Local and niche businesses can only advertise on Facebook/Google Ads because their clientele can be defined and targeted. Without targeting we'll be watching ads for Coca-Cola and McDonalds and other brands that have 'mass' appeal.
If you use facebook purely for posting and viewing family baby photos, but view websites about tractors, you'll probably see ads on facebook from tractor related companies.
Starspace is used by FB to tag the sites that report that you've visited them to facebook. So they can target ads
It's not a remotely controversial statement. If you take a minute to actually run a marketing campaign for your company you'll learn all sorts of things. Including how targeting works.
There are other options such as restricting the type and degree of targetting.
The 'big outdoor ads' thing is not related to targeted ads, it's not part of this discussion. I'm fine with banning all outdoor ads but not targetted ads. There we need regulation.
Yes, things on Facebook are different, but Facebook is not a publisher, it’s a parasite, so who cares?
2) Those 'stupid ads' are often targeted, and they make money, sadly.
3) You're probably not accounting for the majority of ads you see. If you literally tracked/recorded every ad, you might see a different picture.
4) Many ads are not very well targeted, yes, and that's why you see irrelevance. Well-targeted ads are generally more relevant (sometimes not obvious) and this is 100% validated by returns to advertisers. This is not a joke.
5) Facebook and Google represent most of the ad market, so, the people that 'care' are basically everyone who wants to place an ad online.
3 is you're telling me not to believe my eyes. I'm sorry, there are some things that are so dumb you have to be very smart to trick yourself into believing them. You don't need a sophisticated statistical analysis to know what kind of advertisements you see where.
4 is circular reasoning. "Targeted ads are better than non-targeted, so if (per 1 and 2) I've already conceded that many targeted ads are garbage, I need to hypothesize (3) that the non-targeted ads are somehow worse even against the evidence of sense."
5: Google and Facebook are separate entities and need separate explanations. Facebook is a pure parasite. It does nothing for publishers except drive them traffic (which is in itself, a cost center, not a profit center). Publishers need to figure out how to convert traffic into profit. If we're talking about publishing, that requires the ads to be on their site, which means Google. But Google is screwing the publishers too because they can track and deliver eyeballs from anywhere.
It's just an obviously sick ecosystem. People have been doing advertising supported publishing since the 19th century, and it was fine until ten minutes ago, when suddenly tracking was possible. Coincidentally, ad supported publishing collapsed at the same time that tracking became possible. Is this really a coincidence? You've got to be pretty clever to convince yourself that it is…
1b) "That's a garbage ecosystem and we would all be happier without them."
This is demonstrably false, unfortunately.
The ads power Facebook, Google, much of Entertainment. Almost everywhere you see an ad - that place would disappear without that ad.
So a 'future without ads' is essentially a future without any of those things - and you and anyone else can stop using those things right now, and thereby avoid both the ads and the service.
People chose the crappy ads, with the service, instead of the alternative: nothing.
Granted, there could be more paywalls, but there wouldn't be enough 'pay' to keep the services alive.
2) Yes, I'm 100% telling you that I don't believe your self-assessment of the kinds of ads you see overall. I think most people have no idea of the true inventory they are witnesses, rather, they remember only the tiny fragment that sticks out.
'Your evidence of sense' - is telling you that 'ads are a waste' when 'evidence of a $100B economy' and 'science' is definitely telling you that ads are effective. Even untargeted, or crudely targetted.
3) I don't think it's circular reasoning to point out that many ads are not targeted. You're missing the underlying point - that not all ads land on target, irrespective of how sophisticated the targetting in.
That inefficiency is accounted for in the system.
FYI - as part of 'item #2' not only are you going to be unaware of how many and which ads you saw, you're also going to be completely unaware of their effect on your behavior in most cases.
BMW has been advertising to you since the moment you could recognize their logo, a decade before you could even consider buying a car. That programming 'adds up' to something, no pun intended.
5) Your view of Facebook as a 'parasite' is your own, it's not objective - they have a Billion people who like using it just fine. You're also confusing the collapse of print and the complete commoditization of information, with ads.
I'm going to assume that you've never placed an ad of any kind, and have no exposure to the industry. I'd encourage trying it, even by spending $50 on FB or Google perhaps trying to garner interest in your favorite Open Source Project. You'll learn a lot in the process.
The irony of your ire ... is that better-targeted ads are generally better for everyone - both consumer and advertiser. They are the least annoying and most informative. Though we don't like the invasion of our privacy, the 'targetting' part is really good.
You can't just wish away all of advertising before 2005. It wasn't perfect, but it was fine. Publishing has been collapsing since then and the reasons aren't confusing.
Yes, _as an advertiser_, having targeting is great. But as a mining company, dumping waste water in the river is great. Who cares? It matters what effect your actions have on the system as a whole.
What do people’s favorite ads all have in common? No one likes targeted ads. At best, people like when you do a search and get geographically relevant results. But that’s not even tracking, just IP location. Everyone loves ads but no one likes targeted ads.