

Why Do Programmers Hate Internet Advertising So Much? - mediaguy
http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2012/08/30/why-do-programmers-hate-internet-advertising-so-much/

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dredmorbius
Why do we hate thee? Let me count the ways:

1\. It's intrusive. Many/most of us probably have some level of ADD/OCD. Or
just plain environmental sensitivity.

2\. It's distracting.

3\. It promotes a host of anti-usability features: content muting, multi-page
click-through articles, overly formatted pages (one thing that struck me about
the recent TBL WWW launch documents was how _readable_ they were), overlays,
pop-ups, persistent floating top/right/left/bottom elements, audio, video,
_multiple_ audio/video.

4\. It's creepy, and you're creeping me out. Tracking through various
deceptive means, even though I've made very clear that I don't wish to be
tracked. Incidentally, subscription content suffers a similar issue: I don't
want an audit trail of all things I've read, even on one site, let alone
_across_ sites.

5\. The ads themselves frequently position themselves to price-discriminate --
though how and when I can never be certain (which undermines the efficacy of
_all_ ads).

6\. The mechanisms of advertising networks pose security issues: cross-site
JS, iframes, Flash, and Java. Even just the proliferation of different JS
sources creates a serious management and cognitive overload for the security-
and privacy-conscious reader. A single article from a news site may contain
over 20 JS sources.

7\. The goods and services which are most highly advertised are those which
I'm least inclined to buy. Especially for (so-called) food and entertainment,
but also general consumer products, electronics, and various services. To the
point that when I see advertising my first conscious reaction is "why do they
have to try so hard to convince me that _that_ is something worth buying?"

8\. _It's not relevant._ There are a very limited number of times when I'm in
a purchase mode. The _real_ value of the Internet would be to (correctly)
identify those times, and then _find me the best deals on what I want, in the
way that I want to obtain it._ Which, frankly, dear, isn't online most of the
damned time.

On that last point, I've been shopping in recent times for a number of
moderately high-ticket items. Including spending a lot of time researching
options on-line. My biggest take-away is that _online purchase reasearching
sucks massively_. Contrast to the experience at a store with a well-trained,
skilled retail staff. "Is this what you like?" "No, I'm looking for something
that's more XXX". And as much as I disdain retail much of the time, the people
who are _good_ at it _figure out what you want, what you can afford, and what
they have that suits you, quickly, without wasting your time_ (and if you're
lucky, making the exercise enjoyable).

I addressed that in a G+ posting a few months ago, "Search quality vs. search
personalization". The upshot: there's a lot more information _in the moment_
that's relevant to purchase logic than in a person's profile or market
demographics. Advertisers/shoppers could avoid massive amounts of creep factor
by focusing on this, probably with vastly superior conversion factors.

[https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/P1HKwFJb...](https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/P1HKwFJb78v)

The final thought: advertising is well and good, but where the rubber hits the
road is in _making the sale_. Which is where Amazon (and other sales-oriented
sites: eBay, Craigslist, Apple's iTunes) wins all over _any_ advertising-based
site. Which I've also addressed:

[https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/FJCiGEMw...](https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/FJCiGEMwqbG)

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pg
I don't know about other people, but the reason I dislike advertising is that
it inserts itself into my brain, and I need my brain for other things.

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bediger4000
I think that _most_ people, not just programmers, hate advertising. As adults,
we're all officially expected to ignore advertising, and make Rational
Economic Decisions, at least in the USA. Make those rational decisions for a
while ("Life" cereal from Quaker vs "Living Well" from Kroger at half the
price) and you come to see that advertising is mostly lies. If not
incontrovertible lies, at least as close to unreality as the advertisers can
get. People distrust habitual liars, and dislike the balloon juice that is
advertising because it's lying.

