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relativ575 | 1 year ago

Really? Ad is the most popular business model for Internet businesses. Any you saying none of those companies is viable?

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tomrod|1 year ago

That's correct.

Turn off the ads (which is visual and aural pollution in 99.99999% of cases) and said company is literally not viable.

We accept ads because we're conditioned to, not because they represent a real business. The vast majority of advertising spend is inefficient and wasteful in terms of ROI. Most advertising in the space show substantially low statistical power, in effect being unable to identify an effect from random noise.[0] This means ROI measures are normally bunk.

Ad-supported businesses are subject wholly to the whims of unrelated companies and people outside their target client base.

We worry about AI slop, rightfully, yet do little to nothing to stop the memetic, exploitative mind virus advertising (and adtech especially) is.

Recommended reading: Existence, David Brin

[0] https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/130/4/1941/191...