Ask HN: What will it take to destroy the ads market?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30671023

by rockbruno • 4 years ago

61 79 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

The more I live the more it seems like we're living in a soulless dystopia:

- My local state TV channels feature 20 minutes of commercials for about 5 minutes of actual content - YouTube shows more and more ads as time goes by - Can't go in the street without being bombarded by ads wherever you look - Whenever you Google something, the top results are SEO spam websites with jumping ads and auto-playing videos that quite literally feel like some form of digital cancer - Services are starting to display ads even if you're a paying costumer -- e.g Samsung TVs

At which point enough is enough? They've stripped humanity out of these daily tasks so much that I can't imagine this is sustainable. What will be the last straw in this market?

version_five• 4 years ago

What will be the last straw in this market?

We'll be matrix-style inside an AR pod, unable to move or do anything but watch unskippable ads.

The only thing the matrix got wrong was the plot device of humans as a power source. It's far more realistic for us to be an advertising sink, to maximize how the results of increasing productivity can accrew to as few people at the top as possible.

It ends when the uber eats and amazon drivers, the only people who will be still allowed outside, stage a rebellion.

adrianomartins• 4 years ago

I've thought about this quite a while, and after I'm done with the rage against all advertising I'm left with "wait, if there's no advertising, how are new companies going to let the world know they exist?".

I really hate the world as is, polluted with meaningless, over-optimized advertisement, but at the same time I also think that "no advertisement" is definitely not the answer.

As with most things, I think we have to find a good balance. Maybe a good way to start would be for governments to set (harsher) limits to advertisement. Allowing less seconds of ads per each hour of content, forbidding print ads in certain areas, etc etc.

skanderbm• 4 years ago

"wait, if there's no advertising, how are new companies going to let the world know they exist?"

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24480572

"ABSTRACT. The vast amount of product information available to consumers through online search renders most advertising obsolete as a tool for conveying product information. Advertising remains useful to firms only as a tool for persuading consumers to purchase advertised products. In the mid-twentieth century, courts applying the antitrust laws held that such persuasive advertising is anticompetitive and harmful to consumers, but the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was unable to pursue an antitrust campaign against persuasive advertising for fear of depriving consumers of advertising's information value. Now that the information function of most advertising is obsolete, the FTC should renew its campaign against persuasive advertising by treating all advertising beyond the minimum required to ensure that product information is available to online searchers as monopolization in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act."

technobabbler4• 4 years ago

When people start paying enough for subscriptions.

Yoi don't get ads if you pay for YouTube, or if you pay enough for most streaming services. Most papers and such offer an ad free subscription tier too. Cancel TV and use YouTube TV if you must.

For Google, there are ad free competitors, or just use ad block.

They'll be around as long as the financial incentives are there. Micropayments failed so many content providers are moving back to pay walls again, whether it's Patreon or adult videos or Steam or whatever. Gotta put food on the table somehow. If you don't want to see ads, just pay for the producers' time some other way.

homarp• 4 years ago

Disney is introducing cheaper Disney+ with ads, so I guess some people can only afford to pay less.

(or you can see it as a way for DIS to raise their current subscription prices like netflix did)

blable2• 4 years ago

YT Premium I can confirm it has changed my outlook. Makes it super enjoyable now and has for years.

ailef• 4 years ago

Why not just use an ad blocker?

ryanmccullagh• 4 years ago

Wrong. You get ads if you pay for YouTube tv.

thiscatis• 4 years ago

I paid for Bloomberg news thinking it would remove the ads, it didn't.

technobabbler4• 4 years ago

Write them to unsubscribe and tell them why, then

whiplash4514• 4 years ago

Same for The Economist (both paper and digital). Sad.

lostgame2• 4 years ago

Can't downvote this enough.

I recently cancelled my Toronto Star digital newspaper subscription - some $17/mo or some bullshit like that - because I was horrified to find after paying that frankly ridiculous subscription fee, I was still being fed ads within their iPhone app.

This obviously isn't the only - even recent - case of this.

In no way does a subscription payment mean you will not have advertisements or tracking.

It's infuriating to see time and time again how companies care just so little about the customer and so much about taking advantage of the very people who are paying them. :(

technobabbler4• 4 years ago

Unsubscribe and tell them why they. So much news online. Choose the ones that don't give you shit...

nisegami• 4 years ago

There's this perverse situation at play here where the ones who are most likely to pay for an ad-free subscription are the ones who are most valuable for advertisers (the connection being that they have discretionary income).

s1artibartfast2• 4 years ago

Why is that perverse?

durnygbur3• 4 years ago

No. Copyright predators and media moguls are never satisfied with the income. Ads always creep in.

technobabbler4• 4 years ago

shrug Then don't watch those. Nobody owes you content. If you can't agree on a price point satisfactory to you and the content producer and host, then... move on with your life and go for a walk?

vagabond123• 4 years ago

Micropayments are the future. The problem with today's micropayment is the fragmented payment systems.

We'll move from ads to micropayments for content, when you can pay with your bank account, fractions of a penny in real time for seconds and minutes of content.

There will be big technology providers that supply the technology for the studios and content creators and will include many in one package. You will be paying seamlessly with your gpay on your browser or gaming console or whatever.

arrakis2021• 4 years ago

Communism. /s

mandmandam2• 4 years ago

Countering the cynicism itt so far, there are indeed places in the world where outdoor advertising has been banned - https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/can-cities-ki...

People love it. It works. No one wants to go back except for a few 'rare ones'. Somehow, people still manage to spend their money and start businesses - amazing.

I see no reason why the same couldn't be done online, were the political will to suddenly start reflecting the will of the people somehow.

There are many possible implementations, and many rather easy to implement solutions. The virtuous cycles could be incredible.

yesenadam2• 4 years ago

Thank you, very inspiring. I can't think why I shouldn't start/join a campaign to ban outdoor advertising in my city.

mandmandam2• 4 years ago

Awesome, I wish you the best of luck with it. I may put actions to my words on this one myself - it would make such a difference here.

endisneigh• 4 years ago

It won't go away. Most people simply just don't pay for digital content. Most people post Archive.is links to news articles proudly, as if the content itself can be created for free. People complain about clickbait, but that's really besides the point. Same thing about YouTube. People even go out of their way to use technologies like Sponsorblocks which will fast forward the video through any mention of an advertisement.

samarthr1• 4 years ago

There is a fine line between tasteful ads and obnoxious ads. Once the line between the two gets drilled, consumers start looking for ways to block ads

libertine• 4 years ago

I'll play devil's advocate here:

While I understand you completely, I think a lot of these issues would be reduced if regulators played an active role on controlling what is being advertised/how it's being advertised and where... because at the moment it seems to be delegated to the platforms to police their own ad network.

With that said, you also need to realize that with the advent of digital advertising many small businesses found ways to reach old and new customers at a small cost (now increasingly expensive, and therefore more prohibitive).

Because you have to remember that prior to this, advertising was a luxury, and many of our childhood brands were so successful because companies like Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Coca Cola, Mars, Mattel, Hasbro, etc had the control of the share of voice with their brands, and they controlled big chunks of share of shelves, with access budgets of millions.

Imagine returning to a days where only an handful of brands were controlling the majority of media inventories and distribution/sales channels... I don't think that's a good thing.

I don't have a solution for this to be honest, yet I think that reaching audiences shouldn't be limited to behemoths that have access to hundreds of millions in advertising budgets.

vsskanth• 4 years ago

Ads ultimately subsidize content or products for your attention or information to market to you. There will always be a population willing to make that trade.

The best we can hope for is that they’re labeled and you can pay to remove them. If you get rid of labeled ad markets you end up with a bunch of sponsored content without your knowledge that will destroy your trust in any information you find online or otherwise.

I think we might have to observe Netflix and HBOMax to see if the economics of a paid subscription for content can be scaled to completely eliminate ads in the long run. So far it has not happened for written content outside of a few pockets.

Personally, ads help discovery to some extent and provide some baseline education to find some product if you ever need to, especially when you have a lot of choices. I came from a different country to the US, I don’t have TV here and only watch Netflix, prime and HBO.

I really struggle when I have to buy something to do stuff which is new to me (how do I clean LVP floors without ruining it ?, how do I maintain a lawn? (learnt about lawn care companies) Who do I call to fix a rotten board in my kitchen (learnt about handyman).

It’s really tiring to have to Google and Reddit every single thing and learn this from scratch on top of filtering out conflicting information and not knowing what is an ad.

dusted• 4 years ago

I have a dream of commercials being strongly regulated and packaged the same way cigarettes is in some countries.

An unappealing grey background, a representative, unedited, in-situ photograph of the product along with a text describing the name and specifications of the product, maybe along with some state-appointed announcer who neutrally reads the text.

nonrandomstring• 4 years ago

Like it! Or maybe the view as through Hoffman glasses in "They Live", where every ad is reduced to a singular essential word, its naked psychological truth.

   Obey.   Covet.   Fear.

moltke• 4 years ago

A zero tolerance policy for ads, PR, and non-free software. It doesn't have to be law, you can do it for your own life. You will suffer some but it's worth it.

qorrect2• 4 years ago

I like this approach, but I think OP was trying to form a movement.

A movement of programmers hell bent on ridding the digital world of advertising.

mopsi• 4 years ago

I think easier payment methods could be a big part of the solution. Something like Apple's single-touch-to-pay should be available on all platforms and without the need to sign up, create username, choose password, confirm link in email, etc.

Currently the signup and payment flows are so long that they greatly reduce impulse buying. I really wouldn't mind paying 50 cents for an interesting article if there just was a simple button to click, but I'm not going through that annoying flow for an article.

qorrect2• 4 years ago

Nice try Mr. Advertisements.

bigbillheck• 4 years ago

It'll never stop getting worse until there are enforced laws against it.

Clubber• 4 years ago

They have to stop being effective, or regulated or both.

kordlessagain• 4 years ago

To destroy the ads market on the Web:

1. Don't click on ads.

2. Run an ad blocker or, even better, turn off JavaScript[1] when a page displays excessive ads.

3. Build a new type of Open Source-based search engine which utilizes an alternate revenue model.

4. If you can't do #3, like I am, then pay for one which utilizes an alternate revenue model.

5. Encourage the sites you use to explore using Lightning for payments. Lightning can be connected to requests to the site's content using Aperture[2].

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disable-javascript... [2] https://github.com/lightninglabs/aperture

markus_zhang• 4 years ago

I'll fall back to the old way of learning stuffs: reading books and purchase udemy courses or university classes. Neither contains ads.

For entertainment I haven't watched TV for ages and cannot stomach the modern movie industry anymore, so I'll play some old school games, or better, creation as entertainment.

captaincaveman3• 4 years ago

TV is solved, pay the subscription (in majority of cases). Don't use Google for search, run an adblocker, and bail on sites that force it.

It sounds like you have the problem letting go of the ad subsidized media, apparently many people are fine with it.

If you can't afford to pay for the ad free content, fair enough, but maybe be grateful you at least have a means of getting it without paying.

Tabular-Iceberg• 4 years ago

The greater the market share of subscription streaming gets, the greater the temptation to add ads to them will become.

It’s already happening, a while back I got a subscription to the Discovery streaming platform and occasionally it would interrupt the show with an ad. I refuse to pay for that, so I unsubscribed. But sooner or later I will have no choice anymore.

moonshinefe• 4 years ago

You're completely right. People thought paying money would stop ads from permeating cable TV originally [1], and look what happened there.

History is repeating itself and yet you still have people in this very thread carting out the tired old bromide: "the market will take care of it, vote with your wallet". Well, it clearly won't in this case.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-inv...

captaincaveman3• 4 years ago

I certainly can see that behavior from the media companies with a linear TV background, and potentially Amazon with their growing Ad business. As long as Netflix stays clear that should keep competition in check, once they start doing ads, I think that would signal the good times are over (squeezing the consumer).

toast0• 4 years ago

TV is solved, pay the subscription (in majority of cases).

This doesn't really work. Paid Cable/Satellite TV has ads all over the place. Even the extra premium channels will put cross promotion between the shows to fill the time slots. Paid streaming has cross promotion on almost all services, and some services have actual ads even when you paid (sometimes there's a higher tier you can pay for which has fewer ads). Of course, paying for content on disc, when available, doesn't prevent ads either.

blurlogic• 4 years ago

nowadays even first page of google search result is full of ads

clearly people behind those ads know better seo optimization, gaming google search

kindly ask google to change to new search algorithm and we'll get rid of ads ... until those ads people master new seo otimization tactics

rinse repeat

squarefoot• 4 years ago

That is the result of a saturated market with too many products and services on one side and too few pockets that can buy them on the other one, moreover while the number of products/services is growing and common people is getting poorer, the time in which companies fight to conquer a slot to advertise their products is fixed, therefore it's shrinking in contrast. The result is more and more advertising. It will never be enough.

People should be taught when they're still kids how to become resistant to advertising and exercise more critical thinking; I knew so many people who completely ignored some products they saw every day used by others until the day they were shown on TV; that can't be good.

tentacleuno• 4 years ago

There was a 2-minute advertisement on TV a few weeks back about a ladder. I did some quick spelunking and, as I suspected, the ladder is not very good according to many many people who have tried it. In theory it was a good idea, but part of me worries when I start to see very long advertisements for a product for the following reasons: I'd be paying for their advertising if I bought the product; if they have to market it so aggressively, then it can't be that good; I don't want something that's shoved down my throat (e.g. Microsoft Edge) and finally the testimonials are almost always biased, so they must be hiding something.

blaser-waffle• 4 years ago

Ads are the price of free content, so spend that $$$ or pirate.

rockbruno• 4 years ago

Even paid content is starting to get ads now though

schnitzelstoat• 4 years ago

I recently read "Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet" by Tim Hwang.

He argues that the internet ad market could crash soon because it isn't really delivering value anymore, or rather it delivers far less value than advertisers currently believe (and pay for).

If true, it could be pretty devastating to the current internet given how many major players like Google, Meta etc. depend on ad revenue to provide free services like Facebook, YouTube, GMail etc.

awillen• 4 years ago

I think the problem with this idea (and to be clear I haven't read the book) is that advertisers are much better able to track the value advertising delivers than they were in decades past. Even post Apple privacy changes, I can still very clearly see exactly what I'm getting from my Facebook ads in terms of revenue and profit, which just isn't possible with things like TV, billboards, etc.

In fact, I'd argue that the internet ad market continues to boom because it has continually delivered highly measurable value for years.

It also seems very naive to me to say that large advertisers don't understand what they're doing. In many cases we're talking about large public companies whose expenses are scrutinized by major shareholders. If they were throwing money away on useless ads that didn't deliver value, there would be activists in there pushing for change.

whiplash4514• 4 years ago

Do you have data-based evidence supporting those claims?

My understanding of the field is quite the opposite. The only way to measure the true value of online advertising is to measure how much sales have been generated with ads enabled minus the sales that would have been generated without the ads.

To the best of my knowledge, this is unsolved, even by the giants who have plenty of talent and data to throw at the problem. And for a reason, this is a very hard causal problem to solve, with many (many) confounding variables.

telchior• 4 years ago

As long as companies can measure a return on ad spend (ROAS) of >1, their ads are delivering value and they'll keep spending. The book you're naming seems to be saying that they can't actually measure ROAS. But that just seems... out of touch? Clicks are tracked from the ad, to the storefront, to the buy button, to the final exchange of money; it's pretty measurable. A ton of internet-only brands get almost all of their sales just from advertising -- are the dollars in their bank accounts lying to them?

Of course, there's the fantasy that events like IDFA deprecation will make the ad market crash. Spoiler: IDFA deprecation has been more of a blip than a bomb. Advertisers rapidly found ways around it (whether those ways are in TOS compliance or not). Then there are the brands coming into the space just looking for impressions -- think of your old school giants like Coca Cola. They're already comfortable with fuzzy, somewhat unknowable returns.

Haven't read the book but I have close contact with multiple people in the industry. And as I said, their results are right there in dollar signs. (For the record: I'd love to believe the ad market actually is threatened, I'm not arguing for it and personally I block ads.)

dwt204• 4 years ago

Before the internet, I was in radio, non-commercial, listener supported radio, sponsored through the Pacifica Foundation, at KRAB Radio. It was a great time for radio, I just wish there was a way to implement a model like that to the web. I know, I am crazy to even think that this is something that can be done. LOL

anamax• 4 years ago

There are lots of sites that have "tip jars" or "buy me a coffee".

bell-cot• 4 years ago

What will it take to destroy the Ads market?

Sadly, it's looking like "WWIII, or Asteroid Dino-Doom v2.0".

durnygbur3• 4 years ago

The point is that economy and money flows don't care about what you perceive as useful and utilitarian. If there is an opportunity to capture the public space and hijack your eyeballs and attention, someone will try it with ads, product placement, or propaganda. Most population would happily accept rentier money from hosting a billboard or poster on their estate. Most people posting on IG aspires to be noticed by major brands, successful sport players are cancer on its own in this domain. Most websites have the tracking and ads embedded. Etc.

carapace• 4 years ago

I've got the answer (I think.) It's a pretty simple idea, really. I even have a proof-of-concept website up for it, but I'm not going to link it here because there's nothing to see. What I mean is that if you go to the site it will challenge your browser to provide a client certificate to authenticate, and since you don't have a cert it won't let you in and you'll get a blank page or an "UNAUTHORIZED" message from your browser or something.

So how do you get a cert? A friend (who is already a member) gives you a one-time access URL to a page that lets you download a new client cert. Install that in your browser and now you can access the site, and you can generate your own "new cert" URLs like the one your friend gave you to give to your friends for them to join.

So that's how the network grows: word-of-mouth direct personal connections. And all these connections are public: recorded in a public DB (Sqlite file) and published regularly (say, every four hours or so) so the membership graph is known to all.

How do you use it? Well, the other thing you can do with the site (besides minting new "join URLs") is to propagate information (not to be coy, URLs to some article or whatever, like the submissions here on HN) through the network. You go to the site (auth w/ client cert), enter the URL of the thing you want to propagate, and you get back what I call a "bump URL" that has a code that identifies the subject and the sender (you). You send this "bump URL" to your contacts (via email, Twitter, whatever) who can click on it to see a page that has the original subject URL and a new "bump" URL customized for that contact, for them to send to their contacts. There are two buttons: "Engage" and "Reject". "Engage" redirects you to the subject site after recording the "engage event" in the public DB; "Reject" likewise enters a "reject event" in the public DB. Both are optional, you don't have to click on either (it probably doesn't make sense to click on both.)

And that's pretty much it: you have a public graph of members, and a public sub-graph for each subject URL with public "engage"/"reject" events, and all the data are published in a public DB that anyone can download and analyze. (Have I mentioned that it's all done in public enough yet?)

- - - -

So how does it work? Why would you use it? And how does it kill the ads market?

Simple (and as yet theoretical): Let's say I'm a small business with some widgets to sell. I create a sales page and make a "bump" URL for it and send it to my contacts, who forward it to theirs, who forward it to theirs, and so on. When someone "engages" with that URL/page and actually buys a widget, I can check the public DB to find out the "chain" of word-of-mouth links that led to that sale and reward each of those folks somehow.

- - - -

I am not spelling it all out here, there are additional details, but the above is the crux of the idea. There are also some pretty obvious problems (e.g. how many "bump URLs" are going to be flying around? Billions!?) but I think most of the potential problems are solved by the direct interpersonal nature of the thing:

Spam? No, why would you forward spam to your friends? If a friend sends you spam you can talk to them and tell them to stop, or just stop clicking on their "bump" URls. As far as I can anticipate, most problems would be solved by the open feedback between members in light of the public DB.

Moderation? Everyone is a moderator, and then some: people who don't participate can still read the DB, so the moderation "team" is larger than the userbase!

Censorship? No, because no information (other than the URLs themselves) goes through the network, so there's nothing to censor. (Of course someone could use an offensive URL, but again, if you get a link to something that offends you (for whatever reason, in whatever way) you can "reject" it, or just not propagate it.)

Anyhow, I can go on but I want to know what y'all think? I've been sitting on the demo for months now because I just don't know if I really want to do this or not, but I really DO think it's "got something", that there's potential in this idea. What do you think?

dgs_sgd• 4 years ago

Destroy as in ads are no longer part of our daily experience, or just reduced to a reasonable level? I think we'll always have ads to some extent, and people disagree on what is "reasonable".

romanhn• 4 years ago

And people will also disagree on what an ad is.

HeyLaughingBoy• 4 years ago

Given that producers need to make money to provide their content, what do you propose replacing that revenue with?

cupofpython• 4 years ago

In short, they arent going anywhere

Internet culture is trending towards being fed content algorithmically rather than seeking content deliberately. I see no end to the ad market in this context, for as long as you are not the one deciding what you are looking at - there will be value in paying whoever does control it to show you an ad.

People need to start vehemently rejecting content forced upon us without request with the same intensity as someone shoving food in your mouth. The recent rise of the "for you page" indicates social trending in the opposite direction though, so ads arent going anywhere.

yesenadam2• 4 years ago

Yes, it's a big problem.

I have almost no ads in my life - they're not that hard to avoid. Most days I see/hear 0 of any kind. Getting rid of a TV years ago was one of the best things I ever did. Now I just watch the movies, series, documentaries I want to watch, ad-free.

YouTube shows more and more ads as time goes by

I never see any, with uBlock Origin. I never see ads on Google, not sure why.

Can't go in the street without being bombarded by ads wherever you look

You may need to move somewhere where this isn't true.

Billboards are fairly unavoidable in some city suburbs/city centres though, and I really hate super-obtrusive ones. Make take creative action yourself. I'm in Australia, where BUGA-UP famously used to creatively deface billboards, changing their message into something true/funny. I saw one defaced, well, improved, in their style just the other day, maybe they're still around. Very inspiring stuff. People have to say NO to billboards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Utilising_Graffitist...

anotherevan• 4 years ago

I suspect any solution will be pyrrhic.

foxes• 4 years ago

Stop working on ad tech, don't take unethical jobs.

t0bia_s• 4 years ago

Pi-hole in home network solved all problems with aggressive ads. Yes, it is not solution for ads market, but could work for you or your family. Since then I did not have any ads in smartphones, TV, PC's, etc.

As a bonus you could have slightly better privacy with proper blocklist.

bick_nyers• 4 years ago

It will probably never happen, but I wish all ad revenue was taxed at 50%.

logicalmonster• 4 years ago

I'm a (I think rare) technical user that actually likes ads, in theory. If I'm searching for hiking boots for instance, I like the idea of seeing a few ads while browsing to inform me of a few shoe brands or related products I have never heard of and might be interested in.

To me, the problem is the tastelessness of the advertising experience:

There's too many ads displayed too frequently.
Because there's too many ads, most ads have to be gimicky, flashing, attention seeking junk encourages people to install ad blockers. It's a race to the bottom.
This criticism is an aside, but most corporate advertising is nonsensical focus-group designed garbage. You have ads that try and show families with a Black male and a White female and maybe an Asian kid. Like, who the hell is this artificial nonsense even pandering to?
There's real frustration with the context of most advertising: watching a 30 second ad to see a 10 second sport highlight is not a pleasant tradeoff.
Because companies want to gather lots of data, their ad networks load up lots of trackers and bullshit JS that slows down websites and compromise privacy.
Despite being able to track people around the web, their machine learning is garbage. Everybody has probably experienced buying something random like coat hangers, buying them, and then seeing nothing but coat hanger ads for a long time.

For some reason it didn't work, but the idea of advertising working like the now defunct The Deck appeals to me: very strict rules on placement of ads and I think other good policies that made me want to support those sites and not block those ads.

mkbkn• 4 years ago

Something like AdNauseum?

ManlyBread• 4 years ago

A search service that will rank pages based on how ad-free these are. The ranking algorithm could use the uBlock Origin lists and the more hits there are the worse ranking the site gets. It would unearth a lot of small but valuable sites while filtering out pretty much all scam sites.

Ask HN: What will it take to destroy the ads market?

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