[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/coming-to-a-brow...
We like to take the example of democracy and elections as a way of explaining our stance: many people complain that their opinion is never heard, or even that their voice cannot change the final outcome. But how can anyone expect an opinion to be heard, and taken into account, if it is not stated?
Modern hyper-invasive ads that follow you around the net, build up a profile based on everywhere you go, and occasionally try to install unpleasant software payloads, would have trouble surviving. Can you truly make a case that this would be a bad thing?
But it's gonna be tough for sites that are "general interest" or even very specific but on a topic that just doesn't have big ad budgets behind it. Our approach also depends on building a recognizable brand in the industry and having a robust in-house ad sales and operations people.
I'm not here to defend programmatic advertising, but I think if/when it goes away it's gonna suck for a lot of small indie sites.
Honestly though once Patreon came along I had a goal of "turn off ads" and I'm pretty happy with that, too. "Everything on the Internet will be free forever, supported solely by ads!" was a terrible idea.
Targeted ads are dead-end, because they inhibit exploration. They act on assumption that a person is fixed and cannot change or want to change. Before adtech I actually liked ads on paper, because it was shiny and showed things I maybe wanted to want. E.g. watch, suits, travel, home utility. I have read ads out of curiosity. Now it is an idiotic AI that thinks I need items that I bought a week ago, single women near me, and nothing more. I have some money but I don't have any watch, suits and I barely travel, partially because no one suggested that it is cool and I'm too lazy to do full-time research myself. Where are your really targeted ads, adtech industry? Can you do your job and empty my pockets? You're too dumb for that.
Based on a description of powerful datasets they have, they should show me:
- rtx 3080 with discount (free shipping!)
- compare se 2020 and 12 mini at coolstore.com
- stop walking and get a scooter!
- cheap mobile op that sucks and will never regain me a visit cost
- Xiaomi phone that I both have and hate
- python courses (I helped someone with script deployment at my linux box an hour ago)
I think the lack of innovation is due to several problems:
1. the constant barrage of ads hurts their reputation making recruiting hard
Wherever you land on the ethics of it, it's a bit like porn: you may not disagree with it in principle, but in practice it seems skeezy enough you don't want to tell your friends that's what you do.
Or it could be some group has genuinely new ideas, but there is so much competition they can't demonstrate why their technology is better.
2. their data sucks
On a lark, I went to Walmart (they're more vertical than Amazon) and I searched for men's belts. When I filtered for "yellow" most of the belts were, indeed bright yellow. (Seriously, Walmart sells a lot of bright yellow men's belts.) Except, of course, for the ones that were black or brown.
And if you search for "t-shirts" and filter by fabrics, Walmart thinks reasonable t-shirt fabrics include acrylic, canvas, chiffon, corduroy, down and vinyl.
So, retailers don't even know what's in their inventory, because they don't know what "yellow" means or what a t-shirt is made of.
3. they have too much data
You point out, "they act on assumption that a person is fixed and cannot change or want to change." I'm pretty sure they're studying the data longitudinally.
The trouble is that they're hoping that magic algorithms can somehow purify petabytes of raw sewage into a clear description of consumer behavior. That's led them to invest in these big data money sinks.
And it's not just a sunk cost fallacy at work, I think they do get some apparent financial returns from the weird and inexplicable inferences those algorithms generate.
So they keep going down this rabbit hole while consumers, regulators and advertisers are steadily getting fed up with them.
Sounds wonderful.
The sooner it reverts back to simply delivering GIF or JPEG banners with a URL (without a few thousand lines of JavaScript) the happier I will be.
I'm sure Google likes the current state better than if they had to change their browser to encourage folks to disable cookies.
One of those is called annoyances, it gets rid of a lot of that noise ime.