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Comment by bogwog | Hacker News Reader

> For instance, my IP changes when I travel, but I’m an American who speaks English, and yet YouTube insists in showing me local ads in different languages when I’m in foreign countries, despite having my home address (verified with my credit card no less!!!) That’s just laughable.

I bet those advertisers that are wasting money on ads that you don't understand aren't laughing

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For years YouTubes top hero banner purposely loaded quite a bit later than the rest of the page.

I never noticed it, until I moved to Spain for a while. Our place had slow internet, and I watched my roommates hit the ad multiple times a day on accident because it loaded right into where the search box was exactly as you’d naturally click there.

I have seen that kind of thing a few different places and I just plain decline to believe that it isn't done with knowledge.

Active items that are already clickable that change location as a page loads drive me nuts, but these particularly convenient examples add another dimension to that.

My banking app does that when doing a transfer, i.e new field appear depending on a receiver. It catches me off-guard every single time. Infuriating.

hah! 2 seconds later this is in my feed

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33765399

If it makes money, it was intentional

It might not be done with malice aforethought, so much as wilful ignorance; blind pursuit of metrics combined with a lack of any incentive to challenge the assumption that all clicks are intentional.

Just hit the / and go straight to the search bar (on a pc)

They only pay per click, so it may not be wasted money if these "wasted ads" have a low enough click through rate.

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