I don’t think ads are inherently bad. It’s true that ads are a way of financing things that either would otherwise not be financed, or would be financed by (and thus exclusively available to) relatively rich people. However, I’m pretty sure that online ads actually devalue ads in general, and make it more difficult to provide these services. An ad that runs in a newspaper is much, much more valuable than an online ad on that same newspaper’s website, even if the website reaches many more people. This effectively means that the way online ads currently work, they harm entities that rely on ad revenue. The more personalized and trackable ads become, the more closely they are valued by their direct revenue generation power instead of their long-term impact, and thus, the less value they have. Evidence for this is that ads where tracking is impossible (e.g. on podcasts) are valued higher than ads that allow for detailed tracking.
The way online ads are currently monetized relies on personalization. This means that online ads create a strong incentive to track people, and to harm people’s ability to have privacy online. This, in turn, means that it becomes much easier to use this data in more nefarious ways, and (for example) discriminate against people using data gathered for ad tracking.
The better companies get at tracking, the more data they have that will be abused, and the lower the value of ads will become. Therefore, the most good would be created if online companies stopped investing in ad tech, and online ads went back to being anonymous.
The way online ads are currently monetized relies on personalization. This means that online ads create a strong incentive to track people, and to harm people’s ability to have privacy online.
You might be interested in the second half of the post, starting with “But the biggest issue I see people raising is the privacy impact of targeted ads...”?
I have two different thoughts on this:
I don’t think ads are inherently bad. It’s true that ads are a way of financing things that either would otherwise not be financed, or would be financed by (and thus exclusively available to) relatively rich people. However, I’m pretty sure that online ads actually devalue ads in general, and make it more difficult to provide these services. An ad that runs in a newspaper is much, much more valuable than an online ad on that same newspaper’s website, even if the website reaches many more people. This effectively means that the way online ads currently work, they harm entities that rely on ad revenue. The more personalized and trackable ads become, the more closely they are valued by their direct revenue generation power instead of their long-term impact, and thus, the less value they have. Evidence for this is that ads where tracking is impossible (e.g. on podcasts) are valued higher than ads that allow for detailed tracking.
The way online ads are currently monetized relies on personalization. This means that online ads create a strong incentive to track people, and to harm people’s ability to have privacy online. This, in turn, means that it becomes much easier to use this data in more nefarious ways, and (for example) discriminate against people using data gathered for ad tracking.
The better companies get at tracking, the more data they have that will be abused, and the lower the value of ads will become. Therefore, the most good would be created if online companies stopped investing in ad tech, and online ads went back to being anonymous.
You might be interested in the second half of the post, starting with “But the biggest issue I see people raising is the privacy impact of targeted ads...”?