[bool3max]

What’s interesting to me is that no matter how “hidden” the AD indicator may be, my brain always seems to very quickly train itself to swiftly skip such posts when scrolling/browsing.

Or I could simply be another clueless victim of advertising. If only I could know the number of sponsored posts I never consciously acknowledge and am influenced by on the daily.

[tartoran]

If the vast majority of people recognized ads and skipped them as more technically minded people do, they'd either not do that or step up a notch and make them even harder to spot. The reality is that these dark patterns do work for a large part of the users. We're the lucky few who can stay away though it is taxing and tiring.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

Or at least we’re arrogant enough to think it doesn’t affect us.

[tartoran]

It does affect us quite a bit. This situation makes us have to think hard, makes us be very wary of what we click on or read and sometimes bites us as well. I personally find ads extremely tiring such that I mostly avoid add riddled products/sites and always use ad blockers. Quite on the contrary, the vast majority of users aren't even bothered by ads, they've been accustomed to them. My main point of the comment wasn't to be arrogant but to say that most users don't care.

[disgruntledphd2]

> If the vast majority of people recognized ads and skipped them as more technically minded people do

People definitely do this. When I worked for a large social media company, we almost always had ads in position 2. People noticeably (in the aggregate data) spent less time with this position in the viewport.

But honestly, most people are just extra impressions/revenue for most advertisers, there's a much smaller number of people who drive ~all of the conversions.

[mikkupikku]

The sickening truth is that most normals don't turn their attention in another way even when they recognize an ad for what it is.

[gnatman]

Why should they if they’re buying some commoditized item on amazon, for example? I bought an ergonomic ice pack for my knee this morning, something I couldn’t find in the store near my house. Why should I scroll past the first, cheapest, decent looking item that meets my needs? As a moral duty, perhaps. At any rate, advertisement doesn’t necessarily mean scam.

[mikkupikku]

In that scenario I can understand paying attention to ads, even though I personally don't. But normals will stay tuned in and eyes glued even for television ads pitching things they have no interest in. Hypnotized by the machine, indifferent to the commercial propaganda. Even asking them to mute the ads is met with puzzlement.

[tartoran]

When you pay for an advertised product you're also paying for their advertising budget hence most likely not the best price/quality. Sure, not 100% true all the time, sometimes there's a liquidation of stock or something like that.

[snailmailman]

Yeah. Its going to be easy to skip the first result in an app store search, not because its highlighted, but additionally because it isn't ever what i was searching for. The app store search has been broken like this for years and any change they make short of adding or removing the ad won't change my habits.

in every search ive done on the app store in the last several years, I'm looking for a specific app. That app is never the ad result at the top, its always the second result down.

Right now i did a search for several different popular social media apps. TikTok was the top 'ad' result for all of them. Then i did a search for TikTok and got some random app i've never heard of as the 'ad' result. Its like it doesn't want the same app to fill both of the top two slots, but there is always an ad. So what you are looking for is always second on the list. Never first.

Because of this, why would i ever click the ad? If i search something less-specific like "flashcard app" the best result will fill the second slot. Something else goes in the ad slot.

[amelius]

Shouldn't be too difficult to train a DL network on it, as well. I'm waiting for a pi-hole like device that works on the HDMI level and simply replaces ads by blank space (or art, or whatever the user chooses).

[ocdtrekkie]

Normal users do not do this. We break Google Ads' links at the office (yours should too, malicious linkjacking in ads is prevalent) and I am told "Google doesn't work" all the time. People have to be taught not to click the ads and usually that's only effective if you ensure the ads don't work.

[dpkirchner]

Amazon has gotten "good" at it. If I search for, say, AirPods, I get ads from Apple followed by the regular listings that look identical sans gray "sponsored" text. It helps that in this rare case the ads are actually relevant.

[browningstreet]

The problem with this, I've found, is that you end up skipping a lot of things, and then find out later on that features were introduced years ago that you've wished, throughout the interim, existed. It's hard to keep up.

I wish there was regulation enforcing background colors for ads.

[grumbel]

We should just have an <advertisement> tag in HTML, regulation could then require it.

[brewdad]

It's not an ad, it's a paid message from a sponsor. Completely different. :-)

[deafpolygon]

Yeah, but that's just moving the goal post. They'll find some way to get around having to do it.

[efilife]

Any ideas? I'm struggling to come up how they could circumvent this

[nkrisc]

The solution to the plague of ads is to just stop buying so much shit. Most the stuff we buy shouldn’t even exist in the first place.

[embedding-shape]

> Most the stuff we buy shouldn’t even exist in the first place.

But how would we know what should or shouldn't exist, if someone doesn't bring it into existence first so we can figure it out?

[nkrisc]

For example: most small, plastic toys should not exist, regardless of how many people might want them. They’re essentially mass-manufactured pollution that harms the global environment. Sure, you can find positive effects of them, but I argue those effects are not worth the downsides.

There are many other things that would be a net positive of they didn’t exist.

Just because something can exist, just because some people might want it to exist, doesn’t mean we’re better off. Honestly I think the Amish and their measured approach to technology is correct (though my rubric would be different than theirs).

[latexr]

> The problem with this, I've found, is that you end up skipping a lot of things

The solution is to stop caring so much about what you miss. Whatever it is, it’s not worth the unrelenting assault on your senses.

Replace your FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) with JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out).

[godzillabrennus]

I'm okay with missing things. As I got older, I cared less and less about being aware of everything out there, and I was glad I got the thing done I needed so I could spend time with my family.

[terminalshort]

I do this automatically too. But then I wonder if that matters. Are the results that have the best SEO actually going to be any better than the sites that pay the most to be displayed for my search? I have no idea.

[bevr1337]

"I can always tell when someone is lying to me."