Hacker News Reader

Comment by klmadfejno | Hacker News Reader

> Wont better targeting provide more of this sense and a perception of fewer ads overall?

No. If you're say, a video game lover, you're still a potential customer for a number of things you don't really care about. Ads don't target things you like, they target things you might be convinced to buy. If you want to find interesting, relevant ads, you'd be better off having no targeting, and finding domain relevant ads. E.g. video game ads on video game sites, rather than ads for the toaster you bought on amazon 3 months ago or women's underwear because your spouse made a quick search on your phone.

View on HN

You're describing examples of the problems of poor targeting.

I like plants. But I don't get ads for plants, instead I get ads for stupid plant-related gizmos. Why? Because the plant "market" is not online, and is much less lucrative than the gizmo market. There's no amount of tracking that can fix mismatches between commercial and human interests. Or to put it another way: the best things in life are free, ad space is not.

What I'm describing is the best targeting that a massive dedication of the top engineering talent in the planet is capable of. Perhaps if we gave them even more personal information, like a list of all my purchases, they would know not to sell me the toaster I already bought. That doesn't mean there's a market for "good" ads that could reach me instead.

Previously I used video games as an example. Let's choose something more mundane. If I have a pet cat, I still don't want to read ads about cat food. I don't want ads about litter. I don't want ads about stupid cat toys. Or pet cameras. Or pet photos. Or pet grooming services. Or more cats. I don't want your fucking ads at all. Your targeting isn't wrong, but that doesn't make it pleasant. Everyone needs toilet paper. I don't want toilet paper ads.

And then on top of all that, cat product companies get outbid by some sketchy financial company trying to get me to refinance a mortgage because the margin on that is way higher.

I bought a software product for work several times. But it was not purchased in any way related to my personal Google account. Using Youtube to learn about the software has cause me to see thousands of ads for the software I had purchased several times already.

This is poor targeting (especially since it's direct response), and a lot of people I talk to get very annoyed telling me their experiences like this.

That's great for you, but is a tiny fraction of the problem being outlined. If you could say "Don't show me ads for this again", and total ads were held constant, you would not suddenly be inundated with ads you enjoy seeing. Ads are unpleasant, period. Targeted ads are no better.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com