Ads have suggested lot of life improvement products for me i.e. better bedsheets, duvets, aromatherapy products, etc. I love those. I would have never checked those out. After trying them, I have suggested them to my friends. Lot of minor improvements. Here's the thesis, if we consider youtube recommendations and instagram recommendations to be so good that they are addictive, the same can be said about ad recommendations. Buy-conversions track whether the product has been effective and could be recommended to similar demographics. People have no problem choosing life-partners based on how algos recommends profiles on dating apps but they have issue with ads. They want this particular aspect to be "organic" what a irony.
Well the point of internet is provide abundance to everyone at every price point and product category. Initially it was only about information and now it is about good products and services. Ads help in that. Not every small niche product has physical store in every city or has an app, listing on Amazon doesn't properly convey the worth of their products to new buyers. Physically seeing products is not necessary because you can always return it if not satisfied.
Consider another area where recommendation results in ecommerce like activity. Food delivery apps. One could say why not visit the restaurant and eat there. Through delivery apps, I come to know about new items / cuisines, restaurants, their reviews and buy them. In fact the situation is far more worse in delivery apps because you can't return a food item once tasted. Not so with other category of products like clothings, etc.
I feel like Benedicts Evans should make a primer on why ads exists and how better ads could serve society.
Ads help in that by selling my attention to corporations. I think that's a violation of my boundaries and will resist it by any means possible.
> Through delivery apps, I come to know about new items / cuisines, restaurants, their reviews and buy them.
I use these store and delivery apps extremely often. I have issues with their tracking of my behavior but I don't consider them to be advertising at all.
I opened the app because I wanted to see the products and offers. That's not advertising, that's information which I specifically requested. Advertising is when the app gets in my face with nonsense I couldn't care less about while I'm trying to do something else.
Well, I go to Instagram to spend surplus time which I was gonna waste anyway. If instagram shows me an ad which it thinks fit my demographics and helps me improve my lifestyle, it is a win-win for all 3 parties [aggregator, sellers, buyers] involved. I don't care how I reached there. I am knowledgeable enough to distinguish what is relevant to me. Amazon results are litered with ads. It is similar how to Walmart would preselect products for you and you have little to no-choice among them. Do you get a personal choice in what should be put on shelf. Walmart does the selection based on internal data it gathered. It can build a profile on you.
So you ended up spending money that you were not planning to spend in the first place, because the advertisers succeeded in provoking in you a sense of necessity where none existed before.
I would rather keep advertisements specifically restricted only to those who already have a need, and are interested in choosing a commercial solution for that need.
I earn money to make my life better, not to just increase a number in my bank account. I hope you understand the concept of surplus income. Otherwise we can go back to stone-age "just existing", "being in the moment and intimate with raw sensations" as nature intended to be.
To take your point further, why not abolish, ban luxury market segment. A $10 shirt does the same job of $500 one. Well Apple created a necessity in making you to buy a $1000 dollar phone, it does the same job as $400 one.
I would allow market place to decide what new ideas should take hold in society. Taking an uber or online dating was frowned upon, not anymore. People can change, society can adapt, better processes can be put in place to avoid hurt sentiments of all parties involved.
I do not advocate to abolish or ban any market segment, but rather to limit their ability to advertise only to individuals who are already on the market for the kind of product or service being advertised.
Also, congratulations on your surplus income. Many people do not enjoy that luxury.
Well, I search for products I want constantly. I'll describe what I want to Google or an actual salesperson and see what comes up. Then I'll refine the results if necessary. I don't consider that advertising. I'm looking for information and others are supplying me with it.
Well then you are dependent on the particulars of the search engine algorithms and what it surfaces to you. This is similar to Walmart preselecting 3 products from a category and asking you to make a choice among them. I would love to have some diversity in it.
Diversity is provided by friends and family. Trusted human beings. Not the highest bidder in the auctions for our attention.
Also, without advertising, search engines and the web would be a lot more trustworthy than they are today. When searching I used to get many real websites created by humans, now I see ad-funded AI-generated utterly worthless SEO spam. Advertising is literally the root cause of the enshittification of the web.
Limited number of family and friends and their limited exposure to the products they have personally experienced is too limited for me. I would like to atleast check out what is out there. Then do research and then buy. Don't project your personal way of doing things onto others.
