> Contrary to popular opinion, people want to see ads.

I'd like to see some data supporting this opinion. I'll form the contradictory opinion that no-one really wants to see ads but most recognise that some form of advertisement is necessary to lower the cost of access to some information.

Rather and a _want_, it's more of an acceptable evil, sometimes.

There is probably a threshold at which ads become acceptable, and that probably involve their level of intrusiveness, perceived relevance/usefulness and the privacy risk they pose (although I would guess that the implication of that last point probably fly under the radar of most regular users as it needs some technical understanding of how the web works).

Ads on the internet are nothing more than spam, a privacy risk and some are just outright dangerous.

This industry is pretty much out of control and its bad actors deserve to disappear. They probably still have a few years left before ad blocking becomes mainstream enough that it hurts them enough. We'll all be forced to find new -hopefully better- measures to keep having some of the content we love.

Hopefully, some of the fluff content whose sole purpose is to feature ads will also disappear. Good riddance I say.

> Contrary to popular opinion, people want to see ads.

Which is why adblockers exist:-p

More seriously, you are right but people only like ads that are entertaining by themselves,introduce them to something new and worthwile or perfectly fit their needs.

Targeted advertising promises to do 3, can't do 1 and actively subverts 2. So I'd say it fails

nah, you're just wrong.

superbowl ads are popular because they are a spectacle. you know they are going to try to be different/unusual because the companies had to spend millions. you want to see them compete. BUT if you had to watch any of those fantastic ads 10 times everyday you would grow to hate the site of them.

ads in newspapers, magazines, flyers aren't as bad because they are passive. You can read them if you want to (i used to buy computer shopper magazines which are 99% ads). but TV and internet ads are desperate to engage with you.

auto-playing video ad with sound? I will make a note to hate your product and I will bad-mouth it any chance i get.

SOME people want to see ads.

And the glorious thing is that by giving people the option of opting out, you would be able to cater to the desires of both people.

But now let us be honest.

Giving people what they want is the last thing advertisers care about...

I kind of agree with you. What I would love is a system where I could preemptively put in all of my preferences and have some AI go and hunt for things to advertise to me. Like, if I'm in the market for a watch or a car, it knows that, and suggests deals to me. Right now, even during the 99.9% of times I'm absolutely not looking for a car, I have to see the ads, and the ad people lose money on each view. And once I've gone out and bought a car, I'd like to be able to right click the next car ad and say "Just got one, thx" and that would be that. Maybe the key to actual tailored, enjoyable advertising is making it so They know more about you.

Yeah, I was thinking about this just today. I'd very happily subscribe to a service to which I volunteer as much data as I want - my age, sex, location, job, interests, whatever - and define categories of products I might be interested in, and such service then shows me non-interactive, text/static-picture ads of relevant products on the web instead of the bullshit we see. An ad-replacer instead of ad-blocker.

Or a lite version, I could get a tailored magazine sent to my mailbox. That would be the single newsletter I'd actually appreciate.

There's a thing called perfect adverting. Exactly the right product presented to you at exactly the right time.

Super Bowl is sort of a good point, but what do you mean by magazines? Given a choice between a magazine with and without ads, are you saying some people would choose the one with ads? I don't think anybody seeks out ads, especially when they're paying for something. Super Bowl ads are only popular because they're essentially comedy skits and short films, they're basically free, and they're part of a cultural event that everyone you know watches. Almost nobody likes them because they appreciate quality marketing content or something.

> Almost nobody likes them because they appreciate quality marketing content or something.

Quality marketing is fun to watch.

Hence the people (including myself) who only watch the ads. It's hardly isolated to the Superbowl—look at the millions of views which some better ads get on YouTube.

Likewise, I definitely think for many people advertising is part of the magazine experience. I certainly don't mind some of the nicer ads in The New Yorker.

Yeah, but quality marketing is almost always an isolated story/plot that has nothing to do with any products sold and they throw a logo and name on at the end.

Most of these "quality" commercials could swap out products and the exposure would be the same. People don't want to be sold something, they just want to absorb interesting content. That's what modern advertisement gets wrong.

> Yeah, but quality marketing is almost always an isolated story/plot that has nothing to do with any products sold and they throw a logo and name on at the end.

I think the Get a Mac campaign, for example, is both lots of fun and directly connected to the product being sold.

When I used to buy computer magazines a big reason was the ads from computer parts dealers inside. Nowadays a lot of that is on the internet, but ads are still a way to find out about products and prices.

This is just my take on "luxury" items, but in magazines seeing new clothes/jewelry/perfume/watch/phone serves both as "news" (hey, this new thing exists) and a sort of fantasy (look how good things could be with this, because those items are almost certainly attached to someone/somewhere attractive)

And then there's stuff like Artforum, which has to be over half ads, but the ads are at least as important to the readers as the content. They tell you where the buzz is, or at least where gallery owners want it to be. In a market that's all about signaling, that's important.

In the 90s I actually liked ads in computer magazines. That was the only way to keep an eye on prices and new products, before the internet.

Now with the internet I do not even read magazines anymore...

In Japan, there are lifestyle magazines that are almost nothing but advertisements and are wildly popular, beautifully designed, and remarkably informative ("Popeye" is a good example). One can argue about the social merits of consumerism, but I think the quality of advertisements is directly proportional to how much their culture of origin values "taste" (again, debatably for good or ill).

I really enjoy the ads in print magazines. Especially tech magazines. I want to see the cool stuff that's available.

Online ads I block. The ads in the magazine can't spy on me or serve me malware.

As someone who advertises on Facebook - I'd say that FB takes a lot of care to ensure that the ads it displays do not take away from the User Experience, both in terms of content relevancy and design (FB applies penalties on neewsfeed ads which have >20% text on the image). Further, since pricing is dynamic - crappy ads get expensive to run really fast. That's how this system is so much better than the constant spam you were used to seeing in Web 2.0.

> Contrary to popular opinion, people want to see ads.

Yes, but they want to see other things too.

Looking at the same banners upon viewing any page on a website; or looking at more ads than the actual content; or waiting for the content to show up because ads haven't downloaded yet doesn't help.

Is there any advertising medium that won't be overexploited? Some owners, especially small ones, of advertising real estate will always try to squeeze every dollar possible. A majority of small newspapers carry an overload of local advertisments. The problem that I see is — it's far easy to increase ads than to increase readership.

The only solution I see is Google implementing strict policies to curb the menace. I am pretty sure it's in their technical prowess to implement ad placement restrictions but why aren't they doing it? Maybe, it's in their best interest financially to just be easy on the issue.

Absolutely. I even sign up to have ads delivered to my email: they're called newsletters. What I don't like is intrusive, spammy, misleading ads that want to track me across the internet. That's why I use an adblocker.

Ads that are related to the page content yes, as they might be even useful (eg book suggestion). But ads about things I already bought on another website five days ago - personalised ads are both scary and useless, every single time - you are right, they are spammy and ad-networks haven't learned a bit and just followed Google with that trend ten years ago.

But do people want to be tracked?

SuperBowl ads are an unusual case because they are so expensive, and everyone knows they are expensive. This means they are honest signals of success. If a company shows a SuperBowl ad you know they're rich enough to afford a SuperBowl ad, so they must be doing something right. Targeted internet ads don't have this feature - they are automatically priced and could be extremely cheap. You never know how much somebody paid for them so they have no signalling value.

I think you're reading a bit too far into things. People watch Superbowl ads because they're a once-a-year spectacle, regardless of the company situation, and you don't need to be a sports fan for them. Post-superbowl discussion about the commercials often involves statements like "They spent millions of dollars on that?", not "Wow, that company had enough to put together a superbowl ad!"

As always, people will remember the content of particular bits of entertaining advertisement, regardless of whether or not they remember the actual product or company being advertised.

The SuperBowl ads (and great TV ads) are a cultural touchstone and a world away from the world of online direct response advertising.

When was the last time you saw an iconic Facebook app install ad?

We're getting there. I'm thinking of those Mobile Strike ads with Arnold Schwarzenegger...