[baridbelmedar]

I understand your point of view, and I'm not saying you don't have a point. But something tells me that you would take a more pragmatic approach if your livelihood or that of a close relative were directly affected by the company's poor sales as a result. Remember, everyone's job contributes to sales, whether they like it or not :)

[squigz]

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I'd take a more pragmatic approach to drug policy if I or a loved one were a drug dealer, too?

[amarcheschi]

Or perhaps, given the debatable efficiency of these ads systems, they might have been working at a different company or at a different project and actually create something useful for the end user or something that at least would work

[arkh]

Would you give the same kind of excuse to slavers?

[account42]

Ultimately advertising is a zero sum game anyway. If you convince someone to buy your product then they are not going to spend that money elsewhere. Sure, they might have instead saved the money but that just means spending it later.

The only reason why anyone needs to advertise is to prevent others who do advertise from stealing all their customers. This is also why ads are becoming more intrusive and annoying over time - because you need to make your ads even more effective than the competition if everyone else already also uses ads.

[xanderlewis]

Your argument about advertising being zero sum might as well be applied to any form of business (we all have a certain amount of money, and we choose where to spend it). I’m not sure how you can believe business in general is zero sum — it’s the only reason we’re now not living in caves.

I get that we’re all embittered by having annoying, low-quality adverts thrust in our faces, but there’s no need to become completely cynical about economies in general.

[account42]

There are more industries that are basically parasites who don't contribute to society and instead insert themselves as middlement to extract value from others' work, yes. But no, you cannot apply this to any form of businesses. Many businesses fulfill real needs. If you'd take all agriculture away, everyone would starve. If you'd take all advertisement away then the world would not collapse. These things are not the same.

[xanderlewis]

> If you'd take all advertisement away then the world would not collapse.

That’s a statement that requires some evidence. Advertisement drives the world economy.

[tsimionescu]

There's a well known result in the tabacco industry, that tabacco sales didn't just disappear when advertising for tabacco was banned.

[xanderlewis]

What a stupid point. Tobacco is an addictive substance.

[squigz]

> I get that we’re all embittered by having annoying, low-quality adverts thrust in our faces, but there’s no need to become completely cynical about economies in general.

Well, maybe the adverts by themselves aren't enough, but... gestures broadly

[xanderlewis]

There’s much to be dismayed by in the modern world. But — and sorry to sound like such a cliche here — what alternative would you suggest to capitalism?

[squigz]

Why is the choice always "capitalism" or "not capitalism"?

It seems to me that the real problem with it all is the false dichotomy that so many people seem to have bought into. It wasn't too long ago that we understood that we need to balance out both sides for a society to flourish. Capitalism is useful, yes, but unfettered capitalism slowly eats itself and everything adjacent to it.

[xanderlewis]

Ironically, you’re the one assuming it’s a dichotomy. I never said anything about ‘unfettered capitalism’.

> Why is the choice always "capitalism" or "not capitalism"?

Any set A induces a partition of the universe into A and not A. You haven’t made any suggestions at all. Just the usual moaning — which is justified, but not at all helpful.

[latexr]

I for one take the pragmatic approach of not working for companies with practices I object to. Thus I’m never faced with that dilemma.

[mtlynch]

I'd imagine it's more complicated than that. If you use iOS or Android, I'd imagine there's some practice of Google or Apple that you object to, so it's not practical to do it in all cases.

In my experience, I try to avoid companies with objectionable practices, but in a lot of cases, all the vendors are varying degrees of unscrupulous. Or the vendors that are ethical have a significantly worse customer experience because they're playing fair against competitors who are playing unfair. So, I'm left to either choose the least bad vendor or face massive inconvenience from not using a competitive vendor.

[latexr]

Using a product is different from having your livelihood depend on the company’s sales. You’re referring to the former but I was referring to the latter, as that is the point of the comment I replied to.

[mtlynch]

You're right. I misread "working for" as "working with."

[baridbelmedar]

Well, many industries rely on advertising to sell their products, and I wouldn't say those industries are inherently worse than others.

[latexr]

> Well, many industries rely on advertising to sell their products

I’m not objecting to advertising, but the privacy violations.

> and I wouldn't say those industries are inherently worse than others.

I wouldn’t (and didn’t) say that either.

[HenryBemis]

You are the very reason why I use adblockers, and block a bunch of URLs and IPs on my router (to protect myself and my family), _and_ try to convince loved ones to up their security/privacy game; while at the same time I know that most people are sheep and have this exact opinion, so I own stock of MS, Apple, Google, and others, that 'feed' on the people with that mindset.

It's kinda like those Silicon Valley execs that make these (mental) poisonous products but don't let their kids use them...? So thank you for the dividends, but I will feed my family (mentally) healthy stuff and not (mental) junkfood.

All because "hey the poor ad execs need one more speedboat!". Thank you for your service :)

[squigz]

> You are the very reason why I use adblockers, and block a bunch of URLs and IPs on my router (to protect myself and my family), _and_ try to convince loved ones to up their security/privacy game; while at the same time I know that most people are sheep and have this exact opinion, so I own stock of MS, Apple, Google, and others, that 'feed' on the people with that mindset.

Interesting hypocrisy at work here.

[amarcheschi]

If you have a pension account or something like that, chances are you have a (although very small) stake in ms, Apple and Google as well as him

[squigz]

I'm too poor to have a pension account or anything like that. :P

[amarcheschi]

The point discussed is that the ad targeting isn't even accurate, thus being inefficient and being detrimental on the long term. It isn't hard to imagine that all the work hours put into a targeting system that doesn't even know whether you're male or female could be better spent in other projects