I dont see how you could not see that Ads are consuming every facet of our lives.

For now.

Exactly. Once they get that first hit of sweet, sweet ad revenue, there will inevitably be pressure to grow it, and then grow it faster. Zoom does not strike me as the kind of company that will be able to resist the temptation to insert ever more obnoxious ads, as long as it leads to revenue growth. (That said, they don't have to support a free tier at all, and it's not free to run, so I don't completely begrudge them looking for ways to monetize it beyond just Pro upgrades).

I’m imagining a future update that increases their ad revenue by 10% due to a bug that randomly ends calls prematurely, thus creating more ad views.

Later on, a precocious junior engineer discovers the bug, but isn’t allowed to fix it due to the revenue hit.

Unless it's an open-source/self-hosted application, you're always at mercy of code owners.

I imagine it will become a good malware vector.

I don't understand how.

It is an ad on a page in the browser. Don't many other companies (Google, Facebook, etc) manage to do that without becoming vectors for malware?

They manage, but they're not bulletproof. One such instance:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/googl...

The linked article talks about misleading ads that let people download malicious apks. This is no different than scam emails with malicious .exes, or "please reset your WhatsApp password here" messages, ...etc. In other words, it doesn't demonstrate why web ads are any more susceptible to being malware vectors when compared to email, messaging apps, or social media (basically anything with user-generated/third-party content that allows text).

Which is why it feels unfair to me to single out Zoom's addition of ads to their free tier for being a malware vector.

Yeah, I agree that it's overblown.

> Don't many other companies (Google, Facebook, etc) manage to do that without becoming vectors for malware?

This all depends on targeting (as an HN user you're unlikely to be targeted by them as there are higher-value ads that match your profile) but at the bottom of the targeting barrel there are absolutely ads for scams and/or malware.

I think it is a bit different when it will be seen by employees as a part of internal tooling. After the meeting they see a banner "Important points from the presentation" or "The mandatory new tool to fight malware." or even "2021-11-sales.xls" and I guarantee people will click on it. Of course you can blame it on companies saving money for more or less sensible reasons by not paying for their tools and on uneducated employees, but it will happen.

Hmm. If you trust users to discern between malicious and non-malicious emails (that can contain things like "the mandatory new tool to fight malware" as you say), I think that implies you trust users to discern between malicious ads and non-malicious ads.

And I don't see any reason that the spam/malicious-content filtering tools used to filter email would not be used to filter ads (with appropriate modifications of course).

So this leaves me unconvinced that Zoom web ads are any more susceptible to being malware vectors as compared to ads anywhere else (or other tools that host user-generated/third party text, like email, messaging, and social media).

It doesn't have to be more suspectible. It is however one more thing to worry about.

One that already shows up in a browser a few minutes into the meeting, even though I used the native app to connect to it. I consider it an ad for the program I'm already using, which is just bonkers, so I close it reflexively. I'm using the paid version, but if I weren't I would still close it as soon as I see it, so the ad would be wasted on me.

It matters because kids use this software. Who knows what will pop up

Protecting the kid against immoral or chocking things is a, IMO, not as important as not exposing them to constant brain washing from ads.

If I have to chose between naked people and a coke ad, I'd rather have the kids see sex. Honestly, the former never had a negative impact on me, but the later really had.

This is the kind of absolutely unreasonable opinion that could only gain traction on the internet.

Sex is one thing, but porn isn't sex.

It's like comparing coffee and meth.

Tbh, better to have the Coke beforehand.

FOR NOW

Imagine about to do a meeting, 30 second commercial comes on about some restaurant, well let's go get food.

Side note, at least now it's easy to make your own video setup, providers like Twilio/OpenTok, so... pay or set it up/pay yourself idk.

I get it though, it's like YouTube vs. Vimeo... costs money to facilitate that magic that just works/have the audience.