Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hardwaresofton 1473 days ago
Remember on the other side of every advertisement is a business desperately trying to reach customers.

We could certainly do without the tracking, dark patterns and other unscrupulous behavior but at the core, advertising is businesses trying to reach new customers.

I mean I still block ads and recommend ublock origin to people I know but I also see the other side of it.
2 comments
culi 1473 days ago
> a business desperately trying to reach customers

Also read: "a business that thinks its entitled to dozens to thousands of people's attention"

I think my biggest gripe is how dramatically we undervalue people's attention. Not just the businesses but as a culture as well. Studies are finally coming out shining a light on the incredible long-term harm the attention economy has on people's mental health

link
hardwaresofton 1473 days ago
> Also read: "a business that thinks its entitled to dozens to thousands of people's attention"

true, the vast majority of businesses probably don't deserve the attention they're trying to get via ads.

> I think my biggest gripe is how dramatically we undervalue people's attention. Not just the businesses but as a culture as well. Studies are finally coming out shining a light on the incredible long-term harm the attention economy has on people's mental health

Well we've got a market now, and one of the things they're pretty good at doing is establishing pricing, so we can measure it a bit more now.

The attention economy is pretty broad -- I do wonder how much of that is mixed up with the various platforms' attempts to get you addicted so they can also serve you ads. The old internet with banner ads on pages/blogs you went to didn't seem quite so bad for mental health in particular.

For example I don't think people suffer mental health issues from recipe sites with lots of ads and autoplay videos, despite how annoying and wasteful it is.

link
cmeacham98 1473 days ago
Remember that advertisers have the majority of the power in this relationship because they're the ones with the money. If advertisers demanded that ad networks only showed ads in an ethical manor they'd comply. Advertisers don't however, because they don't care.

You don't get to play the game of "oh this thing we're trying to do is ok" but ignore the fact all your methods to do it are are unethical and you know that and you still continue to use them.

link