I still hate ads. Youtube has maybe five interesting, relevant ads a month it can show me, and I'm willing to see each one maybe twice. That's ten ads a month. But Youtube has hundreds of ad slots to fill every month if they want to show me two pre-roll ads before each video and a couple within the video. Those slots have to be filled with something, and the few relevant ads mostly get drowned by the garbage. Other platforms have the same problem.
Ads on the internet have fallen to the tragedy of the commons. If there was just a couple of them they would be more relevant and less distracting, but every advertiser and platform is incentivized to increase the number of ads without end, leading to where we are now.
Software development is important, but marketing is also important, and it actually works. Most companies can't survive without effective marketing.
[0] https://devjac.dev/posts/2021-05-29-my-personal-creed-of-emp...
Bullshit? To me it seems more like mind rape when a bunch of corporate ideas and brands are suddenly and forcibly injected into my mind. I didn't ask for it, I didn't consent to it. We don't tolerate it when people violate our bodies, so why is it okay to violate our minds? They "need" it to make money, so it's okay?
If I want to see products, I'll ask for it. I'll open the store app. Until that time, they better keep their marketing to themselves or I'll do everything in my power to defend myself. That's what software like uBlock Origin is: self-defense against hostile megacorporations who want to exploit you in every way possible.
As far back as ancient Rome, vendors still used advertising and marketing. This included word-of-mouth advertisements and billboards (such as in Pompeii before the volcanic eruption). [0]
In the 1900s, newspaper advertising was a major source of advertising. Now that fewer people read print newspapers, advertising has shifted to internet ads and email newsletter ads.
Technology evolves, and marketing evolves to keep up. Even non-profits have significant marketing investments today. I encourage you to actually try to run an organization, for-profit or non-profit, and try to sustainably achieve the mission while rigidly adhering to the ideal that companies shouldn’t use marketing.
This is not really advertising. It's more like a conversation. It's real people talking about their experiences. Advertising is when some phony who's on the corporation's payroll comes to you unsolicited and starts overstating the positives and downplaying the negatives.
These two things both get called advertising but we have (quite reasonably) different feelings about them.
I don't consider this advertising either. If there is a list of services somewhere and people consult it voluntarily, then it's not really advertising, it's information. People are informing themselves about what's available.
For example, I don't consider an online store to be advertising. The whole reason I went there is to see products, so it's totally fine when products are shown. It becomes unethical when they start shoving products in my face everywhere I go.
Organic word-of-mouth referrals and recommendations are waaaaaay more effective than any other form of marketing. If you can't develop and sustain word-of-mouth organically then you have to use other less efficient and more coercive means. There are marketplaces that operate efficiently on word of mouth alone. E.g., there are the various "black" markets. There was no appreciable change in availability, quality, or price before and after pot legalization, for example. The high end of most services and products doesn't need to market, they're "saturated" by word-of-mouth alone.
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Going further, you can trace the historical rise of modern marketing directly from military propaganda techniques. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays#World_War_I )
No.
> If it bothers me so much ("mind rape") and I know a website has ads, why would I go there?
Websites don't have "99% advertising 1% content" warnings to help me decide before I click a link.
Also, there is no reason to avoid going anywhere these days because uBlock Origin exists.
They sent us the web page for free. It's their choice, they don't get to shame us for it.
They did that because they assumed we'd look at the ads. The chance that this assumption would turn out to be false was always there. There's just no way they didn't know about this risk.
What's happening is we don't want to look at this noise. We're not gonna do it. They need to accept that and move on instead of shaming us for invalidating the silly assumptions their business model is based on. Where does it say we're obligated to "give back" in exchange for their "free" content? That's just an idea they made up. They got it into their minds that we are "supposed" to pay them back by viewing ads when we are under exactly zero obligation to do so. They are not entitled to our attention.
I think a much healthier relationship would be a system where you can choose to dedicate some of your time and preferences to marketing. Instead of companies trying to trick you into clicking their advertisement they would need to create compelling and entertaining advertisements for stuff you might actually want. What I am envisioning is basically something like an app or channel you might willing give some type of inputs (say, for example, you are looking for a new car - you could input some data about your preferences) and then advertisers would have to compete to show off the best product. You could choose to dedicate 0 of your time or X amount of minutes.
Some of the products I actually use and like the best also have the best (in terms of entertainment) marketing - if someone can make me laugh with a 10 second video AND show off a well designed product at the same time then I generally take that as a positive. But the advertisement needs to be providing entertainment value on its own.
If you work, marketing pays part of your salary. A company can’t survive without it.
Marketing includes the “Who’s hiring?” threads on the front page; word of mouth recommendations; and job postings on LinkedIn. If you’ve found a job that pays your bills, marketing played a role.
The fact that marketing exists isn’t something I’m debating. The fact it has wormed its way into all aspects of life is a sign that we lead sick lives, to me.
A thing can benefit me and still be a net drag on humanity. I’ll continue to maintain that “the human mind would be better off without” marketing.
Then there is the question of what's being marketed. Could be 'concentration' pills bankrolling someone's four hour work week, or trying to help teens understand the risks of smoking, and everything else in between.
This is why adtech has gotten craftier about ads, and adblockers have had to respond accordingly.
The problem is that I (almost) never get these ads. Most of the things shoved into my face are something that I would NEVER purchase or recommend to others. The same truck commercial 100 times? Nope. Alcohol commercial? Nope. Cable sports package? Never.
I was really hopeful that Google, with all of their knowledge about me (and they have a TON of it!) would be able to target advertisements that I might like. Yet, YouTube is chock full of Truck, Beer, and Football commercials; I guess just because I'm a middle aged man and that's what "we" like.
So, I'm forced into blocking everything I can, whenever and wherever I can. The Ad companies are really doing this to themselves. If they were better at their job I wouldn't even know they existed. As it stands, I get bombarded with so much unwanted things that I actively hate the things they spew at me. I will NEVER buy the products that they are advertising; even if it did fit my personality or needs.
That maybe, but it might be hypocritical if you're working at a private business that generates sales via ads, which in effect pay your salary. I'm not against ads, so I wouldn't use an ad-blocker on principle, I would just avoid visiting sites that show excessive ads.
I guess it's only marketers that love targeted ads...