[jedberg]

I like personalized ads. If I have to suffer with ads to support the websites I like, I'd rather have them personalized. Instagram is really good at this -- I probably click on at least 1/4 of the ads I get, and have definitely made purchases based on Instagram ads.

So as a user, the benefit would be better ads. Honestly I'll probably leave FLOC on if given the option (although I use Firefox and Safari, and as far as I know neither will really support it).

[saurik]

FWIW, I am "personally" sick of the Internet reminding me of the thing I already bought yesterday, along with doubling down on ads for things I only engage with because I want to show my friends how stupid the ad/product is, which seems to be the state of the art of "personalized" Internet ads. I would honestly get more value--if I am forced to see ads--out of less personalized ads.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KbKdKcGJ4tM <- best commentary on ads ever

[1_player]

"This person bought a vacuum cleaner yesterday, they will probably want to buy another tomorrow" is what personalised ads are.

I wanted to check the price of the cheapest SSD price I could find on Amazon, and I've been getting sale notifications of cheap-ass 64GB SSD since. Of course these advanced AIs are not so intelligent to see that I've bought multiple 1TB and 2TB SSDs lately or hundreds of different products, but it has decided I'm actually interested in crappy disk drives instead.

[saurik]

Yeah :/.

It should be "this person bought a vacuum cleaner today, so let's wait two months and start showing them ads for vacuum cleaner bags" or "maybe they are buying equipment for a new apartment, so maybe they would also like a toaster oven and a lamp".

Like, imagine you had an actual salesman--a good one, as opposed to the "targeted salesman" from the video--who you bought all your stuff through and who was excited to make commissions off of you. They would never waste your time or attention or trust asking you to buy a second vacuum cleaner.

If someone buys a treadmill, they probably don't want a second one, but maybe they now want some free weights. The current algorithms are just so stupid... like, I almost appreciate the premise that if you had an "actual AI" helping find you stuff to buy that could be fun, but what we have is just wasting everyone's time.

[visarga]

This seems like sloppy ML, there are sub-fields that deal with sequences and time series and would be great at modelling such complex interactions. Language models do something like that.

My bet is that all the fancy ML is useless because the sellers are not adapted to the buyers. They want to sell X and buyers need/want to buy Y. If they used proper targeting they would reach a much smaller audience.

So they have an order to show 1000 crappy flash drive ads, but you only want to buy other things - what are they going to do? Skip you? No, that's money lost. They will show you the ad even if it is ineffective. Greed explains the bad targeting.

[reissbaker]

If FLoC ends up working — right now it seems to have several deficiencies — that kind of personalized tracking would presumably stop. If your individual purchases can't be linked to your cohort group, you'd only get the interest-based cohort ads, not the follow-you-around-forever-with-your-existing-purchases ads.

I agree with the OP that I like Instagram's personalized ads and have bought many things through them. (FWIW I used to work at IG — on messaging, not on ads — but I felt this way even before I worked there, and I continue to feel this way after leaving.) Everyone else seems to suck at it though and just do the "show me what I bought yesterday" type of advertising, which is far more annoying than just picking a product to advertise at random.

Maybe a working FLoC would be better than the cookie-based ultra "personalized" ads that most companies use? If it stops the annoying persistent yesterday's-shopping-cart around the internet, at least, it would be an improvement.

[WorldMaker]

We have centuries of evidence that unpersonalized ads are both the best for brands (if you aren't preaching to the choir you are opening the door widest for expanding your buying audience) and individuals (discovering things that you didn't know you needed, discovering things that other people in your life might need but aren't directly relevant to you, avoiding the mental health detriments of how the more targeted an ad becomes the more likely it uses psychological tricks to manipulate you [all advertising is manipulation; but the amount of manipulation you can get away with in a general ad is very different that what we are seeing in targeted ads], etc).

The only people really benefitting from targeted ads are the companies making the ad tech (including and especially Google) making billions of dollars from "platforms" that do way too much to prop up "metrics" that mean way too little in practice (but are great for creating fancy invoices to charge just about whatever you want to the rubes [sorry, advertisers]).

(I've been taking a lot of steps to opt out of personalized ads, without outright running ad blockers, though these days a lot of sites now believe Firefox to be an ad blocker, and the ads are better unpersonalized. It's just amazing that so much of our culture on either side of the ad tech "platforms" has been sold such a bill of goods to think that personalized ads are doing anything but sucking money out of good companies into at the very least morally gray if not unethical ones.)

[skinkestek]

that was in deed brilliant!

[leipert]

Interesting. I just dislike ads altogether. Especially Instagram feels very manipulative. So far nothing we have bought based on Instagram or Facebook ads has been useful in the long run.

Personally I prefer to either have a need for something (I want to solve problem X) and do some research based off of that. Or I share an experience with a friend where they make a recommendation.

Funniest Facebook ad by the way: I work for <employer> and my partner gets ads for <products of employer> on Facebook.

[jedberg]

I dislike ads too. I'd rather just pay to use the sites. But I also understand not everyone can afford that. The ads are there for them.

So examples of things that I've bought from Instagram ads: The most recent Pride lego set. I would have never known it existed, but I'm glad I know now, because I want to give my kids something fun to build that sparks a conversation about Pride and what it means and why it's important.

The comma2 (autopilot for my Honda van). I knew OpenPilot existed, but until I saw that ad, I didn't know there was a product I could buy with it already installed. I liked the idea but didn't have time to get it all set up on my own. The existence of a commercial product vastly improved my life. I've already used it for over 1000 miles of self driving in just a couple weeks. It's a night and day difference when driving. I suppose I would have eventually heard about the product, but I'm glad I heard about it when I did.

[neolog]

Are there many people who can't afford to pay for a pageview but can afford the product being advertised on that page?

[jedberg]

No, but that's the whole point of ads. They're like a progressive tax system. Also some ads are awareness campaigns. Like you see a bunch of ads for Coke and the subconsciously when you want a soda you grab a Coke.

[fomine3]

Of course exist. It is often said that some people who often buy $5 coffee don't sign up $10 web subscription or app. Also we can't sign up all paid subscription. I wish latter is solved by micro payment or combined subscription .

[johnfernow]

Thank you for mentioning the comma2. I also knew about OpenPilot but didn't realize there was a commercial product where most things are ready to go. I checked it out and am thinking about getting one now.

[wearywanderer]

Advertising is linked to depression, body dysmorphic disorders like anorexia, and numerous other adverse mental conditions. The advertising industry has a whole lot of blood on their hands. This is an industry that doesn't think twice about exploiting people's feelings of vulnerability or isolation to help sell products. The more vulnerable the demographic, the more abusive the advertising industry gets. Just look at the shit they subject teenagers to; almost all the advertising to teenagers is focused on how buying [product] will make the teenager like the popular and attractive models being used to shill the product.

[JW_00000]

Do you have a source (or more than one :) ) for that first statement? I believe it intuitively but would like to know if it's actually true.

[mavhc]

On the plus side it gives free information to billions of people, now everyone can have free gps maps, email, websites

[CrazedGeek]

It’s not free if you’re paying with your health.

[mavhc]

How is your health affected?

[Nicksil]

>On the plus side it gives free information to billions of people, now everyone can have free gps maps, email, websites

We've had that all along; for free. Nothing in this list is thanks to advertising.

[mavhc]

Really? I remember people buying Satnavs and maps, and paying for email and hosting

[ksec]

I like Good Ads. Non Invasive, Non Repetitive, Good / High Quality / Personalised ad. And preferably not slowing down the site.

Ads are also like news in a sense. And News is the most addictive form of media. You find new product, services, or announcement from Ads.

The problem is the quality of Digital / Online ads are generally quite low.

[thiht]

> So far nothing we have bought based on Instagram or Facebook ads has been useful in the long run.

Why do you buy things you don't need just because you see an ad?

[leipert]

Well the ad has had it’s effect.

Hey this seems like an interesting appliance, tech gadget, item for camping or toy for a child. And then after some use and the novelty wore off it isn’t really that useful anymore.

[kmeisthax]

I can see why entirely unrelated ads could be seen as a bad thing... but the problem with FLoC - or really any ads personalization - is that it's fundamentally based upon a privacy violation. Ergo, even if the data is only being used to serve more relevant advertising, you're still trusting some process or third-party not to use your data for more nefarious purposes.

FLoC is not immune to this: it relies on the device being able to track users and then provide advertisers "blurry" access to that tracked data. The problem is that we already have plenty of other tracking mechanisms that we can't reasonably restrict and that will interfere with the privacy protections built into FLoC. You will always be able to fingerprint and FLoC will always provide some fingerprintable entropy.

Even if FLoC was trustworthy enough to do what it claims, your interest cohorts alone can reveal your secrets. There's the classic example of Target knowing a woman was pregnant before her father was, for example. Yes, Google is going to try and filter out sensitive interests in cohorts, but that's an additional layer of trust you can't control. What if Google's definition of sensitive interest differs from yours?

[visarga]

They give you cohort ID 0 branding you as someone with sensitive issues. That's just another way of disclosing information about us.

[lawl]

I don't mind ads if they're not intrusive or even useful.

HN has ads, in the form of job listings for YC companies. They don't bother me in the slightest, and if i lived in the US they might even provide value to me.

The hundreds or thousands of ads i'd see if i'd surf without an adblocker do not.

Maybe you do have a product i'm interested in and don't know about. But there's not hundreds of things i'm going to buy every month.

If it was like: here's 5 products we think might be highly relevant to you every month. Sure, sign me up.

But it's (almost) never that. Most of the time the entity selling ad slots realizes, hey, if we sell more ad slots, we make more money. So they keep pushing the button to get a reward. Until they die because they overdosed on ads.

[DistressedDrone]

I tend to agree, although I hate ads on principle.

But there are a lot of things I hate and don't have to think about. I don't go around protesting the war because in my country that's not something I have to care about, for example.

But advertisers made me have to care. If I didn't have adblock, I'd be running JS from some unverified third party on every other site. Couldn't they restrict it to pictures? Of course not.

So now I have to care, and I'm not going to cooperate with advertisers, who - before adblock got so mainstream - were content to serve us literal viruses as long as someone paid them.

[HWR_14]

HN has ads, but don't I have to go searching for them to find them? I think it's Stack Overflow's ad model too. We'll curate a group of readers that are appealing to people seeking jobs, put up a "jobs" tab, and charge companies to list openings.

[lawl]

Nope, they're injected into the frontpage sometimes. It's the entries without an upvote button and comment page.

[HWR_14]

Ah, I see them now. That is a well done ad system. They even get around a default ad blocker.

[o8r3oFTZPE]

Idea: Send ads to jedberg but not everyone.

The problem with ads, no matter how "personalised", is that they are sent to everyone by default. Almost no one changes defaults. Often there is not even an option to opt-out. Whether two users got the same or different ads ("personalisation") is not the issue. The issue is that they were sent ads when they did not conscisouly request them.

Thus, the fact that jedberg likes ads is not an argument for sending ads to everyone. In the same way that if some user dislikes ads it is not an argument to stop sending ads to jedberg.

Users are not being given a choice. When they are given a choice, e.g., to reject tracking on their smartphones, the result can be a decision that the online advertising industry dislikes.

Tech company employees can call themselves users, but there is a serious bias and conflict of interest that other users being subjected to ads do not have.

What if we just send ads to tech company employees. The tech worker cohort. They will not complain because they believe ads are "necessary". Problem solved.

[_ZeD_]

>>> I like personalized ads.

why?

no, seriously, why?

"personalized" ad creeps me out, and I really don't understand how people can tolerate a banner like "We know you buyed Some Thing from amazon so we think you would like to purchase Related Thing from us" and not freak out

[cdirkx]

There are different levels of personalization. I won't be okay with something based on my search/purchasing/location history, psychological profile, personal details etc. But I would be okay with something targeted at my age, gender, and the content of the page I'm visiting.

[sixothree]

Better ads isn't a product I have much interest in. I have very much literally never seen a targeted ad I like or even found useful. This sounds like Google employee speak to me.

[noizejoy]

I don’t work for Google, but I don’t mind ads for guitars and synthesizers :-)

[throwaway2048]

HN is the only place on the internet I've seen people expound their love for personalized advertising.

[giantrobot]

I don't mind the concept of ads. I didn't really mind early ads on the web. They were a lot like magazine ads, the website owners would run ads in the same broad interest category as their site. Then early AdTech happened and went fucking insane. Google's early text ads, before the DoubleCkick reverse takeover, were a sane reaction to insane web ads. Google's ads too went insane.

Now ads aren't just ads but crazy tracking mechanisms. Because of the opaque system of ad brokers they're also a malware vector because no one vets anything because money. They also very helpfully push me towards monthly data caps by loading megabytes of extra scripts on every page load and things like auto-playing videos.

So while I don't mind advertising conceptually, fuck ads and AdTech. I do everything possible to block ads just to make browsing usable, to say nothing of privacy or malware. I just hit the good ol' Back button whenever I get a "disable your adblocker" message. Disabling ad blocking doesn't just mean I see ads, it means I can barely read a web page and have to run megabytes of scripts that do who knows what.

[alyandon]

Exactly that. If ads were like they were back in the early days I wouldn't feel forced to run an adblocker to protect myself from the malware they've become.

[stuartd]

Definitely agree. Blocked ads since 2003 or so, when they started going crazy. I even remember the name of the site I used for CSS ad blocking - https://www.gozer.org/mozilla/ad_blocking/

[tpxl]

> They were a lot like magazine ads, the website owners would run ads in the same broad interest category as their site.

Funnily enough, this is targeted advertising. Before the current shitshow, ads were targeted, then came tracking and they became targeted in a different manner. Now we block trackers and people decry "but how will they target ads?!". Well, the same way they did before.

[summerlight]

https://univ20.com/107631

There's an interesting article regarding behavioral observations on personalized advertisements, though it's in Korean. Summary for those who doesn't want to use a translator (KR to EN performance is typically bad):

  * Generation Z's reaction to ads personalization category (from Google and FB) is somewhat positive in that they don't really care about its creepiness but think more accurate categorization on each personality as a better thing. The report thinks that they consider it as more of utility rather than just privacy invasion.
  * More interestingly, sometime they "guide" ad targeting systems to show information that matches to their interests to save their efforts on searching for perfect matches. Honestly, I was super surprised since I haven't thought about this kind of usage even though I'm working on ads.
  * Some of them (though the tone indicates that it's not majority?) does not skip video ads to "pay" a subscription fee for creators who they want to support. I saw some similar cases even in the US though.
  * Sometime they're actively looking for explicitly sponsored reviews, which is actually an ad. It's because they sometime decide to buy specific products before watching its ads. This inversion of causality seems very odd to me, but the rationale is that they just want to better understand the product and don't care whether it's an ad or not.

It's written by a marketer who seems to be negative about personalized ads and genuinely surprised by these observations. Honestly... I still cannot get this but yeah, it seems there's some people who consider personalized ads as a tool.

[codetrotter]

I hate ads. They hijack my attention and they promote things for the companies that have the most money to spend on screaming at me about their products. I wish the advertising industry simply disappeared.

In fact if I had three wishes they would be 1. End poverty and allow everyone in the world to pursue their dreams while still being able to live acceptably well. 2. Make it impossible for anyone to amass more than some to-be-determined ceiling amount of times more money than everyone else. 3. Make advertising simply stop existing - everyone forgets what it is and it is never invented again.

[GekkePrutser]

I second those wishes :)

[pyjug]

It’s not surprising considering that employees and founders of ad funded companies hang out here. In this case, jedberg (correct me if I’m wrong) was an early employee at Reddit, which is almost entirely ad funded.

I’m not saying he’s being malicious - he probably genuinely believes he likes personalized ads. The “self” or “ego” is a very tricky thing. It can rationalize almost anything to maintain its world view. Everyone likes to think they’re doing good in the world. When faced with the fact that may not be the case, it’s natural to rationalize it away. It takes an extreme level of awareness to be objectively neutral whenever your “self” is involved.

[jedberg]

I'm sure there are some forums where people who sell ads like them too. :)

But what can I say, I'm a realist. I spent a lot of years working on a website supported by advertising. I understand not everyone will or can pay for the websites they enjoy, and advertising is a good second option.

And if we're going to have to live in a world with ad supported websites, I'd rather those ads be good.

[ahelwer]

You're defining "good" here to mean "effective at manipulating me to spend money", which is strange! I'd rather not be manipulated into buying things I didn't realize would finally fill the gaping hole inside my soul until two seconds ago. Would be perfectly content seeing ads for, I don't know, farm equipment until I happily perish of old age never once experiencing the fomo of not possessing a theragun.

[jedberg]

I'm defining good as "informing of things I didn't know existed". I consider advertising just another news channel.

Copying from my comment above, here are some examples of things I've bought. I like trying out new things because I can afford it, but I don't always have time to go out and look for them.

So examples of things that I've bought from Instagram ads:

The comma2 (autopilot for my Honda van). I knew OpenPilot existed, but until I saw that ad, I didn't know there was a product I could buy with it already installed. I liked the idea but didn't have time to get it all set up on my own. The existence of a commercial product vastly improved my life. I've already used it for over 1000 miles of self driving in just a couple weeks. It's a night and day difference when driving. I suppose I would have eventually heard about the product, but I'm glad I heard about it when I did.

The most recent Pride lego set. I would have never known it existed, but I'm glad I know now, because I want to give my kids something fun to build that sparks a conversation about Pride and what it means and why it's important.

[p49k]

The end doesn’t justify the means. Finding out about some cool stuff doesn’t justify the insane amount of collection of ones personal data by hundreds of companies in a manner which is basically impossible for a person to reasonably prevent.

[IX-103]

And if they could do it workout gathering that much personal data? Isn't that what FLOC is trying to do?

[google234123]

An internet with no ads will have much less content.

[mavhc]

OK, so someone has "my data", ie a partial list of websites I may have visited. Now what? What harm has been caused to me?

[j_wtf_all_taken]

It'd just be nice to have a little more control, for starters. So advertisers try to figure out what we want by what websites we visit and are not too good at it. They could also just ... ask? I'd like to have an ad service that I can tell what I'm actually interested in these days, and that forces the companies to provide lots of information about the product they are advertising for (documentation and stuff). So if I see an interesting ad, I can easily find out if its actually something I want. And money only flows if I actually buy something, affiliate-link style.

[jedberg]

Unfortunately asking users doesn't usually work out well. My favorite example is from Netflix. They asked users, "What movie needs to be on the service for you to consider it a good service with good movies that you would want to see repeatedly". A lot of people answered "Schindler's list". But when you looked at those same user's actual viewing, they never once watched Schindler's list, but they watch Jackass multiple times. So what they really wanted was Jackass, but either were too ashamed to admit it, or didn't actually understand their own preferences.

[j_wtf_all_taken]

But then it seems the problem is not ads, but the gaping holes in peoples souls?

[wizzwizz4]

The ads are opening those holes. It doesn't take long for them to close again, but by that time you've decided to buy the thing.

[j_wtf_all_taken]

I strongly believe that gaping holes did exist in peoples souls waaaay before ads were invented.

Don't know, though ... when I asked the all-knowing internet if "gaping holes did exist in people's souls before ads were invented", the first search result is a link to the Harry Potter Fandom-Wiki article about Dementors:

"Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them... Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself... soulless and evil. You will be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life."

[smoldesu]

It's more of a hierarchy, to me. I prefer no ads, but I'd rather have personalized ones than the raunchy shlock they serve you if you're a "nobody".

[bingidingi]

I understand the reasoning, but I prefer schlock versus the cross-site data required to serve me personalized ads.

With the internet at our disposal I don't understand why anyone would ever click on an ad. If you need or want something, a quick search on even the worst search engine is outrageously more informative.

[alpaca128]

Personalised ads imply data collection, privacy violations and tracking across websites. That doesn't sound like a good deal. Especially as personalised ads are just as annoying and unhelpful because the algorithms are simply useless. No, when I bought a game I don't want to buy the Collector's Edition one day later. And that won't change over the 3 months I'm getting the same stupid recommendation. Might as well show me literally a random product, I'd be more likely to buy it.

[HWR_14]

Why not install an ad blocker and have no ads then?

[badsectoracula]

I used to like the idea many years ago (think 10-15 or so) since if i'm going to see ads might as well have them be about stuff that interest me - which can actually be useful now and then.

But the thing is, what i wanted was for Google to let me actually choose what sort of ads i see, not try to guess.

Nowadays i just use an adblocker.

[ksec]

I mean there are only a few on HN who dare to post this contrarian view. 99.98% of people on HN still hate Ads. To the point they want to cancel people working on Google Ads or in Adtech industry.

99% of nerds hate ads, but 99% of consumer aren't nerds.

[wolverine876]

Is there any research on people's preferences in this regard?

[ahelwer]

It helps that that's where the money comes from.

[remram]

I don't understand this. If you want personalized ads, wouldn't you rather subscribe to consumer newsletters, that you can specifically tailor to your interest and are working for you and showing genuine reviews, rather than ads sold to the highest bidder and that try to manipulate you?

Additionally why do you want to view those recommendations while you are actively trying to do something else?

[jedberg]

I do subscribe to newsletters and I don't want to see those recommendations while I'm doing something else.

But sites are gonna run ads. And if my choice is unpersonalized ad or personalized, I'd rather it be personalized.

[driverdan]

> If I have to suffer with ads to support the websites I like

You don't. Use an adblocker and be done with them.

[jefftk]

And then how is the website jedberg likes supported?

[imiric]

That's the website's problem, not jedberg's.

If they can come up with an unintrusive and frictionless way for me to support them financially, and I think their service is worth supporting, I'll do so.

The problem is that the advertising business model is forced upon users. It's like the sleazy salesman holding the service hostage, and the only way to use it is to agree to be exploited and manipulated.

To hell with that nonsense. Either come up with a business model that respects your users, or close up shop as far as I'm concerned.

[Nicksil]

>And then how is the website jedberg likes supported?

What a bizarre argument; the implication that advertising is the sole method of remuneration and sourcing support for some venture is the responsibility of anyone besides the venture. The idea just reeks of entitlement.

[imiric]

The author works on ads, so I can't say I'm surprised.

[Waterluvian]

I agree. I like personalized ads. Where I'm bothered is when they're "too" personalized.

Like I buy an oven, why are you showing me ovens? Stop over fitting. Just know that I'm an active nerd and advertise me active nerd stuff.

[masswerk]

Interesting. I really like(d) to be included in the bigger picture. What goods there are and how they are advertised is part of our culture (as is the quality part of advertising in it self). Being cut from most of it (to see the same over and over again, things I usually made up my mind on long ago) hurts.

[HWR_14]

> I probably click on at least 1/4 of the ads I get, and have definitely made purchases based on Instagram ads.

In an anonymized (or not) way, can you tell me something you found via an Instagram ad that you were not aware existed and then purchased?

[jedberg]

Copying from my comment above, here are some examples of things I've bought. I like trying out new things because I can afford it, but I don't always have time to go out and look for them.

So examples of things that I've bought from Instagram ads:

The comma2 (autopilot for my Honda van). I knew OpenPilot existed, but until I saw that ad, I didn't know there was a product I could buy with it already installed. I liked the idea but didn't have time to get it all set up on my own. The existence of a commercial product vastly improved my life. I've already used it for over 1000 miles of self driving in just a couple weeks. It's a night and day difference when driving. I suppose I would have eventually heard about the product, but I'm glad I heard about it when I did.

The most recent Pride lego set. I would have never known it existed, but I'm glad I know now, because I want to give my kids something fun to build that sparks a conversation about Pride and what it means and why it's important.

[HWR_14]

I am kind of amazed, because you are the first person I've interacted with who (a) claims to like personalized ads and (b) has actually answered that question. Those are interesting. I understand the Pride Lego set being an ad, but the comma2 was?

Do you know why the comma2 was advertised to you?

[jedberg]

Why wouldn’t the comma2 have an ad? It’s a commercial product.

No idea why it was marched to me, but it worked.

[HWR_14]

I'm surprised that comma2 would assume anyone interested in their product wouldn't have ad blockers. Or that anyone would want to context switch to looking into it from Instagram.

I would have assumed ads for comma2 to revolve around sponsored content on various DIY/hacker sites. But I am not a good marketer, nor do I pretend to be (I do recognize it's value and wish I was, but I just don't get it.)

I suppose comma2 doesn't pay for blocked ads. So that is less surprising on reflection.