[egypturnash]

People would still be perfectly capable of selling advertisements that worked similarly to the way ads worked before everything was online - a magazine/newspaper/tv show/etc says "our audience size is roughly X, our audience demographics are Y, here's what our ad rates are".

Modern hyper-invasive ads that follow you around the net, build up a profile based on everywhere you go, and occasionally try to install unpleasant software payloads, would have trouble surviving. Can you truly make a case that this would be a bad thing?

[wruza]

I would actually like site-related ads rather than a stupid version of mini-me chasing me around and suggesting crap I don't need.

Targeted ads are dead-end, because they inhibit exploration. They act on assumption that a person is fixed and cannot change or want to change. Before adtech I actually liked ads on paper, because it was shiny and showed things I maybe wanted to want. E.g. watch, suits, travel, home utility. I have read ads out of curiosity. Now it is an idiotic AI that thinks I need items that I bought a week ago, single women near me, and nothing more. I have some money but I don't have any watch, suits and I barely travel, partially because no one suggested that it is cool and I'm too lazy to do full-time research myself. Where are your really targeted ads, adtech industry? Can you do your job and empty my pockets? You're too dumb for that.

Based on a description of powerful datasets they have, they should show me:

  - rtx 3080 with discount (free shipping!)
  - compare se 2020 and 12 mini at coolstore.com
  - stop walking and get a scooter!

All three are at least $800+ to spend at my location. Instead it shows:

  - cheap mobile op that sucks and will never regain me a visit cost
  - Xiaomi phone that I both have and hate
  - python courses (I helped someone with script deployment at my linux box an hour ago)

It is like a psycho that follows you all the time and just repeats every action or mistake you do; every time you kick a stone on a road, they bring it back and pull your arm.

[ben509]

Where are your really targeted ads, adtech industry?

I think the lack of innovation is due to several problems:

1. the constant barrage of ads hurts their reputation making recruiting hard

Wherever you land on the ethics of it, it's a bit like porn: you may not disagree with it in principle, but in practice it seems skeezy enough you don't want to tell your friends that's what you do.

Or it could be some group has genuinely new ideas, but there is so much competition they can't demonstrate why their technology is better.

2. their data sucks

On a lark, I went to Walmart (they're more vertical than Amazon) and I searched for men's belts. When I filtered for "yellow" most of the belts were, indeed bright yellow. (Seriously, Walmart sells a lot of bright yellow men's belts.) Except, of course, for the ones that were black or brown.

And if you search for "t-shirts" and filter by fabrics, Walmart thinks reasonable t-shirt fabrics include acrylic, canvas, chiffon, corduroy, down and vinyl.

So, retailers don't even know what's in their inventory, because they don't know what "yellow" means or what a t-shirt is made of.

3. they have too much data

You point out, "they act on assumption that a person is fixed and cannot change or want to change." I'm pretty sure they're studying the data longitudinally.

The trouble is that they're hoping that magic algorithms can somehow purify petabytes of raw sewage into a clear description of consumer behavior. That's led them to invest in these big data money sinks.

And it's not just a sunk cost fallacy at work, I think they do get some apparent financial returns from the weird and inexplicable inferences those algorithms generate.

So they keep going down this rabbit hole while consumers, regulators and advertisers are steadily getting fed up with them.

[eli]

This works great for a media organization like ours. It's not hard to convince a company that sells power plant control software that anyone who reads utilitydive.com is a good candidate for their ad.

But it's gonna be tough for sites that are "general interest" or even very specific but on a topic that just doesn't have big ad budgets behind it. Our approach also depends on building a recognizable brand in the industry and having a robust in-house ad sales and operations people.

I'm not here to defend programmatic advertising, but I think if/when it goes away it's gonna suck for a lot of small indie sites.

[egypturnash]

I sure do miss having Project Wonderful ads against my comics. Moderately targeted to my audience, no flash/javascript/etc bullshit. Worked real well for my solo-creator stuff.

Honestly though once Patreon came along I had a goal of "turn off ads" and I'm pretty happy with that, too. "Everything on the Internet will be free forever, supported solely by ads!" was a terrible idea.

[quest88]

I've bought a lot of useful things through instagram ads. TBH their targeting is really good and I in-fact do like the ads because they're so relevant.