[cycomanic]

So how do you morally justify your work? Do you think this work is valuable? I know I sound confrontational, but I'm seriously wondering about this. In particular because the HN crowd in general has been so highly critical of most adtech, but at the same time a significant portion of people here probably works on it or for one of the companies which are behind it.

[marketingtech]

There are many immoral players in the industry, but there's nothing inherently immoral about advertising.

I help people discover products and services that they love.

I help thousands of business owners find more customers, so they can support their families and create jobs for others.

There's a lot of bad behavior from marketers and sketchy business owners, but I know the work that I'm personally doing has a tangible, positive impact on the lives of thousands of people.

[y4mi]

> but there's nothing inherently immoral about advertising.

That's debatable or at least strongly depends on your definition of advertising.

moral advertisment could in my opinion only tell a person about something when they actually need that thing.

For example telling the person what kind of options are available if a person needs to travel from x to y.

Any other form eventually ends right where we are right now, with with scientists and psychologists trying to figure out how to manipulate people into doing things they wouldn't otherwise.

[nawgz]

Isn't it basically known that FAANG pays the most because they have the most invasive & powerful adtech, and adtech is actually just a euphemism for outreach and control?

And I hate to say it, but they justify their work really easily: they get paid very well for it and someone else would if they didn't anyways

The real battles were fought and lost long ago in this domain, and the chances of success were never high. Power is an addiction and powerful people are the most addicted, they always have and always will aim to subjugate and control, to be a pawn of such a person is definitely sad but maybe worth the lofty goal of having true financial independence

[jklinger410]

I vote with my conscious, but I work for whoever will pay me the most money.

[chitowneats]

Does this mean that you would vote for a candidate who promised to impose meaningful regulations on your industry? Even if that meant harming a company you work for / may have equity in? Is there some other solution to this tracking proliferation?

My question assumes you believe the work your industry is doing is unethical but that seems to be implied by your posts.

[jklinger410]

Absolutely. I'm not an owner and I don't have any equity.

[jklinger410]

> Is there some other solution to this tracking proliferation?

Not in capitalist countries. Serving someone an ad that is actually relevant to them is good business.

The government doesn't need web cookies to find you, they can just call your ISP or your phone carrier, or check surveillance cameras, ask your bank, so-on. No one from these private companies has the time to look at the data, you are just a number to them.

Though it might feel like it, you aren't being spied on in any meaningful sense. You are just being profiled, as a tax to use all of the free services you have access to.

Paid services that don't sell your data are the way to go, if that kind of thing scares you. But the ads you see online are going to suck.

[fungiblecog]

> But the ads you see online are going to suck.

Even with all the profiling the ads still suck.

It amazes me how little insight all this profiling actually gives advertisers. Sure they advertise stuff to me that I'm already searching for, but advertising is supposed to be about brining in new customers. Not advertising a product to me after I've already decided what I want, searched for it, and bought it (or decided I don't want it).

I get ads for weeks after that are a complete waste of the advertiser's money, LOL. I don't think I've EVER bought something online that I didn't know I wanted until I saw an ad...

[xahrepap]

> Even with all the profiling the ads still suck.

It seems silly to me as well. But when it comes down to it, they serve the ads that pay the most, right? So perhaps all the fancy machine learning and all the other garbage is just a way to say to their customers, "Hey, advertise with us, look at all this fancy stuff!"

and then someone comes along and says, "hey, we'll pay more than any other relevant ad..." and POOF. All of it doesn't matter anymore. At the end of the day, it's about getting the dimes in the right pockets.

[soraminazuki]

> The government doesn't need web cookies to find you

Yet the government collects[1] them [2] in[3] bulk[4].

> Though it might feel like it, you aren't being spied on in any meaningful sense.

Not[5] true[6]. There are real harms done.

> Paid services that don't sell your data are the way to go

It's hard for paid services to compete with free ones, so they're incentivized to sell your data anyways.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism...

[2]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in...

[3]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/12/11/googl...

[4]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/25/tech-su...

[5]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/catholic-priest-...

[6]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/grindr-and-okcupid-sel...

[jklinger410]

It's possible for someone to buy public data and match that with their first party data from your account on their service in order to anonymize you. But it's unlikely. This same tactic was used in Afghanistan to find terrorists.

My point being most people aren't being hunted by anyone in particular like the US Government or the Catholic Church. It's expensive to set up these honeypot apps, and to buy this data, and spend the time to de-anonymize it. Frankly that church story is kind of insane.

Your second example is not really relevant IMO.

[Nextgrid]

> as a tax to use all of the free services you have access to.

The problem is that the current economics make it more profitable to operate an ad-supported product than a paid product.

Regulation that would make ads less profitable would allow paid products to actually compete on price.

[chitowneats]

Ah, so you don't find it unethical. Makes sense then you have no qualms accepting your paycheck.

For the record, "capitalist" countries can and do regulate businesses. Those that are democracies do so based on the general interest of the citizenry. Unless you consider anything beyond absolute libertarianism to be "not capitalist". I find these semantic arguments often confuse the issue at hand.

I would love to pay for services that don't track me. You mentioned in another comment it's becoming hard to own a car, have a bank account, insurance, without tracking being baked in. I'm interested in ways we can work to change this. I don't subscribe to your belief that there is no solution, or that the level of tracking involved in the status quo is not "meaningful".

[jklinger410]

I am personally very jaded with the United States' version of capitalism and regulation. This is a country with for-profit healthcare who also run ads. To say the least.

Your voting record, vehicle ownership, and household income, depending on what state you live in, are sold by your state government itself! We have a long way to go when it comes to ethical capitalism in the United States. Too far, actually.

[chitowneats]

I absolutely agree there is much work to be done. Let's start doing it. I don't see how offering one's talents to these companies is moving us in the right direction. It's not a meaningless act to accept a higher pay check in exchange for working in such an industry. They are paying more because they want solid employees who will work hard. Unless you're there just to throw sand in the gears, I really don't get it.

[wahnfrieden]

> "capitalist" countries can and do regulate businesses. Those that are democracies do so based on the general interest of the citizenry

You have a strong reading of the level of citizen constituency at play in these neoliberal corporate welfare states

[chitowneats]

This type of cynicism about countries like Canada and the U.S. is unwarranted when looking at the full sweep of history. Progress was made in the past. All is not lost.

[fortyseven]

Yeah, that's uh... "cool".

[jklinger410]

Not everyone can just "choose" what field they want to be in. If I got to choose what I did every day, I'd be a writer or a musician. No ethical concerns there.

[chitowneats]

You don't have to work in ads or tracking technologies. Unless you are quite junior and needed to accept whoever was willing to take you. But based on your knowledge of the industry it seems you've spent quite a bit of time there.

[dkersten]

Most people who work for eg google s engineers have plenty of other decent paying options, especially right now. Sure, not everyone diodes, but most do.

[freen]

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/0/3357/files/20...

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

Note theres a difference between advertising and surveillance. "Adtech" proponents are likely to conflate the two since adtech relies on surveillance.

[OJFord]

Not GP, don't work in ads (actually I think my former colleagues probably think I left because our role pivoted that way) but I'm of the view that 'if I don't someone else will', and so in a way I'd rather learn more about it, maybe be the inside voice to say No this is way too far etc.

It certainly doesn't particularly interest me - maybe there are interesting problems if your big on ML - but I wouldn't turn down the best offer I had just because it was in adtech and I wish it didn't exist to go to anyone.

[tablespoon]

> but I'm of the view that 'if I don't someone else will', and so in a way I'd rather learn more about it, maybe be the inside voice to say No this is way too far etc.

I can't remember where I saw it, but I once read a rather convincing article that made the case that's the exact attitude the allows immoral things to happen, especially at scale. Basically "participate, but try to change it from the inside" pretty much simplifies into just "participate." You give them your talent, and either your attempts at change fail or are so small to be pointless (e.g. winning the fight to not pack Jews in so tightly in the boxcars that are still going to the concentration camp).

[OJFord]

I'm not saying I'd be actively trying to blow things up from inside, my job wouldn't last long, and my whole point was that I'm not an activist about it: someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me (if I don't have a better offer).

In your horrible analogy, I suppose what I mean is something like (but come on, not remotely close to!) 'why are we burning books and looting art, this is terrible, oh well someone else will if not me, and hey, I like art', but then 'you want to do a holocaust?! No, that is absurdly too far, whistle blow'.

[tablespoon]

> someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me (if I don't have a better offer).

And maybe that person is worse at it than you, or without you they don't have enough people with the right skills to succeed.

> In your horrible analogy, I suppose what I mean is something like (but come on, not remotely close to!) 'why are we burning books and looting art, this is terrible, oh well someone else will if not me, and hey, I like art', but then 'you want to do a holocaust?! No, that is absurdly too far, whistle blow'.

Fat lot of good whistle-blowing would do in that example.

There's also the aspect where the last step was too far for you, but you helped take every step before that which enabled that last step to be taken without you.

If your attitude is "someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me," you probably should just drop idea that you could change things from the inside, since it amounts to a BS rationalization to take the money.