I didn’t say FB or advertising was off limits. I was responding to someone who was asking why we don’t blame businesses who advertise on FB and blame FB themselves, and then framing it (per my interpretation) as “when you take away FB’s ability to advertise ‘effectively,’ you hurt small businesses like Ramon the wiener dog ramp salesman.” My response is Ramon has plenty of other options besides FB if FB is regulated out of its ability to track, profile, and data mine the internet, and that these options support (a) other small businesses and (b) a more diverse internet ecosystem.

>My response is Ramon has plenty of other options besides FB if FB is regulated out of its ability to track, profile, and data mine the internet

That's a pretty bold claim though. There may be other options but that doesn't mean that they are enough to sustain his business. I think it's plausible that there's a vast swath of products that could not exist without Facebook. A lot of them are probably crap products that I wouldn't like but someone does.

But then again oh, I don't have any problem with targeted advertising for products. I have a bigger problem with targeted political advertising and radicalizing engagement content.

The world existed just fine before online advertising. If a company and its competitors for a product disappeared as a result of not advertising it probably wasn’t that great if a product, certainly not essential

I agree that the world would keep spinning without online advertising. That said, tons of products can't exist without it. This doesn't mean they arent great, but that they are obscure.

Almost nothing is essential.

I don't think most people have trouble with online advertising as such. Not even targeted advertising as long as they are in control of what's happening.

I think what people have trouble with are the other things forced on them. They don't want to be spied on, and they don't want to have loud full page videos thrown in their face.

I think it's plainly obvious that spying makes targeted advertising better, but I don't think we have proof that it can't work at all without the private-sector equivalent of the Stasi surveillance state.

The wonderful days of conglomerates endlessly advertising how their candy will transform our lives.

I find the argument that advertising was somehow okay before the internet a hard pill to swallow. My recollection is that ads were misleading back then and reserved for larger businesses. It pains me to think about going back to that era.

On the other hand, it’s nice to find small businesses to buy from on YouTube / Instagram / Reddit. It’s also nice that I do not have to pay for these services with money.

So it’s not perfect on the internet. But it does seem a hell of a lot better.

My burgeoning collection of clicky keyboards with surprisingly small numbers of keys would, while not disagreeing with you, like to make itself available as a data point.

> So advertise, but just not on FB?

Yes exactly. Advertising in a relevant forum is both on topic there and not infringing anyone's privacy.

Doing anything well is hard work. Facebook is just the easy cop out method to cut corners.

I'm just going to assume this is sarcasm

Not really.. I know many mom & pop forums that had symbiotic relations with a particular vendor. Sponsorship for the forum, special pricing for forum members.. Stuff like that.

That's a very different thing to just dumping ads on people because they looked at one video about a dog.

Of course such forums have become pretty extinct recently but for some interests they are still there.

> Why is FB off limits?

Simple: Facebook is particularly slimy in their approach to engagement and making ad impressions, and so supporting their business is morally fraught. I won't elaborate because it's been beat to death as a topic.