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points by NoboruWataya 2 days ago | 0 comments
It is a hard truth to swallow for many on HN (myself included) but the reality is a lot of normies don't mind ads at all. I recently told my wife how to install an ad blocker and her response was "but sometimes I see cool stuff in ads". I'm sure the percentage of "cool stuff" she sees is higher because of what they know about her.

Amazon (or whoever) showing you the same stuff you just bought is kind of a separate issue, because it obviously isn't useful to anyone (including Amazon) and surely is so easy to avoid I find it bizarre that it still happens in this day and age.

As an aside, there is exactly one place on earth where I will actively look around for ads, and that is London Underground stations. Because for whatever reason they advertise a lot of cultural events (concerts, festivals, plays, etc).

[–] apetresc 2 days ago
> Amazon (or whoever) showing you the same stuff you just bought is kind of a separate issue, because it obviously isn't useful to anyone (including Amazon) and surely is so easy to avoid I find it bizarre that it still happens in this day and age.

I've asked people at Amazon on the recommendation algorithm side about this, since it comes up so often in discussions.

Their answer is that, surprisingly, it is a good heuristic. If you just bought something, you've shown intent, and there's a small probability that you're going to be unhappy with your initial purchase and back on the market soon, for whatever reason.

Is the posterior probability that you'll buy a mattress again shortly after buying one, a small chance? Yes, undoubtedly. But is it smaller than the prior probability of a random person who hasn't bought any mattress at all recently, suddenly being on the market for a mattress? Apparently not.

Weird things can happen with joint probabilities when both sides of the condition are very unlikely. Sort of like how your chance of having some rare cancer after testing positive on a ~99% accurate cancer screening test is still quite tiny.

[–] rocho 1 day ago
> Is the posterior probability that you'll buy a mattress again shortly after buying one, a small chance? Yes, undoubtedly. But is it smaller than the prior probability of a random person who hasn't bought any mattress at all recently, suddenly being on the market for a mattress? Apparently not.

This makes no sense. If I just bought a mattress, the prior probability of a random person buying it is irrelevant. What's relevant is the posterior distribution of what people buy after buying a mattress. Yes, you might buy another one, but what about other bedroom accessories for example?

A mattress might not be the best example though, because what really matters here is the expected value from the posterior probability, which includes the price. So a more expensive product with a slightly lower probability of purchase might yield a higher expected value than cheaper products with higher probability.

Anyway, that's orthogonal to the discussion: my point is that it's the posterior distribution conditioned on the mattress purchase that should be modeled, not the comparison with random people that may or may not just have bought a mattress.

[–] arjie 2 days ago
People always have said this from when I was in ad tech over a decade ago and to be honest, I think it's much more mundane: a delay in the ad tech data pipeline. If you have delayed intent signal, or you have delayed suppression, or even if some conversion gets dropped in the pipeline, you're going to get this effect. People talked about this a lot but almost all the focus on recent purchaser lists was on suppression. So I'm just going to go with the boring explanation: data pipeline error.
[–] driverdan 2 days ago
I find Amazon recommendations are quite bad. Maybe only 10% are relevant to me.
[–] autoexec 2 days ago
> If you just bought something, you've shown intent, and there's a small probability that you're going to be unhappy with your initial purchase and back on the market soon, for whatever reason.

It probably helps when your marketplace is filled with knockoffs and misrepresented trash.

[–] breakwaterlabs 2 days ago
It's shocking to me that, sometime in the last 10 years, everyone forgot that adblocking's primary argument is security.

Back in the bad old days of adobe and flash plugins in Internet explorer, malicious ads targetting those were the malware infection vector in something like 80% of cases. Browsers have gotten better, but it remains the case that ad networks are the single easiest way to inject your mal-content into another website.

In those days, any time I handled a client call about malware, I replaced everything with Chrome (built in pdf viewer, sandboxed/autoupdated flash) and adblock plus. And then, my calls from those users stopped being about malware or slow internet.

We see headlines about this-- about the Israeli firm that was abusing this, for instance, to hit targets-- and I am left scratching my head. Of course...?

IMHO it's the duty of any techie (with the social capital to influence digital hygiene) to ensure they and theirs are set up with at least ublock lite.

[–] tonyedgecombe 2 days ago
> It's shocking to me that, sometime in the last 10 years, everyone forgot that adblocking's primary argument is security.

I’m not sure about that. I suspect people don’t like how intrusive ads are. Especially in videos.

The security issue strikes me as a post Adblock rationalisation. People know how the sites they visit are funded and need some way to justify cutting that off.

The number who understand the security implications is going to be very small.

[–] bossyTeacher 2 days ago
Links that take you to a malicious site are not the only security reason. Ads are often used as vehicles for malicious payloads, some execute when you click on them and some are 0-click.
[–] cowlevel 2 days ago
No, surprisingly people don't actually know or care how things are funded. And that's rational for them and how markets are designed to work.
[–] DeluluDon 2 days ago
The reason why I block ads is due to security. Can't be that small of a number
[–] iamtedd 2 days ago
For me, it was a necessity, as video ads were just starting to be used while I still had dialup, Then came the security angle.
[–] pintxo 2 days ago
> Amazon (or whoever) showing you the same stuff you just bought is kind of a separate issue, because it obviously isn't useful to anyone (including Amazon) and surely is so easy to avoid I find it bizarre that it still happens in this day and age.

Isn't the point of those, that in the end, the likelihood of you buying something again just recently bought might be tiny, but is probably still bigger than showing the same add to a random other person?

[–] Normal_gaussian 2 days ago
Essentially you're right.

The effect is quite strong.

Humans are stupid and fail to make logical decisions, instead they reinforce and justify their previous ones.

Showing you the product you purchased is the best way to get you to transfer your purchase decision to purchase additional other products.

[–] throwaway2037 2 days ago

    > one place on earth where I will actively look around for ads, and that is London Underground stations
You raise a good point. I am similar. I am much more influenced by an advert that is somewhat artistic. Plus, I notice that size and scale really matters. Thinking about the same advert: One is a tiny graphic on your phone, the other is a two meter tall version on your subway platform. The second one is much higher impact.
[–] what 2 days ago
> Amazon (or whoever) showing you the same stuff you just bought

They probably have data on return rates and the brand/model people buy after returning? Or are you saying they show you the exact same brand/model you just bought? That would be weird, unless it’s a consumable.

[–] matkoniecz 2 days ago
> It is a hard truth to swallow for many on HN (myself included) but the reality is a lot of normies don't mind ads at all

1) and a lot of them prefer them to be gone

2) why it would be a hard truth? I am not expecting that everyone will match my preferences

[–] pocksuppet 2 days ago
Once your wife sees the internet with less ads she'll never want to go back.
[–] tonyedgecombe 2 days ago
My wife signed up to the Pinterest mailing list. I’ll never understand this.
[–] akst 2 days ago
I mean if you get useful ads that don't feel like a waste of time, I'm sure you'd have a more positive view of ads, not sure the takeaway is normal people like ads, but i'm sure there's something to be said about well timed and targeted ads.

Like the ads I get on instagram, I actually don't mind because they are show me clothing consistent with my taste in clothes or appliance/utilties I'd find useful. Can't say I've ever seen a useful ad on twitter/X or Tiktok.

[–] folbec 2 days ago
"because it obviously isn't useful to anyone (including Amazon)"

I suspect that Amazon somehow get paid for "impressions" by the ad originator.

(it looks very much like a standard enshitification pattern : 1) gain market dominance, 2) screw the users 3) screw the business customers )