If there's no user information/tracking, what are the chances that any of those ads will be served to a potential customer for the small business? The GP's bottom line is that nobody except large consumer brands should bother advertising.
I was like "ok, is that really true" so I went and checked, and by golly, you're right. And it's 50-50 the "scam ad" I got is a direct result of a doctor leaking my medical records.
The whole online ad industry should be regulated out of existence.
In any case, it's not them who are exploiting the information. The ad industry is like a fence for stolen goods.
It's not that my medical information is top secret; it's that I don't want to see ads about earwax. And I think Google execs should be forced to watch them until they repent and become monks or something.
Small publishing sites are all but dead. The internet used to be a lovely village where everyone was on about the same playing field and now it's a handful of skyscrapers surrounded by slums.
That's a lovely theory, but the money is in Youtube and its pretty obvious.
Nearly all the major tech reporting sites have died: TechReport, Hardware Canucks, Linux Journal, etc. etc. When you look at who can actually sustain a modern tech reporting site, its the Youtubers: Linus Tech Tips, Gamers Nexus, etc. etc.
Even then: when the tech reporting sites were around, they were mostly on Google Adsense. The others are on Facebook Ads.
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The sites that are making it possible for small-style discussion to thrive again are new "networks" like Patreon. A lesser evil for sure, but a "Skyscraper" nonetheless.
The problem is that opening up the market to "Aunt Mae" will also open up the market to malicious players.
The financial barrier of entry of TV & print advertising is a very effective filter against scams. I have yet to see scam ads for fake tech support or "win an iPhone by filling a survey" or some "free" trial which uses unreadable fine print to sign you up for something very expensive, but those are commonplace online.
I worked at a local TV station a while back, and I programmed the commercials. You would be surprised at how little those slots go for. Off prime time, a 15 or 30 second add spot might sell for a couple dollars. At night they’re only a few cents. It was a mid-sized metropolitan area, so I don’t think this would be so out of the ordinary.
To this day, I have no idea how any TV stations are financially solvent.
Well, higher prices not only allow for people to be paid decent money to review the ads manually but are also a bigger risk for any scam operation as not only is it more difficult to obtain & move that amount fraudulently (you're not going to be able to buy a TV ad with a stolen credit card) but they also have much more to lose should their entire operation be discovered (presumably, a TV network discovering a fraudulent attempt will report it to the relevant authorities and will not just give the money back).
NordVPN's ads have made it onto TV, and a lot of TV ads nowadays are for gambling. Nevertheless it certainly is easier to regulate advertising if it isn't dynamic.
"Yeah but it's not like they're banking on that, nobody thinks that far ahead."
If you've spent even a minute working in the marketing world, you'd know that yes, yes they do. They think exactly that far, and then about another 10 steps beyond that.
Those prompts are most definitely designed to be willed away by the user without allowing them to fully grok the consequences. Unfortunately, it's not measurable, provable, or enforcably illegal.
>They saw their livelihoods evaporating, their financial security being siphoned away. They worked their asses off for bosses who then built their automated replacements. It was a callous betrayal, and their response was to destroy the technology which enabled that betrayal.
The "engagement" that you're talking about is causing other people to leave, so I don't know how that works in FB's advantage here.
If they really wanted to maximize "engagement" they would actually hide all of the political posts and rage inducing comments and show nothing but cat pictures.
Microsoft, just like everyone else, has a High Deductible plan. As American healthcare plans go, it's fine, but if you need to go to the doctor at all expect the first few thousand to come directly out of your pocket/Health Savings Account.
Conversely, they contribute a certain amount to HSA every year. So, depending on how much one needs, it's quite possible for none of it to have come out of your pocket.
Google and Microsoft both give you $1000 in your HSA to offset that. If you don't use it, you get to keep it. Deducitbles are $1400 now, so still you pay max $400 + 10% of how much you go over till $2800. So around $540. Which isn't bad at all.
Yikes... I mean it's not that hard to look at the first uploaded date. Unfortunately they don't really have any pressure to do better in this area not like anyone can go to another app store.
Aunt Mae's cookie shop will never be able to compete with Pepsi for airtime