to ban added sugar or drugs. I just wish we’d use them less. And I would never advise a friend to work on ad tech. It’s not quite as bad as working for a spam company, but maybe up there with making weapons of war or something.