Hacker News Reader

Comment by rdbell | Hacker News Reader

Former adtech CTO here.

I've heard this argument a lot but it's hard for me to agree.

Saying that ad arbitrage doesn't "add value" is kind of like arguing that someone with a media-buying/sales role doesn't "add value" because they're just sitting in the middle taking a paycheck/commission.

Partnering with ad arbitragers isn't much different than outsourcing internal media buying/sales roles to an agency to increase reach or fill-rate.

Your point about ads being annoying to end-users isn't unique to digital. Advertisements on all mediums have always annoyed end-users. Certain implementations like full-page takeovers & loading 100 ads on a page are the most annoying. Generally it's the publisher's fault for the bad UX.

View on HN

> Advertisements on all mediums have always annoyed end-users.

This is untrue. Historically speaking, print advertisements in many markets (even when restricted to English-speaking ones) could and did serve multiple purposes, including the relation of interesting topics and stories--ones that certainly were brought-to-you-by or even featured products in them, but worked in concert with the material of the publlication to entertain and inform the reader.

It wasn't until the 1960s, approximately, that print advertisements turned into the screaming look-at-me garbage that they have continued to amplify in volume to this day.

Advertising does not have to be a pustule on society, but we have chosen to allow such.

Advertising has been problematic for quite some time.

A favourite telling of this is Hamilton Holt's 1909 lecture at UC Berkeley, published in book form.

It's a quick and informative read.

https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holt/page/10

The biggest issue that I have with companies like System1 is that a huge portion of their business model is tricking technically un-savvy people into clicking on ads they otherwise would not want to click on. How is that adding any value to society, other than a check in the pocket of the middle man?

The money comes from advertisers eventually, who are funded by sales, so the question becomes -- are those sale making the purchaser happy more than making nonpurchasers unhappy?

> Your point about ads being annoying to end-users

Is the entire point. Yes, advertising might add value to other parties. It's almost certainly net negative overall.

It's kind of funny how both counter-replies seem to ignore everything after the first word of "value to the average consumer's browsing experience".

There's that old saw about being incapable of understanding when one's salary depends on the misunderstanding, and it applies here. Our profession has helped make advertisements markedly worse (which is to say, better, by data-mining the hell out of individuals and aggregates alike and sharpening the psychological tools of attack to points) and markedly more aggressive, but fuck it, let's go shopping. I guess.

Did you read the last paragraph in my post? I explicitly addressed that. My point is:

1. Ad arbitrage has a role.

2. The blame of annoying/bad UX is unfairly being deferred to arbitragers. It's usually the implementation that annoys users, and that's generally the publisher's fault.

I don't know anything about System1's ethics and I'm not trying defend them by any means, but I don't agree with an argument that X company is bad because they've participated in arbitrage.

I think it is entirely fair to blame arbitragers. They are the only ones who can control the advertisement implementation (as website owners no longer have direct relationships with ad providers), and they clearly fail to do so.

You are paid to be part of the problem, why would you understand it or even try? Its clear you dont want to.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com