[olladecarne]

"Show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome."

This whole ad driven attention economy is probably as dangerous of an invention as nuclear weapons. We're caught in a state of psychosis and individually none of us can do anything to fight the billions of dollars spent on advertising that tries to make us feel inadequate. Targeted ads and recommendation engines need to be banned. I know some people say they like them, and some people also say they like tobacco but we generally agree it's bad for us. Companies will find other ways to innovate. Content curation, organization, and quality will become more valuable and eventually the experience will be better.

I say this because half-hearted measures like the one in the article are not going to make any difference when the entire business model of the internet is clickbait.

[kanox]

> Targeted ads and recommendation engines need to be banned.

I don't see how you can "ban ads" without instituting totalitarian dictatorship.

Targeted arguments are a core part of political campaigning and polarization has been increasing in the US for decades, even before the internet.

My pet solution would to switch to a multi-party system that isolates rather than amplifies fringe voices. In germany people can look at what AfD and Die Linke have to say without having to choose between them.

[LackOfImg38]

Lack of imagination is the problem.

I use a screen for coding work, HN breaks, shopping, civic life like bills, and the occasional stream binge. Outside work, maybe 5-10 hours week.

Otherwise I write creatively on paper, learned guitar, share digitally via point-to-point, and leave my house often for no reason most of the time.

Personally I have a hard time buying into anything you say being some sort of obligation, and more of a repeated hand me down habit.

[sjs382]

It's not that the ads are targeted, but rather what they're targeted based on.

Google's search ads used to be displayed based on the keywords being searched, rather than the user viewing them. Facebook based on what you've "liked". Amazon and eBay based on what you've bought before on their sites.

Go back to targeting ads based on page context and explicitly provided information (search queries, what I actually enter into my "profile", etc), rather than machine surveillance and inferences.

[xlm1717]

Individually we can do something to fight it. If you can't block the ads, learn to ignore them.

[musicale]

Like ad-blocking, ad-ignoring is unfortunately something of an arms race. The better people get at ignoring ads (e.g. "banner blindness") the harder advertisers work to make them hard to ignore, either by making them more "attention grabbing" (e.g. modal windows, auto-playing video, etc.) or baking them into the content (e.g. sponsored posts, advertorials, product placement, etc..)

[asdff]

Considering advertisement works on a subconcious level, ignoring them will take some serious serious mental discipline. Maybe after spending a few years in a monastery on a mountain will you be able to resist their invasion into your subconscious headspace.