Mark Zuckerberg Speaks Down to Users and Misses the Point
&gt; <i>He starts with one of his greatest hits: “People consistently tell us that if they’re going to see ads, they want them to be relevant.” This perpetuates the ad industry’s favorite false dichotomy: either consumers can have “relevant” ads—targeted using huge collections of sensitive behavioral data—or they can be bombarded by spam for knock-off Viagra and weight-loss supplements. The truth is that ads can be made “relevant” and profitable based on the context in which they’re shown, like putting ads for outdoor gear in a nature magazine.</i><p>I disagree, it&#x27;s not a false dichotomy, it&#x27;s a real one.<p>Most Internet content isn&#x27;t nearly as &quot;contextual&quot; as a nature magazine. Probably 99% of the content I read won&#x27;t help target ads much at all, because it&#x27;s mostly NYT news articles and the like.<p>I&#x27;m probably in a tiny minority here on HN, but I accept that ads are currently necessary to fund companies (even though I wish it weren&#x27;t true), and I genuinely <i>prefer</i> ads targeted towards my interests (I&#x27;ve gone so far as to customize my interests on Google to help it serve me more relevant ads -- most of them were accurate but there were a handful that weren&#x27;t).<p>Targeting obviously isn&#x27;t always perfect -- they still don&#x27;t have the kink ironed out where I keep seeing ads for something on Amazon even after I bought the thing or a similar thing -- but it really does benefit users, if they&#x27;ve got to put up with ads in the first place.