[switch007]

> The purpose of ads is to inform people of things they wouldn't otherwise know about

That's cute. I've never seen an ad for a wikipedia page though.

The real purpose of ads is to convince people to buy things that they otherwise might not have, so that companies can make a profit.

Take the https://www.theguardian.com/. I've got adverts for:

- an electric toothbrush. I already have one. But surely the new model is better!11!

- London apartments. I live 170 miles away and have no desire ever to live in London. But maybe I should because London is so amazing!11!!

- Remitly ("send money to India online"). I do not know anyone in India and have no need to send money there.

- "70% off" "Store Clothing", whatever the hell that is. I have plenty of clothes. But maybe I need more and to be more fashionable!11!!

[jonas21]

So what you're saying is that better ad targeting would improve your experience?

[Dylan16807]

"Better" in the same sense as a "sufficiently smart compiler"? Sure.

But it shows that access to state-of-the-art targeting isn't helping at all. So right now it's clearly not worth a privacy tradeoff.

[x4j91]

Better ad targeting definately can improve the user experience ... but the path to get there is insidious ...

[6510]

The entire ad database would have to be client side with payments per product sold. (I'm only half joking)

[jedberg]

The example I gave elsewhere are ads for live shows (back when that was a thing). I like live shows and sometimes the ads are the only way I learn about new ones.

[est31]

Not a fan of targeted ads, but which ad to show you is only half of the part. The other part is tracking conversions, aka finding out if you actually bought some item after you saw the ad.

Also, ads don't have to work for everyone. If they work for some folks, it's already profitable for the platforms. And they do work.

[fingerlocks]

I would say tracking conversions is the most important part. There’s always a lot of attention on targeting because it’s user-facing, creepy, and strikes a nerve with the HN crowd. But anyone that has spent five minutes working with their marketing people or implementing adTech would know the true story.

“Are these ads effective? Should we spend more money on them?” Without conversion data the answer is one big shrug emoji.

I don’t believe most companies in the tech industry care about tracking/fingerprinting users for the sake of collecting & reselling their data. First hand experience, I’m just not ever seeing that. They just want to know if their ads are working or not.

[est31]

> I would say tracking conversions is the most important part. There’s always a lot of attention on targeting because it’s user-facing, creepy, and strikes a nerve with the HN crowd.

It doesn't help that people try to sell conversion as something that benefits the ad viewer because if it increases sales, it must also be good for the people doing the buying or something like that. That argument of "better ads" then gets easily misunderstood as targeting but it is only indirectly about that.

[6510]

CPC scales with how well ads work. Seller and viewer benefit from working ads. It seems ad platforms benefit most from ads that don't work.

[jedberg]

Ad platforms benefit from ads working because then advertisers spend more money on the platform.

[santraginean]

> The real purpose of ads is to convince people to buy things that they otherwise might not have

In particular, things they otherwise might not have and don't need enough to look for actively on their own.