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The data has more direct consequences when it comes to machine learning algorithms to keep you on the website and funnel you into a personalized echo chamber.
The epitome of this is TikTok, it’s algorithm was the only thing that set it apart from other short video apps. Youtube is a video host with an integrated recommendation algorithm, Tiktok is a recommendation algorithm with integrated video hosting.
It’s crazy how the algorithm isn’t even good, it’s just effective at generating watch time on average. It tries to push you towards addictive trash constantly, whether you watch it or not. I learned rust and got “why rust sucks” and “why rust is the best language” about 25 times now despite never watching videos like that, because maybe THIS time I’ll get ragebaited.
Oh, the algorithm is good, it’s good at generating watch time. That’s it’s purpose. It serves the company, not you.
What I’m saying is it’s not even good at that, and it has caused me to leave several times when every video it recommends is clickbait garbage. It just knows it works on most people who aren’t actively looking out for it. It’s basically purely designed for engagement baiting, regardless of if you take the bait or not it’ll keep doing it.
Because that method has long since hit saturation. Consider: a normal person spends a reasonable amount of time watching videos they find interesting. A nutcase watches whatever feeds their insanity, all day, every day. Therefore, instead limiting your watchtime by only serving you what you want, the algo can maximise watch time by driving you insane.
I still get ads on Youtube on my TV, and it’s mindboggling how bad they are. Google literally has years of my search history (before I switched to DDG), and it still doesn’t understand that I’m vegan and not interested in any products that are not vegan. Putting on my tinfoil hat, I think it’s just a massive data collection ruse masked as “personalized ads”.
It’s not about the ads to buy things. That’s part of it for sure, but it’s more than that.
Google, Meta, Microsoft, etc. want your data, your habits, routines, opinions, etc, so they can influence the way you think and behave and understand the world.
There’s a clip I saw recently of Peter Thiel saying they could never get people to vote for the things they want to do, so instead they are using technology to change things.
Even if you block ads, if you still use platforms owned by tech mega-corps, they have your data. Sure you might not see the targeted ads, and so you think you’re coming out ahead, but you don’t realize that every piece of content you see between the ads you’ve blocked is being filtered to influence the way you think about the world.
Most people don’t use adblockers
Even when I saw ads, I never clicked on them (at least on purpose) and they basicslly just become noise my brain filters out. Like going noseblind to a smell that is constsntly there.
You still were subjected to the constant imaging exposure
You might not have noticed but your brain did
Even still, it was always either
A) Shit I’d absolutely never buy
B) Shit I was planning on buying anyway before the ad
C) The ad reminds me “oh yeah I do need new underwear” (idfk lol), but even then I just mentally log that and go buy underwear later, never “click the add and buy those underwear,” not even necessarily the same brand at another retailer, like instead of Hanes™ the ad could say “Underwear^TheConcept” and it’d be the same thing.
The targeting seems to not be worth piss to me imo.
Most advertising isn’t trying to convince you to buy product X that’s being advertised. It’s trying to get you to think about the brand itself. They’re saying “Buy this fridge from Brand A” but they’re not actually trying to sell you a fridge, what they really want is for you to think of Brand A the next time you’re looking for a new appliance or some other product they sell.
But I already know I want a Speed Queen, so when Samsung advertises whatever shit new Samsung AI Washer/Dryer with wifi and bluetooth horse shit, my brain goes “ahh yeah put more money towards that Speed Queen.” And then when I go to replace my phone I go “hmmm lets see what can use grapheneOS” and Samsung loses again, then I go to replace my TV and get a used Vizio from 2008 at the flea market, etc…
It just doesn’t work along “brand” lines at least for me.
Everybody thinks advertising doesn’t work on them.
The “algorithms” are also dumb as fuck. For example on a large retailer site you spent a couple of hours browsing for a particular kind of item. You are comparing different kinds, looking up reviews and issues, watching YouTube videos about them. And finally you pull the trigger and but the thing. Then for the next 3 months that site (and others that picked up on the research) will go: Hey here are some more of that thing you like, you really liked it right? Would you like to compare some more items? Uhm no, I actually bought said thing, you made the sale. All of that “targeted” advertisement is just wasted, I have zero interest anymore since the need has been filled.
It’s either that or stuff I can’t afford (like memory or graphic cards) or really weird stuff I have no idea why it’s being shown to me. Sometimes very alarmingly so. Just recently I got an ad that said “Popular in your region” and it was for illegal Nazi dogwhistle flags, “self defense knifes”, baseball bats and tracksuits. That’s a bit scary. On the other hand the same site gave me an ad for a “easy to conceal” blowjob machine sex toy. Like holy shit what kind of people are living in my region?
Targeted ads have been terrible for as long as I can remember. I don’t think I ever bought anything through an ad or hardly ever even clicked on them. Only time I click on them is because the site and my adblocker are fighting and when I try to click somewhere on the page, it inserts an ad the last millisecond, shifts the entire page so I accidentally click on it.
I always just assumed I was too weird to effectively algorithmicly advertise to. I’m far away from the average American by a lot of measures and my interests are very niche.
When I get suggestions or ads they feel like they are for someone else a lot (I like your blowjob machine example, many ads assume I’m male and lonely even though I’m a woman. Maybe that demographic is so lucrative and I’m so hard to sell to that I get those ads)
One of the parts that gets me is there is a good opportunity for more sales there (if that should happen is another debate I don’t have the energy for). A few years ago I bought an electric kettle. So cue months of ads for electric kettles. It’s a kettle, you only need one. Now if I had been shown different teas or coffees, stuff I would use the kettle to make, they would have absolutely hooked me easily. I had a new toy, I was excited to use it, I would have loved trying new teas with it. I still did, but they were all ones I chose.
True. If I buy a fridge try selling me other kitchen appliances because I might be remodeling. Don’t try to sell me more fridges. This is ludicrous!
Yup! Bought an android phone on Amazon. I got a bunch of ads for phones or incompatible accessories. Amazon… You know I bought a android phone, why are you selling me a lightning cable? You know it was a pixel phone, why are you selling me a phone case for a Samsung s series phone?
I’ll piss off a bunch of lemmy users with this but… I don’t mind ads. I hate useless ads. As you said, ads about teas or coffees would of been useful for you. 99% of the time if I buy something I don’t need more of that, maybe some associated stuff but not that. If I buy a video card yesterday I don’t need another one. Sell me the latest games. Sell me da monitor with high fps/resolution to show off what the video card can do. I buy a clothes washer, I don’t need another one. Sell me detergent. Sell me fabric softener.
How have all the advertising companies missed this?
Illegal nazi flags are “popular in your region” and bought together with weapons? Maybe tip the police off?
Idk how much action they can take on something like this, but it seems like something is going on that shouldn’t be.
I still get recommended tampons because my ex-gf bought some with my Amazon account 5+ years ago. Peak recommendation brilliance.
can you imagine being a transman post hysterectomy?
FUCKING NO! I don’t use those anymore!
Amazon thought I was a toilet seat collector for 3-6 months after I bought a 3-pack. No amount of not clicking on those promoted items could convince them otherwise.
well that’s the problem. people usually buy one
When that one embarrassing purchase from last year still haunts your algo…
I had to buy adult diapers for my elderly parents. Whoo boy did that unleash a storm.
It thought I was a transvestite for lime a year after a Christmas where I bought my my mom a sweater, and my girlfriend jewelery.
Like full on recommending me panties and lingerie in my mens size 32 waist.
FWIW, a good chunk of lingerie ads are meant to target men (assuming they’re heterosexual and in a relationship).
Sure, but they were showing them in my size, lol
Do they make them in size 38? Asking for a friend.
I bought a used school bus on eBay a few years ago (to turn into a skoolie) and since then I’ve been bombarded with ads for used school buses. I can assure anyone interested that one is more than enough. Yes, there are school districts and companies that maintain large fleets of school buses, but they do not buy them on fucking eBay.
There was a small window around 2010 when Google’s targeted Ads is actually kinda good (which is to say, not annoying and somewhat relevant).
Then everything enshittified.
I think hotwords worked the best on me because I thought it was a link to something in the article. But then the law changed and they had to put “ad” on the links and it killed them. Laws work, some what.
I lived in a country where people don’t speak English. There’s a sizable expat community of English speaking workers there. The ad targeting was so useless that I was constantly shown ads in a language I couldn’t understand. This was on an Android phone where everything was set to English. With every single interaction I with any app or web page I was broadcasting the language I know, and yet they couldn’t figure even that absolutely critical detail out.
This targeting was so bad that an old fashioned newspaper ad printed in ink next to a story would have been more effective. At least a publisher is going to put English ads in an English newspaper, German ads in a German newspaper, etc.
If the ad companies can’t even figure out the language(s) that their targets understand, their knowledge of their target must be essentially zero.
when i used apps with targeted ads, amongst generic type of stuff i also used to get two polar opposites of ads:
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ah, we see you’re in poland and use english a lot, want to learn english?
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ah, we see you’re in poland and use english a lot, we can help you get your immigration papers for legal employment
both at the same time btw. apparently being a polish national who speaks english fluently marked me as some sort of ad-anomaly
the ads also believed that i was a senior? at some point i even got a spam call inviting me to join a study on back pain T–T like bro you’re at least 10 years early, relax
Was ad number 2 about how to get immigration papers as an English-speaking person in Poland? I imagine Poland doesn’t have a lot of immigration from people in English-speaking countries. Especially not from people who haven’t figure out all the legalities necessary to gain employment in Poland.
i mean, the ad was in english so kinda? i never clicked on them so i can’t say for sure
though don’t forget that a person who speaks english doesn’t have to be from an english speaking country. most people who want to travel/live abroad will know at least some english
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If the ad companies can’t even figure out the language(s) that their targets understand, their knowledge of their target must be essentially zero.
Sorry but this is the wrong takeaway here. They are so incredibly good at segmenting and profiling their audiences, they just don’t really give a fuck about serving good ads (or any other service for that matter) anymore. Cambridge Analytica anyone?
I think it’s different if you consider ads as a way to maintain the status quo.
Like, there’s an ad I keep seeing on TV where 25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago plays as parents struggle to keep up with the parenting responsibilities of their toddlers. It’s an ad for Amazon. And thank god for Amazon for being available to help these parents.
And like…everybody knows about Amazon. Nobody is going to suddenly sign up for a Prime account after seeing this ad. However, parents or expecting parents who already have Prime accounts are going to relate to the people in the ad and not even consider other options for their parenting needs.
Maybe a very specific example, and their are certainly ads just telling you to buy chicken nuggets, but I’m seeing it more and more.
It’s about being in your mind-space, even days later in the shop. Which works 50/50 on some people and not at all on the others. But that’s good enough to bother all of humanity i guess.
Which means ads follow the same rules as so-called “pick up artists.” No wonder they annoy me so much.
100%. Ads are just corporate propaganda. What would the public do if they didn’t have their symbols shoved in their face every waking hour?
It’s so dystopian that I grew up knowing most of the famous brand logos but didn’t know where to place most countries on the map until I was old enough to care
Not once, even when I was a little kid, have I been convinced to want a product more because of an ad like that. People know about McDonald’s, they know about Coca-Cola, they know about Hilton, they know about Disney+, the only real reason they have to advertise is to tell us about their new products that some of them have once in a while, or a deal of some kind. I can understand Dreamworks advertising a new movie for about a week, after that, the public probably knows. Same thing for Chick-Fil-A’s new sandwiches and whatnot. But they never stop. They go for a month and a half, two even. Other brands, like Marriott, nothing’s changed. We know that we can buy a hotel room and get free breakfast, we know, we’ll pay for it if/when we need it, but we’re not getting a room just for the “experience”. These ads must be working, they’ve been dumping money into them for over a century at this point, maybe I’m just too autistic to understand how.
It’s not about convincing people to buy the product. It’s about keeping the brand in the public consciousness. For example, they want Coca-Cola to be synonymous with carbonated soft drinks, so that when you want to buy a soda, the first option you think of is Coke, and not Pepsi or some other brand.
If I were a crackpot theorist, which I am not but I dabble, I would say I wouldn’t be surprised if ads serve as a medium of population control.
It’s very much this. They aren’t trying to introduce you to this thing that’s been an institution for longer then any of us have been alive. They’re advertising to take up the limited realestate in our conscious minds.
this is abuse
this goes against human rights (the actual rights humans deserve, not that meager document that lists way too few things)
Yeah like McD reminding you about their big Mac and fries. They know you know about it but they want to think about food because you might be slightly hungry and could eat. They are not ads but subliminal messages.
And you’ll remember the ad when you drive by a Makkers a few days later
I mean, the rich are benefiting from all the ad spending which is all that matters! /s
People really need to remember that you’re paying for the ads regardless of if you see them. The only people who lose out are those who show the ads and giving the amount of websites these days that are solely built around showing ads, I really have no sympathy for them.
The bigger question no-one seems to ask is, how much cheaper would products be if they weren’t spending trillions on ads in the first place?
Depends on the product, a lot of things exist to be ad bate, and don’t really serve a wider purpose. Tshirts is an example that comes to mind where people just buy dozens of designs they never wear.
The whole premise has become shopping is the fun activity, the product is just the waste from that activity that needs to be discarded.
So I guess sans ads we would see a lot less arbitrary products (and places like Amazon would take a hit [yay])
I would be curious to know how e-commerce would change though as without ads people would likely gravitate to the big box stores
i think advertising purposes are just a front. They use it for something, but ads is just an afterthought/excuse for public.
I mean microtargetting the ads would mean they’d get less ad revenue. I think the big ones are
A) they use the data to evaluate markets and target new markets.
B) they sell it to police/intelligence agencies to fluff up their sales with bigger data numbers even though some of the data is “likes popcorn” and “bought a spoon off amazon”
C) corporate espionage type stuff, you collect info on a lot of people but then ID your main competitors or detractors to read their chat logs.
They were the seed that started the surveillance machine, but you’re completely right nowadays the real ““value”” is elsewhere
ICE is using Palantir data to target neighborhoods, which is purchased directly from “advertising” data brokers. So “advertising” is only part of the story. It’s always been about creating a surveillance state, it’s just not evenly distributed.
I don’t think the websites all started thinking “I’ll harvest data for the inevitable surveillance state”
Google actually started with great intentions and hoped to translate the data into revenue via “normal” ads
But… Dogy ass holes paid better than ads, and, like most companies, whenever they get successful/big enough, everything goes out the window in favour of profits
“Knowledge is power” is an expression at least hundreds of years old. Whether these data collectors were specifically thinking of adverts or not, they realised that this information had value, and so they collected it. I don’t think we can know the true motivations of the data collectors and brokers, but we can know that there is (and always has been) a market for data.
Yeah exactly. Ultimately they became money machines, and they only exist to make more money now… Some will have willfully amoral motivations (Cambridge analytica, palantir) and others will just persue more money, regardless of the outcome of his they do it, I.E implicily amoral.
Before I installed blockers, I only remember one time ever clicking a targeted advertisement and making a purchase (it was for a ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ t-shirt). That was after browsing the web everyday with no blockers for like 15 years.
Welcome to the torment nexus brought you by carls jr
“Fuck you, I’m eating!”
It works well enough to get returns on ad spend.
Why do so many advertisers think I own a dog? We have like a private, digital panopticon and they still serve me ads for dogfood for dogs I don’t don’t have.
I used to have a chrome extension that basically poisoned my data by clicking on every ad in the background while hiding the ads from me. I forgot what it was called.
It also benefitted the websites I visited by improving their click-thru while also hurting the advertisers by costing them money for ads that would never be effective.
sounds like adnauseam. https://adnauseam.io/
I have to use facebook for work every few months. All sandboxed and shit. They seem to think I’m in the market for conceal carry yoga pants. Which I fine with, because that means they have no clue about my gender, hobbies, or political alignment.
