

Advertising is mind pollution - comice
http://johnleach.co.uk/words/archives/2010/03/07/497/advertising-and-ad-blocking

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stingraycharles
This argument is based on false assumptions.

 _Funding your content through advertising is hugely inefficient. Of the
people who visit your site, usually only a tiny proportion click on (or
notice) an advert, and only a tiny proportion of those then spends any money._

This assumes that just viewing an advertisement doesn't create value for an
advertiser. It does. Look at the average TV channel or print magazine for
evidence.

 _I’ve heard Google pass as little as one twelfth onto the publisher in some
cases_

While I'm not sure about Google, I do know that most display advertising
networks pay their publishers around 30% - 50% of the gross income.

 _But seriously, advertising is a broken method of paying for stuff. If we
could unobtrusively pay for content on the Internet, I’m sure enough people
would do so to more than cover costs of production._

While I agree that there is probably a decent community of people that would
probably pay for content online, I'm not convinced that this would be true for
most people. Sites that offer a subscription to get rid of the ads, usually
have _very_ few subscribers. People simply like free stuff, and don't like to
pay for content. Now this could indeed be due to the payment model, I'm not
sure; maybe something facebook-connect-like for paid content would work, but
I'm still not convinced that a large enough base of people would actually pay
the same money as they're generating in advertising value, to make this work.

Let's take a few very large sites, and imagine what would happen if they went
to a payment supported revenue model, instead of advertising supported. Let's
say, Google or CNN. What would happen if they started putting up a paywall?
Would people really start paying for those services, or would they simply move
to a competing site, which is ad-supported and for free? I'm willing to bet
most people would go for the last option.

People just don't mind ads as much as they mind paying for stuff.

(Disclaimer: I work in online ads.)

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jon_dahl
I resonate with this article. More often than not, I find ads annoying and
obnoxious, and give me a negative impression of the advertising company. Maybe
my awareness of a brand is increased, but I end up going out of my way to
avoid brands or products that pester me with annoying ads.

The problem is that advertising is broken. I shouldn't see ads for feminine
hygiene products, cars, McDonalds, or Verizon. I'm not the right market for
any of these things. It's a waste of my time and the advertiser's money, and I
do experience these things as "mind pollution". On the other hand, I'd be
happy to watch ads for Google, Apple, books, local restaurants, good movies,
and good beer.

Whoever figures out how to apply Permission Marketing to mainstream
advertising is going to make a lot of money, and will make the world a better
place.

~~~
jacoblyles
My feelings are very much the opposite. When I see a big ole' brand advert on
last.fm, I have good feelings towards that company. They are supporting a
great free product that I enjoy.

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ErrantX
Lets be clear: advertising has value for us as a consumer (imagine removing
all advertising for a moment; how sucky and inefficient would that be). How
exactly would you find stuff otherwise :)

It is _bad, unethical, gawdy or inefficient_ advertising that has huge
negative value. And boy do we see a lot - the net result being advertising
appears to be pretty shoddy in general.

This post didn't really suggest any effective solution.

What we need is:

\- alternative revenue models _that work_ instead of ads

\- efforts to prevent annoying or unethical or just plain shoddy adverts

~~~
orangecat
_advertising has value for us as a consumer_

Advertising is an attempt to make us modify our behavior, regardless of
whether it's in our best interests to do so. Marketing and truth are
orthogonal.

 _How exactly would you find stuff otherwise :)_

I'd look for professional and customer reviews which would likely convey more
useful information than ads with bikini girls next to the product.

~~~
petercooper
_I'd look for professional and customer reviews which would likely convey more
useful information than ads with bikini girls next to the product._

How would the customers who make those reviews have found the product or
business in question?

Say you open a Chinese restaurant or start a local news site. How do you get
people in the door (virtual or otherwise) without printing flyers, advertising
on the Web, or buying space in the local paper? It has to start _somewhere_
for your reviews to exist.

~~~
DougBTX
In a hypothetical world where side servings of advertising were to dissapear,
I suspect directory and review sites would expand significantly. In the small
towns where my grandmother is from, there are still little booklets availible,
full of adverts. No content, just a mini yellow pages where everyone
advertises.

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MikeCapone
How many optional paid subscription sites have been successful?

How many mandatory paid subscription sites have been successful?

I think those questions are important. I don't know the answer, but my guess
is "almost none".

~~~
ams6110
Mandatory paid subscriptions for content that is of value to the subscribers
does work. Case in point our local newspaper, which requires a subscription to
read content other than the classified ads. If you are not a subscriber, all
you get are the headlines and a "teaser" sentence. Because the local news
published here is not generally available on wire services or other sources,
there is not really an alternative to paying for this content if you want it
(other than buying a physical copy of the paper itself).

It's really a question of the value of your content. If enough people are
interested in it that you can make significant money with ads, you probably
could also get people to pay for it directly. I think micropayments per
individual piece of content would make the most sense here, i.e. I'm a lot
more likely to pay $0.10 to read some interesting sounding thing than I am to
commit to a much more costly paid subscription to your site.

~~~
ErrantX
That works for small papers like that - especially if there is no alternative.

What about national or international media/news outlets. Paywalls simply drive
people away because there _are_ alternatives - which are free (and ad
supported).

 _If enough people are interested in it that you can make significant money
with ads, you probably could also get people to pay for it directly_

The numbers dont work out though. Look at any big website's stats and they
will almost certainly make more out of advertising than subscribers.

 _I'm a lot more likely to pay $0.10 to read some interesting sounding thing
than I am to commit to a much more costly paid subscription to your site._

This gets said a lot.

Firstly I dont believe it is actually true; it's easy enough to say but would
you _really_ do it. Often it is just rationalisation of current behaviour.

Think again to all the content you read today on blogs/media outlets that run
advertising. How many would you "buy" into at $.10? How much is that adding up
to?

Speaking personally I could be paying about $2-5 a day for content.... that's
quite a lot.

~~~
bricestacey
I think you're right about micropayments. I think most everyone's thoughts are
in hindsight, using existing reading patterns to determine value. However, as
soon as you actually have to pay to read an article - reading habits change.

It's like free food. A lot of people will eat anything when it's free, but
that doesn't mean they will actually buy it.

~~~
MikeCapone
The book Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely has a chapter about "the power
of free", and how even the difference betwee 1 cent and free is actually huge
(based on the experiments they did).

------
yason
Advertising is mind pollution — if you have a mind. If everyone was like us
there would be no advertising.

Personally, maybe once a year I give at least some thought to an advertisement
I've seen, and I remember a couple of occasions where I've actually bought
something. But mostly I find advertisements boring and generally just avoid
them because usually I already know what I'm looking for, if I'm looking for
something.

~~~
petercooper
_because usually I already know what I'm looking for, if I'm looking for
something._

How? Let's say you want to buy a computer and you go direct to, say, Dell. How
would you have heard of Dell if not for advertising? Seen a Dell at someone
else's house? How did _they_ hear about Dell? It has to start somewhere.

~~~
pg
Facebook grew without advertising.

~~~
petercooper
Facebook is an inherently social business that users only find useful if they
promote it - so they do. An edge case.

Bringing Facebook-like user promotion to a company selling everyday products
would probably require users becoming affiliates and getting kickbacks. That
can work (e.g. Avon) but having my friends potentially being shills seems more
sinister than regular advertising.

Thinking about this, though, did bring another option to mind that many
startups use: press mentions. Branson and his Virgin companies are masters at
this. So are Apple, but they're still massive on the advertising.

------
njharman
Advertising is very clearly propaganda and much of it is state of the art
psychology to influence people's purchasing decisions. In other words "mind-
control".

I have no idea why society puts up with it. (I guess it slowly grew on us and
have accepted it in seemingly innocuous steps).

I bet most people (well the non-wingnuts at least) would say they are against
government propaganda. And the government is supposedly for the people. But
they're OK with corporate propaganda. Corporations by design and law exist to
extract as much value in the form of money or labor as is possible from
people.

~~~
houseabsolute
> In other words "mind-control".

I could say the same of your comment. Maybe you should not have been allowed
to post it.

> I have no idea why society puts up with it.

Think harder. The desire to allow owners of corporations some freedom in which
to grow them? The desire to avoid unnecessary regulations? The lack of hard
evidence that advertising actually causes significant harm? The individual's
thought that someday they might benefit from being able to advertise their own
goods or services? All of these are possible reasons why society puts up with
it. I am truly surprised that you could manage to have "no idea" why.
Actually, I suspect that you are lying and you do have an idea, you just claim
to have no idea to emphasize your point.

> I bet most people (well the non-wingnuts at least) would say they are
> against government propaganda. And the government is supposedly for the
> people.

The point is that the government should not actually need propaganda if it is
acting in the peoples' best interests. Through history most cases of
government propaganda have been when the government is subverting its people's
interests and lying to them about it.

> But they're OK with corporate propaganda.

Corporations typically can't force you to do anything at gunpoint. This is the
main reason why they're allowed much more leeway than the government when
carrying out their wishes. To be more explicit, it is precisely because the
people wish to _keep_ the government on their own side that they try to limit
its means to oppose their own best interest.

> Corporations by design and law exist to extract as much value in the form of
> money or labor as is possible from people.

I see this spouted a lot, but I also see that many, maybe most corporations do
not do what you say. Actually, I can think of many laws that in manifold ways
restrict corporations from doing what you claim the law and their "design"
forces them to do. For example, there are labor laws, trade laws,
environmental regulations, and securities laws, many of which prevent
corporations from maximizing profit or labor extracted. Actually, with this
realization, I think I can safely treat this claim as a bookend without any
meaning save its rhetorical, knee-jerk inducing quality.

~~~
philwelch
"The point is that the government should not actually need propaganda if it is
acting in the peoples' best interests. Through history most cases of
government propaganda have been when the government is subverting its people's
interests and lying to them about it."

That's a very modern view. There was absolutely no shortage of propaganda in
the US supporting World War II, especially to encourage the myriad things
Americans could do to support the war effort (buy war bonds, enlist, pay taxes
on time, in the case of women work outside the home so more men could enlist,
avoid overconsumption and wasteful behavior). And no one reasonably considered
helping America's military effectiveness in WWII to be against the people's
interests.

Official Government Propaganda is missing from democratic societies not
because democratic societies are that much more respectful of the people's
interests, but because democratic societies aren't as often unified behind the
same agenda. When there is something all parties substantively agree upon in a
democratic society, like winning a war or curbing drug use, the government
relentlessly propagandizes it. When it's something that parties disagree on,
each party has its own propaganda.

I actually suspect there's more political propaganda in a democracy, just
because the propagandists have to argue with each other.

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tfincannon
iPad might enable a paid content model that works. It has a frictionless
payment system that handles small transactions. iPhone OS offers more robust
interaction capabilities than web technology.

Most importantly, the public is accustomed to paying for apps. Paid content
doesn't work on the web because people expect it to be free. Consumers view
apps as objects, more like books or magazines, which they expect to pay for.

~~~
tuacker
Easy payment is something we need to improve on. Online payment needs to
become more accesible. We've got Google Checkout, PayPal, credit cards,... but
they're all just proxies to where my money is (bank account). They all need to
be set up and not every site accepts them, requiring you to join another
system. Plus on different parts of the world some of them might not even be
available to you at all. I wish banks worldwide would work together to create
a fast and reliable online wire transfer protocol. (fast, solid API to verify
payments,...)

------
sabat
Makes perfect sense from a over-logical, geeky point of view. (Disclaimer: I
am a geek.)

What I've learned over my years is that our view of the world isn't
necessarily most people's -- if it was, then this guy would be totally right.

But he's not.

Online advertising isn't optimal, but given the number of "normal" people who
make Google tons of advertising cash every quarter, this "mind pollution"
argument doesn't stand up.

 _usually only a tiny proportion click on (or notice) an advert_

That's right. A tiny proportion -- generally something like 1-5%. As a geek
you'd think: highly inefficient; find another means. But marketing people
think differently. They think, for instance, that if you're cold-calling 100
people and make just one sale then you're doing well. 1 out of 100.

So that's why online ads work -- you go in expecting a 1% click-through rate,
and if you do better, cool.

~~~
jbm
Making money has nothing to do with whether or not it is mind pollution. They
are two separate arguments.

It is undeniable that advertising makes money for everyone involved; the
question is whether or not it is damaging to the mental state of the average
person. (my two yen based on my experiences says "Yes"; take it for what it is
worth).

If it is damaging I don't personally consider it immoral to remove the
advertising.

Whether or not it is profitable is meaningless to the question of whether or
not it is right.

