Why do all the examples from the advertising industry have such easy-peasy, neutral goods? Fishing equipment. Basket weaving books. Dog food.
Targeted advertising hasn't been a blessing just for small businesses selling fishing equipment and organic combucha, but also -- actually, especially, for companies that sell things like:
* Potentially addictive subscriptions (for e.g. online casinos or other gambling games) -- thus specifically targeting people who are at risk for addiction, unless your targeting settings are crap.
* Snake oil skincare products for teenagers, or potentially dangerous weight loss tablets -- thus compounding peer pressure against young people with poor self esteem.
* Bullshit therapy "options" like German New Medicine, specifically targeting people who are terminally ill, or researching things like cancer treatment for a relative or a friend.
Boy am I glad we're increasing the total amount of funding available for online content!
I believe that the key of the message was that the advertisement companies gather a plenty of personal data and vulnerable groups are very easy to find and target. The same private data is also useful for "all the people who host scam sites on the cloud".
This. The more ad platform becomes accurate, the more ads will exploit vulnerabilities in human mind. Some might believe they don't have such vulnerabilities, but there can be some in subconscious level. Ad tech is basically PSYOP and people really should be on guard.
The author of the post specifically (you read the article, didn't you?) said:
> The thing is, I think advertising is positive, and I think my individual contribution is positive. I'm open to being convinced on this: if I'm causing harm through my work I would like to know about it.
Then goes on to not mention a single example of harm being caused through their work, like virtually all articles that attempt to defend the advertising industry's practices. I thought I'd list a few.
If those are troubling industries (which I agree) it should be illegal to advertise those products. That doesn't mean advertising as a methodology is bad.
What value does advertising produce? I mean it, if advertising magically ceased to exist tomorrow, would anything be worse? Advertising is in itself a manipulative activity, an attempt to pass a worse product as a better one, or to create a demand where there was none, or to persuade someone to do something they otherwise wouldn't.
I think advertising has been crucial to increasing the economic size of the world. It's a valid argument if you think our world is crap, and we should never have switched to bigger civilizations. But the economic growth, driven significantly by increasing the available market for products, has led lots of people out of poverty, spurred innovation, and generally enabled a lot more humans to be born than would have.
I think it's pretty much this, advertising is lubrication for an economy of consumption.
Word of mouth and aggregators (like yelp) can help people find solutions when they know of a problem, but ads inform/manipulate (depending on how you see it) people to know they have a problem in the first place.
Also if you've ever written ad copy it's all pretty structurally similar: hook, problem statement, solution, testimonials, etc.
1) New small businesses (like Shopify stores) can reach customers without going through retail gatekeepers. Ask any Shopify seller, nothing beats FB.
2) New challenger SaaS brands can get in front of customers to compete with mammoth corporate brands with worse software (I see this all the time on my job).
3) Without good ad targeting, only bottom hanging fruit advertisers that appeal to the lowest common denominator can afford to spend. Weight loss, teeth whitening, etc. Good ad targeting means a better user experience with ads.
Targeted advertising hasn't been a blessing just for small businesses selling fishing equipment and organic combucha, but also -- actually, especially, for companies that sell things like:
* Potentially addictive subscriptions (for e.g. online casinos or other gambling games) -- thus specifically targeting people who are at risk for addiction, unless your targeting settings are crap.
* Snake oil skincare products for teenagers, or potentially dangerous weight loss tablets -- thus compounding peer pressure against young people with poor self esteem.
* Bullshit therapy "options" like German New Medicine, specifically targeting people who are terminally ill, or researching things like cancer treatment for a relative or a friend.
Boy am I glad we're increasing the total amount of funding available for online content!