
The Internet Made Me Sad Today - llambda
http://raganwald.posterous.com/the-internet-made-me-sad-today
======
shashashasha
Those ads on the rest of the page, and the sad part about all of this, remind
me of what Steve Jobs said about network TV:

"When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy.
The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older,
you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people
exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is
optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the
networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the
truth."

<http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=36783>

------
gavanwoolery
This reminds me of an episode of South Park:

[<http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/154597/find-the-heart>]

The kids try to find the "heart of Wallmart" so they can destroy it (being the
evil mom-and-pop store demolisher that it is). When they finally locate the
mythical Heart of Wallmart, it turns out it just a mirror. In other words, the
problem is not Wallmart (or Google, or whatever), it is us.

On another note, games (in general) are not so bad (although the ones they
were advertising probably were). Even the games many people might view as
mindless (such as your average FPS) are actually deeply embedded with
strategy. I actually _learned_ a lot from games - not just strategy or spacial
intelligence or hand eye coordination, but many of the same things I would
have learned if I picked up a science fiction or fantasy book. Children today
are glued to screens, and I think the only cure may be to embrace this and
find a better way to use games as educational tools.

~~~
yew
The problem is actually a mutually reinforcing feedback cycle between culture
and corporation that gives rise to addictive superstimuli. But I suppose "the
problem is us" is an equally useful observation.

~~~
rbarooah
'the problem is us' is a useful observation in that clearly humans are
vulnerable to addictive stimuli that were not abundant as we evolved.

That vulnerability isn't likely to change soon.

We can however recognize that activities designed to exploit it are harmful.

------
bhousel
Get ready to be even more sad, as everyone on Hacker News completely misses
the point of your rant.

------
radarsat1
> _Scanning down underneath the diagram, I saw “Play Games on Google+” along
> with a lot of small text. I kept scanning, thinking that the column of text
> had something to do with playing games._

Funny, I had the _exact opposite_ reaction. I am so used to skipping over ads
with my eyes that I literally didn't even notice there was an ad there; I read
the article about dinosaurs, and when I read the above sentence, I had to go
back up to the screenshot and verify that there was indeed a Google+ ad there,
that I'd totally failed to see.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I'm like you in that I skipped over it. However, physorg needs to take some of
the heat here because they pick the background, fonts, and colors for the ad
insert (not the bolding). So they consciously choose to make their ads look
like copy and that is unethical.

------
staringispolite
I applaud this fantastically succinct point: "Some foods taste good but kill
you. Some drugs make you feel good but rot your brain. And some ads lead the
curious away from knowledge."

I do think, however, that it's incredibly difficult to construct an entirely
machine-learning- and auction-based ad network without these sorts of problems
popping up. Especially with presumably low dinosaur-related ad inventory to
choose from. (Perhaps dinosaurs -> kids -> games isn't a far leap in terms of
correlation?)

Based on physorg's deceptive ad placement, text styling, and terrible anti-
aging ad selection for the bottom, I would argue that our collective sadness
is better directed at them than at Google.

~~~
rbarooah
Perhaps the 'machine-learning-and-auction-based-ad network' just isn't a good
thing. Is this really the end-state for human civilization?

~~~
staringispolite
I think it's a good thing in that it's led to the most commercially successful
search and ads company in history (which - in large part - does deliver very
relevant content, and relatively lower sadness than many competitors). But
it's clear there is much room to improve.

That point you're addressing was meant to illustrate one way in which it is
difficult to find an ad match that doesn't induce sadness. (As opposed to
defend the current approach as the "end-state")

~~~
rbarooah
How about not showing ads in those cases?

~~~
staringispolite
I'm no expert, but two things come to mind:

1a) That is sub-optimal for ad publishers. I think in building such a system
you have to assume they want to make the most money. And while ANY ad may not
make much money, it's certainly not capped at the $0 they can expect from NO
ad.

1b) Also: imagine if you implement AdCompanyX's html, and you see nothing. Is
it broken? Out of ad inventory? Not yet parsed your page? It's not an
impossible problem, but it adds UX complexity.

2) As I said in the original post, It's possible it's actually too far of a
leap to go from dinosaurs (to kids?) to games. If this is the case, imagine
some sort of fitness function scoring how close the best inventory match is to
the content of the page. There's a cutoff under which you show no ad. Dinosaur
could likely still be close enough to pass this test. Especially given the
relatively little text in this example.

~~~
Drbble
FYI your cutoff idea is what Google actually does. Ad quality is a problem
Google works on. The main complaint people have is that Google doesn't do a
good enough job of overruling users "for their own good" when those users are
consistently actively telling Google what they want to see.

~~~
rbarooah
If that were true, why would there be a need for Adblock? Google would just
stop showing ads to people who don't like them, or would be showing us all
such great stuff that we'd be grateful for them.

------
rryan
This viewpoint as raganwald expressed it is too oversimplifying for my tastes.

It's pretty .. well, wrong.. to say that all Google engineers are working on
is putting ads on web pages. Similarly it's not true that a whole _generation_
of people are working on ads. Google is working on a tremendous number of
things -- as is the rest of this industry. It boggles the mind.

I do; however, agree with the generalization of his point (and it's not a
unique or new one) that what the technology industry has produced in the first
10 years of the 21st century is mostly a letdown compared to what got done in
the last 10 years of the 20th century.

The first dot-com bubble left us with the worldwide infrastructure that powers
the Internet today. What will this social-networking bubble leave us with when
it pops?

Hopefully strong AI and the best possible tools for dealing with petabytes of
data -- but this is likely just wishful thinking on my part.

~~~
moocow01
Yeah I think in many cases its all a matter of perspective. You can look at
any Google product, analyze it long enough and then understand how it will
lead to a stronger advertising business model for them. On the other hand you
can look at it and say that is potentially exciting technology for reasons
that have nothing to do with advertising.

Probably most of the engineers at Google don't think of themselves as working
in advertising and probably shouldn't but Id say almost indisputedly their
paycheck is mostly coming from advertising and people clicking on mindless
ads.

I think the main problem is how do you solve and build business around
interesting problems that don't have the ability to be monetized through click
advertising which most of the internet seems to be funded by.

------
patio11
You're looking at remnant inventory.

Inventory (advertiser speak for "a page view plus a slot available on that
page which we could sell an ad against") are a lot like cuts of meat. Some are
worth a lot of money. Some are not, and end up getting sold to be turned into
fertilizer or paste to infect cows with all matter of diseases.

Things that tend to make inventory worth more money:

1) Better matching algorithms. This is, fundamentally, why Google is rich
beyond the dreams of mortal men.

2) For contextual ads, being matched against content which suggests immediate
purchasing intent for something which has a high customer LTV, high
transaction value, and/or high margins.

3) Failing that, for brand ads, characteristics of the inventory suggest a
"desirable" person at the keyboard. Ideally, you're a rich white American,
male or female depending on which brand is trying to reach you, and this is
one of the very few ads you will see today.

4) Within this particular session, this is the first ad you've seen.

5) You're American, Canadian, British, northern European, _gap here_ German,
Japanese, _big gap_ other first world nation, _titanic gulf_ anyone else.

6) The page the ad appearing on is itself of high social esteem such that the
ad will have the halo effect.

Inventory which matches the above descriptions can be sold to advertisers
using dedicated sales representatives. Everything else is remnant inventory --
literally, that which remains after our ad sales guys had as many steak-and-
booze meetings with the marketing execs at Audi as they can possibly have.

Options for remnant inventory are: a) backfill ad channels like AdWords, which
makes some remnant inventory almost as valuable as brandable inventory (e.g.
if I write a blog post about credit cards and you happen to read it you're
very nearly as useful as someone reading a post on the NYT about credit
cards), b) house ads, and c) backfill from ad networks, such as Google house
ads. (House ads are, e.g., "We couldn't sell a commercial for our TV channel
so instead we'll show a commercial for another show on that channel or another
business affiliated with ourselves.")

So, why is your page view remnant inventory?

1) Because generic Internet news sites generate a metric truckload of page
views.

2) Because your user behavior was, sorry to say, probably not seeing that ad
as the first thing you saw today.

3) Because algorithmically you don't look like a rich white American.

4) Because there are very poor transactional options for monetizing someone if
all you know about them is "Possibly interested in dinosaurs," so direct
response marketers are unlikely to bid on that site.

5) Because physorg.com does not have a sophisticated ad sales operation which
routinely has steak dinners with ad buyers at Proctor & Gamble or any other
large brand advertisers.

OK, so you're remnant inventory. Why are you seeing Google+ game ads?

1) Because Google has virtually infinite funny-money to buy ads on Google
AdSense at low, low prices because they're crappy backfill remnant inventory
that costs them CPMs below $1.

2) Because Google thinks promoting Google+ is their overarching strategic
priority right now (they're wrong) and ...

3) ... because Google thinks that engagement on social networks is in large
degree driven by games (they're right)

Is remnant inventory necessarily a bad thing?

No, because remnant inventory will inevitably be generated by attempting to
monetize (with ads) any website which can't afford a direct steak-and-drinks
ad sales force who can charge stupid amounts of money to brand advertisers. If
you perceive any value at all out of physorg.com, you should be happy that
Google is underwriting it out of their massive pile of money that they get out
of controlling navigation and advertising on the Internet.

There exist non-advertising methods by which you could subsidize the creation
of content which you like. Many of them involve paying non-trivial amounts of
money, or _praying_ that your interests happen to align with the interests of
someone who is willing to subsidize your own consumption.

Remnant inventory also enables the creation of actual value, though you're not
seeing it when you see diet pill scams. For example, almost all of Bingo Card
Creator's substantial advertising budget is spent on remnant inventory at 3 to
8 cents a click, and while the websites that $15k+ a year goes to are not ones
you'd really love your mother to be spending time on, selling BCC to the
teachers who happen to be on them does at least help children learn to read
and underwrite my quirky online pursuits like writing excessively long
comments.

Remnant inventory is also virtually synonymous with Google, which a
multinational advertising company which occasionally produces industrial
biproducts of advertising which generate non-trivial amounts of value for
almost every human alive.

~~~
lkozma
This is very informative and you make many cogent observations. However, you
don't even remotely address the point of the article, which, as far as I
understand it, is that something is fundamentally wrong if a child wants to
learn about dinosaurs and he/she is lured away with addictive games. Even more
so if this is considered the pinnacle of our combined capabilities and at the
same time a hint of the future into which we are heading.

~~~
patio11
It's a comment, not a debate. I'm not trying to crush raganwald's constructive
and collect many finger snaps from the judges. I'm just trying to explain how
Internet advertising works for a community which a) viscerally despises
advertising, b) often dreams of working for an advertising company, and c)
even if they don't work directly for the ad company will have their careers
determined in large part by their ability to form an accurate mental model of
how advertising actually works. To the limited extent that I disagree with
raganwald about anything, I think that any mental model where "An ad for a BBC
documentary about dinosaurs" sounds like a more attractive placement for this
pageview than "generic remant inventory" economically is likely flawed. That
mental model has not come to grips with the fact that the conversion math
would suggest a click on that ad would be worth fractions of a hundredth of a
penny to the BBC and cost several orders of magnitude more.

~~~
lkozma
Patrick, your argument is flawless, but you've become a bit of a robot. There
must be some reason why they don't put Marlboro ads in a lung cancer clinic or
a Ballantine's ad in an alcohol rehab center. Surely they would be perfect
choices for the well-defined audience that frequents those places and they
would make perfect sense economically, more than whatever else they put on
those walls. Someone might even come along and say, hey, as long as it pays
for the heating, it's good for everyone, right?

Also, I think you misrepresent Raganwald's point. I don't think he claims that
_economically_ a BBC ad would be better than an online game ad, he must be
thinking along some other axis, along which it would rank higher.

~~~
tweak2live
OC does not misrepresent the point, he does not engage it, (those are
distinct). In not engaging it, he provided tremendous value for everyone ITT.

[ _Thanks, Patrick_ ]

However, if you want someone to bite - I will. Why bother engaging in
moralizing if you don't care enough about your values to pay for them? Better
yet, how much is your morality worth to you?

 _"I know that this engine is driven by the money, and the money is in luring
people into Google's social thingamajiggy instead of trying to sell someone a
book or a course or even a BBC/Discover/National Geographic edutainment
special on dinosaurs or natural history._

 _But you know, the whole point of having values is that sometimes you don't
do the most expedient thing or the most profitable thing or the easy thing.
That’s what makes them values, you value them more then pecuniarum."_

Well, if Raganwald wishes to educate children, why not create a service that
serves educational ads instead of selling add slots to the highest bidder?
Because it wouldn't be able to compete with Google outside of some tiny niche.
Clearly, society as a whole is not willing to pay for this moral value, namely
educating children.

It might be tempting to trivialize this by the way of "heartless businessmen"
argument, but _that_ would be misrepresenting the point. The point is - in a
society where the only over-arching value is money, morality becomes a
liability. One could argue that this is an inevitable state of human affairs
due to $characteristic_of_human_nature. However, to me this seems to be more
of an inevitable consequence of implementation of a universal means of
exchange. Not everything boils down to money - true. But most things do. And
most things will always be enough for some people. And the rest will
ultimately have to follow. That, or find a clever way to monetize their "moral
liabilities".

~~~
mattgreenrocks
> However, to me this seems to be more of an inevitable consequence of
> implementation of a universal means of exchange.

Disagree.

Anytime humans get ahold of a metric, they fuck it up and make it mean
something it never did intend to mean. But, hey, animals did it, so we don't
need to rise above that.

------
insickness
So _that's_ what a page looks like without Adblock. Interesting.

~~~
karolist
3 months ago I'd say you're mad for sawing the branch you sit on, taking bread
away from content providers whose content you consume. I have content sites
myself that rely on ads, I believed in this but my internet experience got
increasingly frustrating within last year for some reason - Flash popover or
whatever you call them which you can't close, disturbing images of old women
tearing their skin as in this article, google ads sneaked into content or
navigation in hopes of me mistakingly clicking them.

I've tried readability next, clicking "read now" in my chrome extension on
every interesting article..but I'm now with Adblock, at least 3 years later
than all my techie friends.

I'll silently consume my purified internet now, thanks.

------
jwwest
For many of us, our entire career eventually boils down to getting people to
click on ads. Sit down and think about your product:

\- Are you chasing the hockey stick, making a free product? You're getting
paid to create an ad base that will focus on ads.

\- Are you a content provider? A blog? You're getting paid for page hits to
generate ad revenue.

\- Perhaps you're a recommendation engine that makes money on Amazon
referrals. Ditto.

------
ChrisNorstrom
I'm actually looking forward to the day when micro-transactions become easy
and friction-less and we move onto paywalls. I'd love to support sites with
content by paying $0.02 per article.

I hate seeing ads, and I hate my websites relying on ads for revenue. My
parents have many times clicked on ads accidentally thinking it was the
content they want. The last thing I need to is to clear out their laptop from
endless toolbars and viruses so I've installed ad blocker on all of our
computers.

It's gotten out of control. Even legit websites have started taking on
questionable ad inventory. The kind that has a download button and tries to
trick you. The kind that looks like thumbnails for the software that you're
trying to read about. Or those annoying video ads that play automatically.

I'm actually looking forward to the day when I can say "Goodbye and good
riddance, advertising killed itself."

~~~
redwood
Seriously: like throwing some coins in the guitar box of the musician you hear
in the subway whose melody really sets your mood straight for the day!

------
laconian
The webmaster of physorg.com made you sad today.

I don't get mad at Toyota when an inattentive Prius driver nearly sideswipes
me in traffic.

------
jakepoz
I think that even worse are the fake download buttons served with free
software that lead users to adware:

<http://jakepoz.com/why_do_google_ads_point_to_adware.html>

------
unreal37
I get the authors point, and yes... it is indeed sad that "play games" are the
most profitable types of ads. And stupid weight loss ones, and look younger,
and hot women in my area.

It might be because those specific industries see the most value in online
ads, since they can tie a click to a sale end-to-end and can justify spending
$1 to make $1.01.

Large multi-nationals who dominate TV advertising (Beer companies, car
companies, restaurants, groceries, consumer products, things you have to go to
a store to buy) have a harder time spending that $1 since it's a lot harder to
track.

~~~
nobody_nowhere
It's likely not a profitable ad at all -- that's a google "house" ad for a
google product, which means they have nothing paid to show.

------
rickmb
Advertising makes me sad. I don't care about how good or bad algorithms are
and how well the ads match the context or my personal interests.

If any company tries to sell me something via advertisements, I walk away.
It's anti-communication that assumes I'm an idiot.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
The web is only usable with ad-blocking software.

Many ads are garbage for the soul. You know, the sort that imply that you
_should_ have this lifestyle, or _need_ to look a certain way. I respect users
too much to subject them to it. I'll probably never become rich, but, at least
I have my integrity.

------
zeepickler
Do you remember the days when they had "punch the monkey" ads? This is
progress in plain advertising. Also, it's the responsibility of the website
owner to be smart. He/she could have spent the effort in finding dinosaur book
publishers, but apparently they took the lazy route. As well, the web designer
didn't think the ad aspect through -- it's an "oops" on their part. It's not
greed, it's poor execution.

------
joshrice
I'm surprised no one has mentioned that AdWords can target users and offer
them ads based on what they think they might want. They're not always
contextual.

Do you like to play games Reg?

~~~
raganwald
This is a very interesting point, thank you. So here’s a thought experiment: I
look at this article about dinosaurs, and Google shows me an ad about mountain
bike holidays.

Great timing, Spring is looming and I am making plans for Summer (Google knows
this from watching my search history or annual credit card spend on travel.)
It’s late afternoon, when I historically am distractible (witness reading
about dinosaurs during my work day. And I ride quite a bit (easy to figure out
when you’re Google).

I might be quite likely to click an ad for Sacred Rides (Free plug for Mike’s
business!). But I would still feel sad that at the moment when I was reading
something educational, I was lured away to think about something else.

I don’t know if Google can come up with a way to make quadrillions of dollars
and to keep me from being sad. Maybe my feelings are simply a cost of doing
business, or maybe what I want is impossible. But I think my sadness is
independent of the attraction the ad holds for me personally. My issue is with
the relationship between the ad and the content.

~~~
bhousel
_I don’t know if Google can come up with a way to make quadrillions of dollars
and to keep me from being sad. Maybe my feelings are simply a cost of doing
business, or maybe what I want is impossible. But I think my sadness is
independent of the attraction the ad holds for me personally. My issue is with
the relationship between the ad and the content._

I don't think there can be another way. Advertising necessarily extracts value
out of your attention, while simultaneously devaluing your
browsing/watching/listening/driving/etc experience. Attention is a (mostly)
zero-zum game.

If Google could find a way to put subliminal advertising on the web (and those
glasses would sure be a pretty badass way to go about it), maybe it wouldn't
make you as sad?

~~~
286c8cb04bda
> _Advertising necessarily extracts value out of your attention, while
> simultaneously devaluing your browsing/watching/listening/driving/etc
> experience._

While it it usually, maybe even almost always, does, I don't think advertising
is required to be a distraction.

If I'm searching for information on a product, say, a pair of headphones for
my wife or a diet for myself, and I see ads for headphones or diet books, then
that advertising can be very beneficial.

The problem comes when, like in the article at hand, there's a product or
service, totally unrelated to what I'm searching for, that's being injected in
my attention stream.

Arguably, Google's incredible financial success is founded on making that
information _infinitesimally_ more likely to be useful to the reader compared
to, e.g., prime-time television.

------
surrealize
Maybe google knows that you are personally interested in social games? Or
perhaps they're just trying to reach people who are on the internet _right
now_.

Anyway, point is, the page isn't the only signal used for ad targeting; _you_
(and your search history) are another, as is the current time. As well as a
variety of other things, I'm sure (I have no direct knowledge of google's ad
targeting).

I visited the page myself, and got an ad for the galaxy nexus.

I do agree that the placement of the ad, which makes it look like part of the
content, is pretty crummy. As are the ads about e-cigarettes and penny stocks
and car insurance.

~~~
justincormack
I get a lot of nexus ads, but Google knows I bought one months back so it is
wasted inventory...

------
nobody_nowhere
Why blame google? The problems here are: 1) the publisher has chosen to embed
ad tags within editorial content; 2) the editorial content is so worthless
that google can only show a house ad.

~~~
rkudeshi
> _the editorial content is so worthless_

I think it's important to qualify this statement. Worthless to who? Google's
ad bots? Perhaps. There's no obvious ad category that relates to dinosaurs.

But just from the snippet the OP included in his screenshot, it is clear the
content is not mindless drivel and is actually worth reading (to some people).

~~~
Tichy
The publishers chose that he wants to show ads in combination with that
content. Apparently it is worthless to ads. What solution would you propose?

I can't think of many commercial products that would benefit from dinosaur
associations, except movies, toys and games...

------
gkanai
"We take a generation of incredibly smart people who have been rigorously
trained to deliver amazing code, running on a massive computing engine, and
when confronted with a human being trying to learn something, they try to
distract him with games."

The same can be said for Wall Street in the past 2 decades. Generations of top
graduates have gone not to medicine, not to law, not to real business, but to
Wall St. where they create leveraged financial products and led the economy to
the 2008-9 Financial Collapse.

------
geoffhill
When I see misplaced advertising like this, I just remember that it's not
Google's fault; they didn't consciously make the decision that dinosaurs are
childish/recreational fantasies that should be associated with gaming. It's
the fault of dinosaur's representation today across the entire internet.
Google's bots picked up that correlation mechanically, so while it's
unfortunate that they propagate stereotypes like this further, it's not the
root cause.

~~~
rbarooah
If Google perpetuates a lowest common denominator stereotype, it's their fault
whether they use automation to achieve it or not.

------
agscala
I'm very interested in the point made regarding interactive children's
education. High schools across the country seem to think that giving students
iPads to use as text books is a good idea. I think that if I was in high
school and I had an iPad, I'd be surfing the web the entire time I was in
class. I'm certain that's what the next generation will be doing if high
schools do indeed end up going that route.

~~~
heynk
And then some entrepreneur will realize this problem, and sell a solution that
prevents students from surfing the web while in class.

I never got all the fuss about digitizing education, because it seems like the
biggest downside is 'distractions.' Even if there is no way to prevent
distractions, are digital textbooks not worth the improvement in costs,
accessibility, and breadth (and type) of information?

~~~
agscala
It's hard to estimate the power of distraction for students. Having
interactive textbooks would be really awesome, but what does it matter if kids
are just playing Angry Birds instead? Also the cost benefits aren't really all
that great. Schools typically reuse textbooks and iPads are very expensive and
are more prone to damage.

------
sixQuarks
From my own experience, it seems that Google tests different contextual
content from time to time. They have an algorithm that is supposed to
automatically adjust and optimize the ads that get the most click throughs.
Perhaps gaming related content works well on that site for some weird reason.

The "sad" part, if anything, is that the publisher decided to place the ad
there. In my opinion, that is too misleading.

------
ChristianMarks
Someone finally noticed that the Internet replicates the internal chatter of
the mind. The web is designed to prey on human weakness, to encourage wilfing
through the Internet, and to discourage learning and meditation. If our
machines are to help us realize our potential, we must teach our machines to
meditate. We must quiet their computations.

~~~
rbarooah
The web ism't designed this way - advertising companies make it this way.

------
zmmmmm
Directing this as a criticism of Google (or other advertisers) is a little bit
misplaced; the site designer has a lot of control over where ads appear and
how they look. Nobody but physorg.com decided that a good place for an ad was
right in the middle of their content like that, and they chose the colors,
size and style to match as well.

------
Tichy
I'm saddened that you think games are a bad thing. While there are certainly
crappy games, I think I owe part of the survival of my childhood to computer
games, and I rank them as the highest possible form of art and expression. At
least they have the potential for it.

Also, making the ad look like the text is the doing of the site owner. There
are people who will recommend you do that to increase click rates, but I don't
think Google actively promotes that strategy.

The placement of the ad is also by the site owner. For my own site I chose to
keep ads to the side bar. Admittedly Google keeps telling me that I could put
more ads on my site, but I choose not to.

There is also perhaps an economics problem: perhaps most schools, being funded
by public money, have no money for ads. What entities in the education market
would spend big bucks on dinosaur ads? How can you make big money with
dinosaurs?

------
mattmaroon
"Someone other than Google is involved in deciding that stock market scams and
anti-aging scams and auction site scams are the best way to extract value from
my curiosity about dinosaurs."

Those clicks are essentially auctioned off so that someone is quite simply the
market. The market, when it comes to online advertising, is largely
benevolent. Tons of businesses are built on the fact that Google allows those
to buy traffic who can benefit from it the most. The overall wealth creation
of such a system is massive, far beyond the wealth created for Google.

Lots of people have jobs because a system exists that allows crappy game ads
to interrupt your dinosaur article. it sucks (and the physorg site is kinda
shitty for formatting it to look like a headline) but overall the system is a
great thing.

------
elliottcarlson
For me, this site shows an ad about wine - which makes sense since I work for
a company that deals in epicurean goods, with our primary product on our site
being wine. Based on my browsing habits, it is an appropriate ad to show to
me, from a user analysis point of view. Does it suck that it's not related to
the article - perhaps - but that's not what will make the most money. Just
because you are reading a single article pertaining to dinosaurs, doesn't mean
you have a history of being interested in dinosaurs.

The play games ad could be remnant inventory as others pointed out, it could
be based on your usage analysis (do you play a lot of games? or share a
computer with someone who does?), or lack there of if you have circumvented
ways that Google can snoop on/analyze you.

------
jojopotato
The text ad is the only one served on that page by Google, if you go and look
at the actual page the rest are served by AdBlade or Tribal Fusion. I feel
like it's pretty misleading to complain about those ads as if they all came
from the same company.

~~~
raganwald
The article is quite clear on the fact that the other ads need not be coming
from Google.

~~~
jojopotato
It wasn't the impression I got from reading it, the text leading into the
slideshow is:

>Between them, physorg.com and Google value money, and that’s it. > > There’s
more on the same page, of course:

Which I felt kind of set the tone that they were Google related.

FWIW, I think that the aging secret, penny stock and money ads are scammy as
hell and I think the internet would be better off without the bottom feeding
ads that take advantage of people's ignorance or insecurities.

The Google+ ad, while poorly targeted to the content of the page, might
actually be targeted towards you (I'm not sure that's possible though). In my
case I get text ads for elbow tendonitis, probably because I've done searches
for "wrist pain" and I've ended up on medical related websites recently. That
and the hints they pass to adsense are:

google_hints = "animals elbow muscles";

The combination of those came up with that ad.

------
Travisism
Google Adsense provides publishers the option to show ads relevant on a user's
browsing history (via tracking cookies) as well as contextual ads. Since
Google's goal is to make both the publisher and the advertiser more money,
Google will choose to show whatever it has found to be more profitable.

On top of that, if Google does not have ad fill, such as in the case of
articles about dinosaurs, it will sometimes advertise its own products (which
the publisher will still get paid for) instead of showing a blank spot (as
some advertising companies will do.

tl;dr Google shows ads based on a visitors browsing history if it thinks it
will make you more money that way.

------
jasonzemos
Just to note, I subconsciously skipped over the examples in the article as if
they were ads -- then wondered what he was talking about for a few seconds
afterward. Must be my years of kung foo internet training.

------
Dinoguy1000
Am I really the only one who started reading this thinking the author was
going to discuss the paper's claim that dinosaurs, in popular perception, have
a lizardlike/reptilian, splayed stance? I've been a dinosaur nerd for years,
and the only times I've heard anything about such a possibility is in
discussions of _old_ perceptions of dinosaur posture - in every modern
reference (intellectual discussion or pop culture appearance) I've seen,
dinosaurs are always portrayed with nothing other than a mammalian stance.

------
ig1
What's the alternative ?

Having content locked behind a pay-wall so even less people can access it ?

Running ads which are more relevant but don't generate enough revenue to make
the site viable in the long term ?

Not having the content at all ?

~~~
raganwald
How do you feel about the fact that certain farmers will starve if they can’t
grow coca or poppies as a cash crop?

~~~
AznHisoka
Hmm.. good point. You know this is a problem too in general. So many useless
jobs and useless industries, serving little value to society, yet they are
needed because they provide a living for so many people.

This is a result of too many humans on Earth. So many people are just not
needed on this Earth. So we have to come up with surrogate occupations

~~~
Lockyy
I think the problem may be less with too many humans and may be with the
preoccupation of "Everybody must have a job! 9-5, Monday to Friday. No
exceptions or you're a failure and the country is failing and it's all our
leaders fault."

I mean really, we're heading towards more and more automation. There just
aren't going to be as many jobs as there once where. Yes, we might get more
programming jobs and management jobs. But not enough to replace the hundreds
of jobs replaced by a few robots in a factory.

------
drunkpotato
This post reminded me of Steve Yegge's cat pictures
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8>). In a good way.

------
ericdykstra
So who is the author blaming? He's not blaming the end user (the one that
makes those ads worth the most to both google and content sites). \- Is he
blaming Google for maximizing ad revenue for the content site? \- Is he
blaming the content sites for wanting to maximize their own revenue on page
views? (or, perhaps, for being too lazy to sell ads themselves?) \- Is he
blaming the people who spend the money to get their scammy ads to show up on
these sites?

~~~
buddy_nuggs
Based on my reading of the article and raganwald's comment below, my
understanding is he's blaming talented employees or entrepreneurs who choose
to use their skills to create low-value (in societal terms, not monetary)
products and services. And it seems he's not so much blaming as bemoaning.

The post struck a chord with me because I am evaluating several employment
offers. The one that gives me the opportunity to work with the coolest
technologies and receive the highest compensation would leave me feeling the
ickiest at some level (it involves mobile ad analytics).

~~~
Drbble
Without mobile ad analytics, prices are inefficient and therefore ads are
biased to the most profitable buyers, not the highest quality.

Do you have any reason to suspect that quality is more profitable?

------
nootopian
I recently appointed a legal firm. Today I saw their ad embedded as copy
looking for cheap clicks via google content network. Screenshot here
<http://portablepixels.com/images/google.png>

Seems to me like Google are stooping to new lows. The ad makes me feel like
the legal firm I have appointed are selling diet pills and Im minded to
terminate my relationship with them. Cheap clicks can be costly.

------
lnanek
I've actually had ad companies complain about banners too close too buttons in
apps before. They can tell, statistically, when users are clicking something
by accident rather than interest. Raganwald's screenshot seems similar to me.
The web site designer chose to blend the ad into the text content and Google
may not even be happy about it due to the lower quality incoming traffic on
the ad.

------
justncase80
This is covered by the Tao of Leo: <http://justinmchase.com/2012/02/20/tao-of-
leo-3/>

"For each 2x improvement in performance we get from Moore’s law, half will be
spent on showing better advertisements, and the other half will be spent on
emulating legacy platforms."

------
shoeless
Using Readable (<http://readable.tastefulwords.com/>) it looks great:
<http://www.blueatlas.com/images/readable.png>

Good job Readable

Full Disclosure: I have no affiliation with Readable.

------
da5e
The worse thing is that Google lets ads like the "look younger" one buy time.
They offer a sample to try for free, but if you don't return it they sign you
up for a year's subscription for a $100 a month and you also get charged for
the "free" sample. Simple ripoff.

------
slowpoison
The look and feel of the ad is publisher's responsibility. Can't blame Google
for that. Rest, Google gets the blame. Before I get down to that, however, I
would be suspicious of the veracity of a publisher who tries to blend the ad
and the content so closely.

------
signalsignal
I get ads on nanotechnology and Siemens. Maybe the Google Ad machine works
different for each person. Oddly too, a search for Rick Santorum leads to
Republican primary results fist and then ricksantorum.com second, but, then
again, this is my work computer ;)

------
toyg
Another day of "5-minute Google Hate Sessions"? Google leaves webmasters the
freedom to customize and place ads however they want. Physorg.com opted for
the scumbag strategy of mixing ads and content, so it's 100% their fault.

Plus, the entire waxing lyrical about kids being fed ads for games is simply
ignorant: he sees those ads because his advertising profile matches those
interests, regardless of the page is looking at in this particular moment. A
kid interested in dinosaurs might see ads for plastic dinosaurs or paid trips
to natural history museums.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to learn Facebook has resumed his paid mud-
slinging campaign, these days people are clutching at the smallest straws just
to badmouth Google.

------
grego
What ads? I thought all the smart people were running AdBlock...

~~~
slig
Actually you can learn a lot by seeing ads with a critical eye.

------
mrleinad
Install AdBlock Plus. Solved. Not that big of a deal, huh?

~~~
raganwald
I see that I somehow have made the _entirely wrong_ point. I didn’t say that
it’s sad that I have to wade through ads. As it happens, I have this “reader”
thingie in Safari, which solves the ad problem and the readability problem in
one click or keypress.

The thing I was trying to say that makes me sad is that there is a generation
of smart people toiling away with the power of what may be the world’s biggest
computing infrastructure, all to put _those_ ads on the page.

I am lamenting the waste of people and resources, not the waste of my time.

~~~
mrleinad
So.. you're sad because of the Ad industry, when there's A LOT more money in
the military industry being thrown away? I mean, if you want to be sad about
something, choose your argument subject more carefully..

~~~
srdev
These aren't mutually exclusive things, and his argument could be extended to
the military industry as well. It's just a reflection on his part based on an
experience he had.

------
seanp2k2
AHAHAHAHA HE SAID VALUES _falls out of chair_

Americans don't have those anymore, silly. We have money, and to hell with
everything else.

Edit, for those who don't get it: Consider what you do at work and whose
benefit you do it for. If you're in the states, your job is to make money for
shareholders and/or investors, period. You are not building a product, you are
driving inequality. Always keep this in mind in any industry to understand
"business decisions" and politics, because it's all the same game; "I want to
be better than _those people_ "

This attitude is literally destroying our planet.

------
swah
I'm all for that mechanism that would distribute a fixed amound say 5 USD
amongst the websites I browsed in that month so they could run without ads.

~~~
Tossrock
<http://flattr.com/> ?

~~~
swah
Yes, this. I hoped this would catch on.

------
PhuFighter
Heh. That's funny. when i go to those sites, i don't even see the ads. That's
why I block facebook connect, google plus, and a raft of other sites.

------
Cushman
Why doesn't Google offer some across-the-board AdSense subscription-- $10 a
month to never see a single "Ads by Google"?

~~~
jff
"Nice browser yous gots there... would be a shame if something were to happen
to it, eh? Like if some ads was to get put on the pages... 10 bucks a month,
me and my boys 'take care of' that for yous". The Google Protection Racket

~~~
Cushman
What makes it qualitatively different from typical subscription-or-ad-
supported services?

~~~
jff
I would be a little put off if Google were to sell ads, then turn around and
sell the opportunity to never see those ads. Seems wrong, like they're saying
to the advertisers "Oh sure, we'll get your great ads out right away, all of
our customers will see them!" and then saying to the rest of us, "If you're
sick of those annoying ads (which we put up), just pay us and we'll make them
go away!"

------
prawn
Furthermore, Google often encourages publishers to theme their ads so that
they blend into the content.

------
blake8086
This is a common theme I see, often with respect to Zynga.

People want things. Some people want things that other people think they
shouldn't want (games, drugs, sex, whatever).

Some people get mad (or in this case, sad) when someone provides a thing they
think people shouldn't want to people who want it.

~~~
raganwald
Or to put it in a word, they have “morals.” And when they talk about it, they
are ”moralizing.”

~~~
blake8086
Do people who disagree with you lack morals? Or are their morals wrong?

~~~
mattgreenrocks
Moral relativism is an intellectual shield for laziness.

Take a stand for something, especially an idea bigger than yourself. You may
be pleasantly surprised at who you become.

------
usablebytes
You echoed me & stole my voice by wavelengths

------
Kiro
Nothing wrong with games.

