Comment by eevilspock | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eevilspock | Hacker News Reader

While it is heartening that an ad tech guy is coming out critical of the damage ads and ad tech are doing to the web, what he won't say but nonetheless implies is far more important: The free market isn't working in this context. Its invisible hand has been handcuffed.

He says users are the real customers and their interests are not being served. Of course not! The invisible hand works because buyers directly pay for the things they choose to use. They vote with their wallets. But when things appear to be free and the true cost are hidden and indirect[1], the voting becomes rigged. When there is a intermediary (advertising) that distributes consumer dollars to publishers, that intermediary's vote has far more weight, and its interests will be served at the expense of the client (consumers). What makes it more perverse is this intermediary also has the goal of manipulating our consumption decisions, using information asymmetries and our own psychological weaknesses against us, and we fund them!

When he says "ads make the world go round", that should scare the shit out of invisible hand believers.

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[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773

I don't disagree with the finer points in your argument, and I'm a big advocate for paying for services directly as a personal choice. It's perhaps a semantic issue, but the invisible hand seems to be working as expected in this case. From the article:

> Consumers, today more than at any time in the past, are starting to question the value of content online and whether or not it’s worth the trade offs. In their eyes, it’s increasingly difficult to justify their interaction with ads.

In the last couple of years adblocking has gone from a fringe thing to do, to mainstream adoption [1]. This is absolutely the sort of consumer action that the 'invisible hand' serves as a metaphor for, and it is disciplining the market. Apple touting adblocking as a feature of iOS 9 is another example of market forces working to chasten advertisers and publishers for asking too much from consumers. So is AMP and Blendle, so is the rise of HBO, Hulu Plus and Netflix, so was the commercial skip button on TiVo. All of these have emerged because a sizable enough number of consumers demanded an alternative and the 'invisible hand' guided businesses to answer these demands.

The author is not capitulating for any reason other than that current adtech approaches on the web are losing their market viability, and the number of consumers that are reaching their limit is steadily increasing.

[1] 41% increase in 2015 alone. https://pagefair.com/blog/2015/ad-blocking-report/

Saying the rise of ad blocking is a manifestation of the invisible hand doing its thing is like saying the rise of socialism or even looting is a manifestation of the invisible hand in response to rising inequality.

See what I mean?

So yes, if you define "invisible hand" in the broad way that you do, then as long as we have democracy, all social and political developments are invisible hand actions. I'm fine with that definition but libertarians and free-market worshipers would categorically reject that definition. They specifically mean the invisible hand of the market, i.e. of buying and selling decisions[1]. Not end-runs around the market such as voting for wealth redistribution, looting, ad blocking, or charging consumers for product A by "taxing" product B (which is what funding product A via advertising for product B is).

¡Viva la Revolución! (I'm serious.)

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[1] http://www.factmonster.com/cig/economics/equilibrium-mr-dema...

I'm only am amateur in economics, but I've read my share of Friedman, Rand, and Hayek, and I am pretty sure that pro-market thinkers, and economists in general, have a broader conception of the phrase 'invisible hand' than you think. They would understand the rise of ad-blocking as a rejection of a business model by large numbers of individuals. Thus, an 'invisible hand' is guiding businessmen like the author to look for opportunities that will lead to the survival or success of his own business (the same goes for the other examples I referenced) and in the end provide marginally less of what consumers don't want, and more of what they do.

Consumers are signalling a preference to publications by choosing to not download some javascript, images, or video to their computers. It's really not that different from putting a 'no junk mail' sticker on your postbox or binning flyers without looking at them, but still enjoying cheaper postage so long as the postal service is subsidized by ad-mail. Hardly an end run around the market or an illegal act.

The concept merely states that people like the author have a motivation to pay attention to what consumers want and try to deliver products that satisfy consumer desires (which are always changing). When Apple sees an opportunity to make their products more attractive to consumers by introducing an ad-blocking API they are absolutely led by the invisible hand of the market in this direction. Smith's point was that providing this option to consumers doesn't require Apple to be moral, or to be coerced, merely to respond to what consumers want and exploit the opportunity to their own profit.

I'd argue that the free market is working. Ad blockers are giving consumers a vote and empowering them to force the system to work better for them.

On the web, ads do make the world go 'round. Like it or not, that is a fact.

This "fact" is why only 2 out of at least 200 people I've asked have given and answer of less than 90% to the question, "How much of the web do you think is garbage?" It will remain that way until we stop relying on ads.

See my sibling reply RE invisible hand.

Sounds like a scientific experiment with no bias. Awesome.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com