[jerf]

"What is there to be done?"

A $0.01 tax per ad impression.

Such a thing would not destroy the advertising industry, but it would do wonders for making it much less worthwhile to deploy massive surveillance technology to make .03 cents more per user per day, and leave only very high-value advertising behind. It would probably anti-decimate it or more, though (leave only 10% behind instead of destroying 10%).

$0.10 per impression if you're feeling feisty.

[pul]

I fail to see how this would reduce the incentive to collect data. If anything, wouldn't it require _more_ information on users to figure out whether or not showing an ad would be worthwhile?

[jerf]

See cousin reply. It's not about what they want to do, it's about what they can afford to do profitably. They'll want to do it even more so, but they won't be able to do so.

[jkingsbery]

According to https://blog.adstage.io/google-display-ads-cpm-cpc-ctr-bench..., advertisers spend around $2.80 for a thousand impressions in display advertising. You're proposing a tax that is 3.5 times as much as the thing itself costs. That would have pretty steep ramifications on the industry.

Also, when one thinks about high-value advertising, it doesn't always correlate with high-value to society, but rather things that are expensive. That of course would incentivize advertisers to make sure their ad spends are effective which would in turn create more incentive for more ad tracking.

[jerf]

"You're proposing a tax that is 3.5 times as much as the thing itself costs."

Yes. Yes I am. I did say it would probably cut 90% of the industry.

"That of course would incentivize advertisers to make sure their ad spends are effective which would in turn create more incentive for more ad tracking."

They may sit there and wish for more tracking, sure. They're pretty addicted to that as the only model in the world for making money.

But if you may something much more expensive, and therefore much less profitable, you are saying that you'll get even more of it. That's not how raising prices works.

They're not tracking every last cough we make because they have to to make any money. They track everything because it enables them to make .03% more off of us, and that .03% is profitable. (Number made up, but the evidence strongly suggests we're long past the point of diminishing returns on more tracking, yet they do it anyhow.) Take away the profitability, and they'll stop doing it.

They'll have to. Most of them will be bankrupt and won't be tracking anybody anymore.

Besides, exactly what "more" tracking are we concerned they're going to deploy in a world where they have 90% less money and probably even less profit? They already read all our email, track everywhere we go, track everything we see on the internet, listen to a good chunk of what we say, and use our social connections in every conceivable way to monetize us. What's left?

[moosey]

Web advertising shouldn't just be considered advertising, but also data collection. Data collection should not be cheap.

[wonder_er]

It's almost as if websites had to pay for the bandwidth they sent to the browser would change the economics of blasting out ads everywhere.

:thinkingface:

[fucking_tragedy]

It's almost as if networks themselves would start injecting ads, which has been going on for years[1].

[1] https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/12/comcast-s...

[jodrellblank]

Such a thing would not destroy the advertising industry

Then it's not enough.