"a anti-consumer/anti-corporate/anti-advertising posting"

Saying "ignore manipulative ads" isn't anti-consumer. Nor is it anti-corporate -- it just means, roughly, "Buy stuff when the focus is on creating something valuable, not convincing you that something is valuable."

The quote "ignore manipulative ads" is not in his post. His post appears to demonize advertising in general.

Also, how can you say "Buy stuff when the focus is on creating something valuable, not convincing you that something is valuable."

The context is totally dependant on who the individual is. Who is to stay something is valuable to other people? It is the advertisements job to show to the potential customer why the product is valuable.

Lastly, how does 'ignore manipulate ads' equate to 'buy stuff when the focus is on creating something valuable, not convincing you that something is valuable? That is quite the jump.

The quote is not in his post. I got the impression from "I have too much stuff," followed by "Companies that sell stuff have spent huge sums training us to think stuff is still valuable. But it would be closer to the truth to treat stuff as worthless." Is there some other meaning I could divine from those statements?

"The context is totally dependant on who the individual is."

That's true. There's an information component to ads -- which is why I advocated skepticism over censorship. But in general, if you have two companies that are both pursuing a value-maximizing strategy selling the same product, and one does ads, the other is going to have higher quality (have you seen ads for McDonald's? Have you seen ads for, say, Beffa's (http://www.beffas.com/home.html)?).

'Lastly, how does 'ignore manipulate ads' equate to 'buy stuff when the focus is on creating something valuable, not convincing you that something is valuable? That is quite the jump."

If you don't spend the money, you either a) destroy it, b) save it, or c) spend it on other stuff. If b), remember that saving is deferred spending, so b) and c) are the same with different timing.

Your quoting PG's essay. I was responding to the comment that mine is under. I should not have responded as confrontation is bad on boards that could lead to meeting others in real life.

Basically I found the comment that I commented on deceptive. It used anecdotes from childhood claiming X is bad, then mentions full savings as if that is the direct correlation between the two. I regret commenting in this thread and will stick to more agreeable topics.

"It used anecdotes from childhood claiming X is bad, then mentions full savings as if that is the direct correlation between the two."

I actually believe there is a direct correlation - anecdotes (sometimes) lead to habits, and then habits lead to savings. It's much easier to form habits in childhood, which is why I picked childhood anecdotes. But it can be done late in life too - I think that was part of the point of PG's essays.

You are doing it again. You try to make a point but suddenly mention an irrelevant point that is correct but unrelated to the argument you are trying to make.

Yes that is one of PG's themes(habits can be changed) but it does not relate to believing that advertising is behavior control and holding this to be true will lead to full savings.

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Startup News relies on advertising to generate revenue? We don't have either.

Apologies. I meant a large amount of YC companies.

It doesn't seem like even that's correct, though.

When they get acquired by Google or Yahoo, advertising revenue is what bought them.

Correct, but I don't think most YC companies rely on that. And if most do, I'd bet it's around 55%. Loopt, Xobni, Heysan (yet), and Justin.tv all don't. And I don't think Zenter would've, either.. I can't see how text-based ads would be very useful while creating presentations.

Loopt is on a pay service; they don't need money from ads because they're not a "free" service, but check out all the web-based ones: Zenter was bought by Google, so advertising applies, as mentioned. Xobni hasn't released anything yet, but once they have something, we'll see if there are ads, and if an ad-based company acquires them. Heysan will need to make money at some point -- obviously if you don't mind operating at a loss then you don't need income from ads, but deficit operations can't last. Going public is extremely unlikely so both Xobni's and Heysan's investors presumably invested based on an expectation of acquisition, probably by a large ad-based company. Justin.tv? "There are a number of ways to advertise on Justin.tv - both within the show itself and on our webpage" (from the FAQ). Even the site you're reading now is financed with money made from advertising dollars, since Viaweb was bought by Yahoo and that sale is what's paying the bills around here (and so by extension, all YC companies are initially financed by ads, too; and doubly so when Paul Buchheit of GMail and AdSense fame is one of the investors, as with Auctomatic).

The whole topic reminds me of Feynman's story about his father teaching him about how life on Earth moves because the Sun shines.

Advertising revenue is the solar energy incident on Earth of the web.

Okay, okay, you took my specific examples and hammered them into the ground. I probably muddled up what I meant. Look at the whole picture.. YC companies intrinsically create value for users, not show ads, as their primary function. What that means is, I doubt any of them are going "Okay, what can I make to show off these awesome ads?" Instead they're going, "Okay, how do I make this useful to a large number of people?" Then when they've accomplished that, only then do they think about ads. Reddit was a perfect example. They didn't even put ads up 'til post-acquire. Yes, ads are a bodily function for web startups, but it is not their primary function.

"Reddit was a perfect example. They didn't even put ads up 'til post-acquire."

Reddit had ads before the acquisition, it's just they ran infrequently enough that most users never noticed them.

Look, that is so not my point. My point is, YC companies create value, not serve ads.

That's not necessarily the case. For example, consider IRC, once the bane of many college students' academic records: Many sites and services actually have negative value, by being addictive time sinks.

Economic theories tend to neglect considerations like people's self-destructive behavior; or they re-define it to make the theory work ("it's not a bug, it's a feature!"). The classic example is of a destructive drug habit.

The addictive element creates a larger user base, but its value is highly debatable: EverQuest was nicknamed EverCrack and World of Warcraft is similar; addictive elements also play into gambling sites, collectible card games, instant messaging, and even sites like Reddit. Anything that sucks up your attention and wastes your time is a net liability. Television sitcoms create the "value" of watching someone else's fake life by withdrawing your attention from your own, real one. (And it initiates a cycle, as the more you watch, the less of a real life you have, the more you'll turn to the comforting artificial alternatives.)

Thus, I don't subscribe to the idea that merely because people are using something, it must have value for them. It has value for the purveyor of the service or substance; and due to corporate self-interest, that is often confused in business with value for the user.

If lacing a drug with plutonium made it a hundred times more addictive, most corporations would have no problem selling radioactive crack (and killing off all their users), as long as it made the numbers work for this quarter.

If life is made torturous so that selling an anesthetic is big business, claiming it "creates value" is begging the question in accepting that life should be like that in the first place. Almost all mass media, including sports, and including the aforementioned addictive games and services, are forms of anesthesia.

The real value would be stopping the death by a thousand cuts, not anesthetizing ourselves to it.

The function of most of these sites is to acquire a large user base, so that it can later be monetized. Currently, the dominant strategy for doing so involves advertising, which means you want broad enough appeal to get large numbers of relative technical unsophisticates that aren't using AdBlock or similar.