It took some searching to find an amateur YouTuber in the UK giving a review of the boots. He even had 6 months and a year update. It was a low quality production but the content was so much better. This guy even walked in a creek to show they were waterproof while everyone else sat in their bedroom talking.

Any time the financial incentives of a system encourage negative behavior, it is at least a hint that more regulation is needed.

In other media forms, the guy giving the shill would need to say up front "I was paid for this review". On youtube and instagram, I don't think this is the case.

EDIT: I was wrong, they've already charged and settled with two: TmarTn and Syndicate[2].

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/04/ftc-s...

[2] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/09/csgo-...

1) CSGO Lotto was never a gambling site to begin with because you could play for free simply by emailing support, akin to McDonalds Monopoly [0]

2) It was public knowledge that the owners of the corporation were TmarTn and Syndicate.

[0] www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2017/12/18/16782124/csgo-lotto-lawsuit-gambling-terms-of-use-tmartn

So was the argument here that they expected children and teenagers who were primarily consuming their content to look up the public ownership records of CSGO Lotto? Since they weren't particularly open about their ownership in the videos that they advertised the site in.

Regarding the platforms, how are they supposed to know if the uploader got paid to do a video? If it was obvious, we wouldn't need these disclosures in the first place!

The models didn’t even ask for payment. I can’t imagine what the Instagram models and YouTube superstars demand.

It's speculated the biggest Youtubers pushing this are being paid up to 6 figures.

Eventually it got to the point where he had one of the top videos when you look up the product name on YT. A bit later the company sent him a bunch of their other products and he reviewed them. It's smart for the company to do that, but it makes the subsequent videos feel just a bit tainted.

Your wife has a normal response to ads when the topic is interesting to the viewer. That's the holy grail of "relevant ads": the boundaries of the "ad" get blurred and the message of the product being sold is better received.

Women buy Vogue Magazine for the ads of fashion. It's not just a female thing. Some males bought Computer Shopper[1] specifically for the ads. Why would consumers pay for ads?!? Because they're relevant to their interests.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Computer+Shopper+magazine&so...

For one, market facts (price, features, etc) are more likely to be honest, and for two, self-touting advertisements aren't hiding their bias. Advertorial content is doubly deceptive -- the content is biased AND the bias is hidden.

But that's it. Marketing products means advertising them to consumers. There's no gettting around that, no matter what the product is.

  computer products are aimed at people who think they are too smart to be sold anything

Edit: and it's very irritating.

What makes you say that?

Perfect vs good

https://thewirecutter.com/

And there is an excellent reason equipment manufacturers send electronics test equipment to the EEVblog channel. Even though there's a good chance it will be reviewed harshly, that channel definitely drove my last scope purchase.

And I don't have a problem with this, since I don't find the content objectionable. I DO have a problem when the promotion is disguised or not disclosed, it is deceitful to not mention the product was free or that the company has compensated you. And there's no good reason not to, in fact I become suspicious otherwise.

Did you buy a Rigol like everyone else? ;)

Agreed on that channel, but as gruff and seemingly honest as that guy (Dave) is, at some point he’ll likely fall victim to some advertising shanannagans, it seems everyone does eventually.

And your comment reminds me of one of my other examples of the "buyers buying ads":

It isn't just small subscription amounts where people buy the ads in magazines; sometimes people will pay $12000 to be bombarded with ads. Who are those people and why would they do this?!?

The example is the attendees to the Milken Institute conferences[0]. The ticket price is ~$12000 and it allows attendees to listen to "ad presentations" from fund managers. (Example.[1])

Yes, it's formally called a "discussion panel" but everybody knows that the fund managers on the stage are really advertising their firms' investing expertise without the vulgarity of explicitly labeling it "ads".

If one only has an uncompromising view that _all_ ads are evil, it will not make any sense why pension fund custodians would pay thousands to view ads. On the other hand, if there's wiggle room for "relevant ads", the payment of $12k for ad presentations is perfectly rational.

[0] https://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/conferences/

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpFOPHUhRBg

There's a mixture of both. The pension officer for institutions like California Retirement System will have his/her ticket paid but other folks that run their own small fund will pay their own way.

The attendees all have the problem of "where do I put my institution's money?" and they go to the conference to listen to various presentations to be persuaded. Yes, there are also chances for networking and "meet & greet" but the event is largely a marketplace hub for "sellers" (funds) and "buyers" (institutions). The sellers (e.g. the hedge funds and the billionaire managers that appear on the stage) sponsor the show which in effect also funds Milken's 501c charity institution.

It's in getting into a room of sales prospects and potential investors who have already demonstrated that they can afford to spend $12k on a conference. It's like deliberately going to a bar with a steep cover charge so you only have to mingle with the "right people".

The best events I’ve been to, with the most interesting and talented speakers, were always cheaper.

Edit: and apparently that's required by the FTC as well.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18824620

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that it's normal to love "relevant ads" when you know that it's actually an ad and not organic content? Because I personally disagree, I absolutely hate that and I feel scammed when it happens to me.

It's fundamentally dishonest because it plays on the trust you have for the person doing the "ad". They betray this trust by pushing a product for money, not because they genuinely like it.

Now if they actually say something like "okay, this is a sponsored video but I actually genuinely like this product" I can give it a pass. But if you don't actually care about the product and are just pushing the script given to you by the marketing dept without any obvious disclaimers then it's plain and simple scam in my book. Actually I expect that it's probably illegal in many places, especially when it's about gambling websites like in TFA.

Now if you're saying that it's normal to like this content if you don't know it's an ad then yeah, I agree, but that's the scam.

>Women buy Vogue Magazine for the ads of fashion. It's not just a female thing. Some males bought Computer Shopper[1] specifically for the ads. Why would consumers pay for ads?!? Because they're relevant to their interests.

It's not the same thing, those are explicitly ads. The equivalent would be those fake articles that you can find in some magazines (especially the free newspapers they distribute in the subway in my experience, but also in online publications) where they mimic the format of real articles to push an ad. I actually fell for those a couple of times, generally you only have a small disclaimer in the top or bottom margin saying "this is sponsored content" or something similar. It's clearly meant to deceive.

If I want to be a good homo economicus and update my information about the market, it's probably not the best idea to do so via a means that is by definition one-sided and actively tries to undermine my attempts at rational descision making.

You wouldn't consume data from a web service that actively tries to hack you.

I don't get it, but she enjoys it. As much as I hate to admit, I'm sure I've been sucked into some tech or office product in a similar fashion.

I can't stand videos like that. Especially if you have to sit through 2-3 minutes of intro bullshit before finding out it's all an advertisement for some product.

The ones I don't mind, that I've been seeing a lot more lately, are the ones that simply have an actual ad in them done by the video creator. They're usually pretty bad and sometimes you can tell they're not usually too happy about the product they're advertising but it still feels more honest to watch. You know it's an ad there's no pretending and i've seen a few videos where the creators actually put some effort in and did a pretty good job with the product placement part of their video.

Is a video tour of the Grand Canyon a National Parks advertisement? Is someone fixing their broken-down car and advertisement for that car brand? Is a guy tearing down a drill an advertisement for that tool brand? What if he talks about all the shitty design in the tool? What about if most of his videos come down hard on the tools, and then one he declares "not teabag" (Canadian for "not too bad")? Is that an advertisement for that brand that didn't suck? Are political commentary videos advertisements for a party or politician or idea?

Are cat videos an advertisement for cats?

I guess it depends on what you are getting out of the video. I, personally, mostly watch youtube videos to be entertained or to learn things. Now, many of them will change my perception about brands or ideas, either positively or negatively. But, to me, they are serving a "higher purpose". Hell, I've even watched make-up videos like you describe (my daughter needed help with doing winged eyeliner), so I know what you're talking about.

I'm not saying your point is invalid, it very much is. I have a pretty low threshold for traditional advertisements. But I think it's important to talk about the good and the bad, because there's a lot good on youtube that can get painted bad by ideas that all of this is advertisements.

But the paid shills? Ugh! They have to be teaching or entertaining me a lot for me to be able to stomach them. I'm looking at you, Wranglerstar.

It's amazing that you have people with over 1 million subs taking this money when there are so many red flags. Then again some of these are just young kids who only care about cash and are fine selling out their young impressionable audience.

If you watch any of these videos it is so obviously rigged, they "win" a bunch of prizes off screen such as high end nike shoes and computers (on screen they get low tier prizes like random shoes or ear buds) and have it delivered in unmarked boxes immediately in the next scene.

I expect some form of federal intervention in this case because it's absolutely insane from a simple cursory glance how brazen this is.

Compare Uniqlo minimalist logos vs Polo logo directly on their breast pockets.

https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in...

Except Facebook also gets people to subscribe to advertisements so they (have a chance of) seeing them as soon as they are shared.

But Facebook actually builds it's business model around that, unlike YouTube, and charges the advertisers more to reach more of the subscribers even after they've expressed interest, while YouTube treats videos as a venue for ads it sells, but doesn't treat the channel-subscriber relationship as an advertising channel to monetize the way Facebook does with Pages.

I'll bet $1000 that the real Dwayne Johnson doesn't care that much, as most people don't care or think about it that much.

'The Rock' and everything you've ever seen about him is a performance.

It's slightly different than what's going on here, which might be more akin to the interesting conversation you struck up with the stranger on the bus getting awkward around for third or fourth time them mention how much they like their new jacket, which is both stylish and waterproof.

That's not to say it's all one or the other. Fashion magazines have advertising masquerading as editorial content also, I'm sure, but I imagine most people are expecting their being pitched some product most the time while reading the magazine.

The only way that video made me smarter is realising how blatantly most social media offers low quality content crammed with advertisement.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ8JqQuKW_o

this price would include all fees and taxes to get the exact item shown in the ad. in cases where the fees and taxes vary for the viewership, you show the highest possible price. you can show other price variations, but the highest must be the most prominent. not only would consumers get better information but markets would be more competitive and ads would be better targeted (so as to show the lowest price to each viewer).

Also, not on youtube, but Bill Burr does some fantastic advertisements on the Monday Morning Podcast. I never want to skip them.