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Comment by dabinat | Hacker News Reader

> He said that if it’s relevant, it’s not an ad, “it’s an add-on.”

It fascinates me how executives seem to have convinced themselves that people like seeing ads. No-one likes ads, they just tolerate them if it means something is cheap or low-cost, or if the ad isn’t too disruptive.

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I’ve actually spoken to multiple people, enough where it’s not a strange fringe one-off, that say they like relevant ads. If given the option, these people said they enable ads and the tracking to make them relevant, because they find them useful for learning about stuff they might want.

I can’t seem to wrap my head around it personally, as I tend to share your worldview about ads. Despite my shock and how much I disagree with them, these people do exist.

I can imagine it. If I were the kind of person whose needs and desires could all be satisfied by mass-produced products sold by the top 5 or so largest retail corporations, and who did things like fill out consumer surveys for a chance to win gift cards, and who enabled all tracking in every app everywhere for convenience's sake, and who didn't care much about privacy because I had nothing to hide, I imagine that ad targeting might become effective enough that I would regularly encounter ads for products that looked interesting and which I might want to buy.

if you're forced to see ads, it makes sense to opt for ads for things you might actually want. Of course that's ignoring the whole tracking business and that "targeted ads" are still a complete crapshoot.

> have convinced themselves

Oh, gosh, I thought they were just lying.

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