Think of it as advertising, most of them have a domain name in there.

It's for advertising. Like meh.com (known for weird humor, like reverse psychological sales pitch).

I think the "it's for advertising" excuse is actually the cherry on the top of this satirical turd pile. It highlights ever so nicely the feeling we all have that money thrown at advertising instead of used for buying actual things or paying people for actual services is somehow equivalent to throwing it into a hole. Yet, it's the advertisers choosing to do this. That's what makes it brilliant. Getting advertisers to literally throw their advertising budget into a hole, and when we ask why these sums are there, we are given the excuse, well, "it's advertising." As if that excuses it, in such a matter-of-fact way that we are supposed to accept it without question, as if it should somehow be obvious that that's not a waste of money. Amazing.

Almost every large consumer facing company has a huge advertising budget.

And they have for a very good reason.

People are easily manipulated, and advertising is subconscious manipulation.

I abhor all ads, and I never get how Americans actually willingly watch TV with the constant garbage thats stuffed into your brain. (it's not nearly as bad in most of Europe)

But then again, our economic model is dependent on driving demand (aka on people continuing to buy stuff, always more stuff), so it all works out.

Just see advertising as the necessary grease in the economic engine that is endless consumption.

I'd say they have very large advertising budgets for a fairly bad reason: advertisers for the most part throw shit at the wall to see what sticks.

There's some science, but the advertising here is a perfect example that many people have no idea how to spend their ad money in a way that meaningfully engages some target audience.

I'd say they have very large advertising budgets for a fairly bad but different reason: they're making useless crap nobody needs, and so is everybody else, so the product will drown in the sea of useless crap and will never make any profit unless a massive amount of money is used to make it stand out from that sea of junk. Of course, everybody else is trying to do the same...

The way I see it, capitalism doesn't work when people behave rationally in self-interest, because if they did, they would buy a fraction of what they do. Advertising exists to persuade people to act irrationally in the interest of a company.

And now you and everyone else that visits the site have seen their business URLs

I never saw any URLs.

And we're not going to buy anything from them, since their products price includes this kind of "cost".

And their competitors' prices might include $2k in a safari trip to kill endangered species[1]. You monster.

[1] http://mashable.com/2011/03/31/godaddy-ceo-elephant/

I think the fact that advertising persists in such widespread forms is pretty good proof of its efficacy.

Study after study shows that even if you think you're immune from advertising you still gain a positive outlook on a brand just from familiarity/repetition alone, nevermind if you agree with the content of the advertisement.

Hmm, as opposed to what? A red bull wing suit event, is that the progress you were looking for?

That's because, to those people, $1k USD is effectively nothing.

Well note that they are using it for cheap advertising