zlacker

almost every ad is a scam, telling lies directly or indirectly maximizing what is within the legal bounds.

>>tcfhgj+(OP)
Come on. There is a massive difference between an ad that optimistically emphasizes the best aspects of a real product or service and an ad for a fake product or service that will take your money and leave you with essentially nothing.

>>D13Fd+X3
Yes there is a massive difference, you are correct. Also, most of the ads do not fall into that category.

>>63stac+b5
I remember back in the good old days (so like 2008) you'd visit the some bigco website looking for specs on some item and then later you'd see their products in your banner ads. Times were so simple back then.

>>D13Fd+X3
I think the poster is lamenting the general quality of all advertised products in general. If it's a brand of good quality (Miele, Henry, DeLonghi) it probably does not need to be advertised, as word of mouth and price point is generally enough.

>>D13Fd+X3
I agree there exist many shades of grey

>>tcfhgj+G7
50, actually.

>>tetris+G5
Maybe. Stealing ad space from a competitor may be in itself valuable.

Another metric comes to my mind: if a newcomer has money to spend on ads, then it's a stable firm.

I'm sure there are more.

>>tetris+G5
>If it's a brand of good quality (Miele, Henry, DeLonghi) it probably does not need to be advertised, as word of mouth and price point is generally enough.

what about iPhones? They're ubiquitous enough that Apple probably doesn't need ads to let people know they exist, yet every at launch ads for them are plastered everywhere. Same with soft drinks and cars, just to name a few. Before you say "iPhone sucks", the same can be said for basically all other phone OEMs, and if your theory allows categorizing an entire industry as crap, your theory is basically unfalsifiable.

>>gruez+q8
I would guess that a company like Apple (or Miele or whatever) pays some attention to the context in which their advertisements appear. I don't think they'd want an advertisement for iPhone to appear online with a weight loss pill on the left and a gambling site on the right.

>>gruez+q8
> if your theory allows categorizing an entire industry as crap, your theory is basically unfalsifiable

Or maybe, just maybe, the entire industry is crap and so many people are complicit such that it becomes a self-sustaining problem.

>>tetris+G5
> If it's a brand of good quality (Miele, Henry, DeLonghi) it probably does not need to be advertised, as word of mouth and price point is generally enough.

Nah, they advertise (probably) for a similar reason as car brands do, to make the people who bought it already feel better and more reassured about their choice.

Also, obligatory "lucky 10k" xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1053/

>>inetkn+Sb
>and so many people are complicit such that it becomes a self-sustaining problem.

If you're defining "ads" to be a "problem", then it turns the statement into a meaningless tautology. Only crappy brand use ads, because brands that use ads are crappy.

>>gruez+q8
In the case of iPhones specifically--which I see a lot more ads for than appliances--people do upgrade phones a lot more frequently than appliances, especially major ones, often for specific capabilities like cameras. So reminding people they don't have the latest and greatest makes a lot of business sense.

>>sofixa+1d
I'm guessing high-end appliance brands are enough of a niche market that it just doesn't make sense for them to advertise in relatively unfocused ways. You'll see plenty of ads for high-end appliances and cookware if you frequent gourmet-oriented websites and magazines.

>>D13Fd+X3
It's legal to advertise real products or services that will take your money and leave you with essentially nothing.

For example:

- gambling, e.g. slot machines, sports betting

- healing crystals

- palm readings

- carnival games

Perhaps the right distinction is whether something is legally a fraud or not. But I kind of agree that most ads are scams and also that ad networks don't have the ability to separate legal scams from fraud. So I just block them all.

>>fiftee+a8
There could be more! The title doesn't specify they're the only ones.

>>ants_e+Hf
Yes, these scams have aleays been there. The distinction was that advertisers like newspapers and magazines had a standards body that would reject ad placements that were insulting to their audience's intelligence.

>>tcfhgj+(OP)
Having worked in the world of e-commerce, there are genuinely good companies run by good people making genuinely good products that no one knows about, and one of the ways they try and get people to know about their products is advertising. In one case, this is a product that replaced something already in your home, it's materially better, and it's materially cheaper in the long term. How do you create an ad for that that doesn't sound like a lie?

>>spceba+pt
You have a curated directory of actually decent stuff, and you list the item there. Don't wrestle with the pigs.

>>tetris+G5
I should start by saying that I find ads incredibly irritating in any form. That said, Miele and DeLonghi are both more than a hundred year old companies. Maybe they don't need to advertise because they have such solidly establish brand identities, but they do advertise and they have advertised throughout their history as companies. Ads are a way of maintaining brand awareness, introducing new products, and creating demand. Even if you have an incredibly solid product with good word of mouth there is still benefit to advertising it.

>>wizzwi+1u
What do you do with the other two wishes from the genie?

>>wizzwi+1u
And how do you get people to view said directory if they've never heard of it?

>>Mattic+Gv
Whirled Peas could be one of them

>>tetris+G5
Two of the three names are unknown to me. This word of mouth delivery did nothing to make me interested in any of the three though. I have no idea what any of them actually do. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader as how best to internet search "Henry".

>>fiftee+n8
This is something people don't credit enough. How many times have you search for something by name and received a direct competitor's product as top result? This is why I put no stock in digital ads for the little guy. The bigger guy will always have a larger ad buy budget and will outbid you at every turn.

>>saghm+Sg
Right, the title also doesn't state the bit depth the color values are stored. There could be 64, 128, 256, 1024, 64million shades. Data Inadequate. I'm really surprised this was missed on this forum!

>>dylan6+Zv
Consider that Hacker News does not advertise, and yet somehow you are here.

>>thesui+gy
Hacker News does not depend on me buying products from it for it's survival. If you can't see the difference in why a company cannot depend on word of mouth, then you're just really not trying to have an honest conversation.

>>D13Fd+X3
I'm willing to throw that away to get rid of the scammy ads. It would be nice if there were ad networks that were vigilant about who they let use their service, but "money", I guess. So adblockers it is.

>>tcfhgj+(OP)
Seems like the ethical way to have ads on your site is to do it the way Costco does.

Costco has an entire section of affiliate links to manufacturers they have worked with. The people who go there get special discounts on the products purchased from those manufacturers, and the only ads you get about it are on Costco's site reminding you that this section exists.

Websites could easily add a "shop" page to their sites and screen and curate a selection of companies willing to pay an affiliate link bonus to the site when users purchase through those links.

This would help them generate income while also not enshittifying the site or experience for users.

>>thesui+gy
Hacker News does not advertise because it is a gigantic advertisement for YCombinator. This is not some sort of scurrilous accusation, they may not be constantly banging the table about it but it's not a secret.

>>dylan6+KD
Plenty companies don't advertise by shoving unwanted ads in people's faces.

>>dylan6+Sw
All 3 are appliance manufacturers. Miele and Henry are predominantly vacuum cleaner brands.

Henry hoovers are ubiquitous in the professional market in the UK and well regarded for durability, performance and the cute face all their cleaners have. Essentially anyone in the UK will have used, or seen one be used

>>dylan6+Zv
It's the way it used to be done with paper catalogues. If you're looking for a snowmobile then you go get a snowmobile catalog from a dealer who you looked up in a phonebook. But advertisers don't want to wait for somebody to decide they want a thing, they want to brainwash otherwise content people into wanting something they didn't previously want.

>>tcfhgj+aO
There are plenty of companies I haven't heard of. QED

>>thesui+gy
My dude, Hacker News is the ad.

This forum doesn't exist to get you to comment on news stories; it exists to attract tech people to YC.

>>dylan6+qV
and yet they survive somehow

>>fknora+LZ
Hacker News is as much an ad as a good product producing a happy customer

>>tcfhgj+k61
Many of them don't. Consider that BMW famously didn't run ads for most of its history... but now it does.

>>wizzwi+1u
And how do you establish trust to curate it?

>>rchaud+Qq
I know television is not newspapers and magazines, but they at least had to have some level of standards bodies (I'm fairly sure they at least did in the early 90s), and I remember Psychic Friends Network ads on tv which is clearly in the realm of palm readings. I guess maybe it wasn't insulting to the intelligence of people watching late night TV in the early 90s?

>>nickff+6c1
Many doing ads don't.

>>gruez+8d
> Only crappy brand use ads, because brands that use ads are crappy.

Hey, you're starting to get it, but not quite.

Only crappy brands use ads, because ads pollute my very valuable time, my very valuable window of vision, my very valuable hearing, and my very valuable sanity in trying to stay safe against malware hiding in advertisements. That's on top of wasting my valuable money convincing me to buy things that I don't want to buy.

If a brand really wants me to use their product, then make a great product and show off its features in demos, at conferences, and it will eventually get to me by word of mouth. One friend showing me how a product has improved their life is worth at least five-figure digit counts of ads shown to me, if not six-figure counts.

>>jerf+2O
I understand that, but the point is a good product spreads naturally.

>>tcfhgj+K61
I think we're converging on "loss leader."

>>Mattic+Gv
If no one chooses to be the change they want to see in the world then things can only keep getting worse.

>>dylan6+KD
Hacker News depends on a constant stream of new users to keep the site alive, just like any other discussion forum. But you're right that unlike the average company this site seems to be OK with a stable but small user base and isn't aiming for unbounded exponential growth.

>>accoun+FVg
If you're making a great product and you choose to make sure you don't get traction by taking this route (assuming you're not in one of the few niches where it might be somewhat viable), you're just making sure you don't succeed and that worse products with better advertising are relatively more successful.

How would that make the world better?