Hacker News Reader

Comment by vikinghckr | Hacker News Reader

Advertisement is unquestionably a net positive for society and humanity. It's one of the few true positive sum business models where everyone is better off.

View on HN

I became even better off when I installed an ad blocker.

That's obviously not true. It significantly favor those with more money.

It's the exact opposite. Advertising-based model is why the poorest people in the poorest countries in the world have had access to the exact same Google search, YouTube and Facebook as the richest people in the US. Ad-supported business models are the great equalizers of wealth.

Subsidizing the poor via ads is what we cheer for? bike theif brained understanding

Yes giving people with fewer resources an option to pay with their attention is a morally good thing for society, actually.

Even better, morally, to give the product to them without harvesting their attention or personal data

No, that's charity, which while morally great is not sustainable at scale and in the long run.

Considering how prominent gambling and gambling advertising is, aren't we creating more poverty and keeping people poor through ads? Advertising seems like it's a net drain on the poor through encouraging consumption people can't afford and pushing a variety of vices.

Edit: "Sorry your husband lost the money you were saving for a house on stake.com, but here's your free Google search."

Disagree; these users are already subsidized by those who click ads and buy things.

DTC pharmaceutical ads, which RFKJR wants to ban for essentially reasons of vibes, cause better health outcomes

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/695475

not merely correlation but causation. the approach used here was part of a family of approaches that won the Nobel in 2012

another good one:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37275770/

advertising caused increases in treatment and adherence to medicine

the digital ads market is hundreds of billions of dollars, it is a bad idea to generalize about it.

that said, of course ben thompson or whoever, they're not like, citing any of this research, it's still all based on vibes

The whole "attention economy" is a cancerous outgrowth of advertising. When the customer is paying with their time instead of money, wasting their time becomes your goal. The impact on society is hard to measure, but it's not nothing and I would argue a net-negative.

Advertising is a necessary thing and can be beneficial to everyone. I have something to sell, you want to buy that thing, and know you know I'm selling it. Win win.

On the other hand, the advertisement and associated privacy-brokerage industries are a very different story

"unquestionably"? Given that vast majority of ads are for harmful self-destructive projects or misleading or lying or make place where they got spammed worse... Sometimes multiple at once.

Spam alone (also advertisement) is quite annoying and destructive.

You are shadow blocked fyi

You have been perma banned from HN fyi

Reply on news.ycombinator.com