No idea if this is common practise, but I block any account that promotes a tweet in to my timeline so I don't see it again. If it is, and you're serving a niche market with few people who'll buy from you, promoting tweets could be a really bad idea.
I've heard others do this as well and I don't quite understand it. If you don't want to see ads, sure maybe use AdBlock or PiHole, but why block the company?
Not trying to put words in your mouth, but are you offended that the company spent money on a promoted tweet? That it was an overreach on their part?
If you don't want to see ads, sure maybe use AdBlock or PiHole, but why block the company?
Blocking the company stops the tweet appearing everywhere I see tweets. That's on my home computer, laptop, Chromebook, office computer, my phone, etc. It continues to block the ads from that company if/when Twitter work out ways around ad-blockers. And it makes me feel like I'm proactively looking after my account.
I use ad blockers as well.
are you offended that the company spent money on a promoted tweet?
I just find that Twitter promotes the same tweets over and over again, so if you don't block them it gets very repetitive. If I was actually offended I'd reply first so they had to pay for an engagement as well as the promotion.
I don't want to see ads, ever. I hope a growing number of people feel the same way.
I don't care about the business model of the whole internet. It is obviously a house of cards. A business model based on bad UX? I hope it collapses.
No, I don't know what will replace it. I don't care, as long as it doesn't involve ads.
I really don't care if the ads are innocuous or labeled or relevant. I don't ever want to see an unsolicited nudge to spend money on something. Ever. I can't be any more clear than this. I hope there are more like me every day.
I don't care if your ad is clever, relevant, organically sourced, environmentally friendly, necessary for financing your product, something I actually want, need, or didn't know I wanted yet.
The internet is plagued with this cancer everywhere you go, no matter what you do. Somehow it's become acceptable that every second of our attention and time is competed for by corporations trying to sell us things.
I used to feel that way, until I built several services (the latest being tomotcha.com). Turns out, once you've built something, you need to advertise its existence out there. I mean "advertise" in the largest meaning of the word, not only paid for advertisement on Google/Facebook/Twitter/Criteo. That includes writing blog posts for people to stumble upon, talk about it on Hacker News, send samples to reviewers, etc.
How else would people learn about it? Turns out, if you don't talk about it, very few will come...
I think this is why HN has a lot more goodwill towards self promotion (Show HN style posts) than a lot of other communities (reddit notably, depending on the sub). Entrepreneurs know that advertisement is a necessary part of any business.
I think people confuse advertising in general with the 360 tracking facebook/google and others use. People need to advertise and it's helpful to both the consumer/company.
I'm not sure that people confused the two, it's just that the intrusive forms of advertising make up an overwhelmingly large part of a normal person's interactions with ads that we all just assume that that is what you're talking about.
I think we mostly appreciate the need for the so-called "getting the word out there", but it ought to be done in way that's appropriate. There's a balance to be made between the potential value of a product, and the amount of attention you're trying to steal. Most people think the products they make are more valuable than they really are.
It's never "just" an ad. Like the way you see an ad in a newspaper. It's the spyware that comes with it and the fact that tons of them are animated!
And yes, I consider it spyware and virus-like behaviour to track me wherever I go and I will actively do what I can to stop it. Even if it means you don't get paid... you chose that seedy medium to make money, not me. It's not my job to validate your business model.
By all means block me. I will go elsewhere.
Browsing the internet without an ad blocker is actually impossible for me now... whenever I rebuild a machine I have those few hours or so before I get the ad blocker installed where the internet is a horrific assault on the senses with everything trying to steal my attention away from the thing I am there to see and slowing down the page load (significantly in some cases)
I still remember when plenty of the internet was running fine from hobbyists and whatnot without resorting to ads and tracking... it costs practically zero to run a website (granted, at scale it's a whole other ball-game but how many people have that problem?)
The internet would survive fine without ads. It would have a different mix of behemoths and hobbyists sites but it would survive just fine.
That being said... I do remember trying to punch the monkey to win :D
The point is that I'm fundamentally disgusted by an incitement to spend money being thrust in front of me in any form, for any reason.
I see it as exactly at odds with what I'm trying to do with my life and my attention. I do not consent to have my time and attention taken from me in this way.
Yes, I am a free rider on much of the internet today, such as it is. That the entire internet is based on this absurd proposition is a symptom of its rapid growth and industries going after the lowest hanging fruit. I am confident that the internet will find another way forward.
The take-away here is to just buy covert ads that you confuse for content. It's win-win. You get to think you're not seeing ads, and advertisers get to advertise in unblockable ways.
I don't really have a problem with that. If you're making content, and it's valuable, and it's related to a product, that's great. If your content isn't valuable to me, then I won't bother with it.
If you're just getting folks on facebook to promote your products in the hope of some minor dispensation or something (a popular gimic these days). That's easily identifiable and blockable.
Vivaldi (Chromium-based browser, built for power users) has a set of default home page spots that companies paid to get a spot on. They are removable, and are a sorta one-time thing. They help pay for development, and are rather non-intrusive. Is that acceptable?
What about a set of sponsor logos at the bottom of a webpage that let you visit the companies?
One grey area that I approve of is referral links, if they're obviously presented as such.
For example if you read a tutorial on how to build a weather station and the author provides referral links to a component on Amazon, I'm happy to use those links.
Referral systems are open to abuse though, like the myriad of ultra specific comparison websites with tenuous "expert" reviews.
A lot of those referral links do have logging (seeing who visited / hoe many people have) and tracking (general location, some demographics). Is that okay to you?
In my case, I guess I am? Obviously the site owner will get some logging results, and maybe they will try to optimise for that.
I'm fine with a site owner knowing their demographic. That's potentially useful for other things, eg should you invest in localisation? Otherwise unless you have a vpn, your IP is going to be visible anyway.
It probably depends on the referral site. For example, do Amazon have any reason to sell my data to anyone else? It's most valuable to them and they already have a decade+ of purchase and browsing history.
I still think this a preferable situation to targeted ads which try to guess what I want.
However, they weren't always backed by vast networks designed to stalk, and manipulate you, with access to more data than most ruling governments have.
Ad supported also competes with entirely free, by having more resources for development and, go figure, more marketing/ad dollars to promote their services elsewhere and gain usershare, for cases in which everyone-is-using-it matters—so, social media and messaging. Paid services aren't the only things that can/would replace spyvertising-funded services.
On that note, I have nothing against sponsored content. For example, a blog on programming that happens to have posts sponsored by a company that specializes in dev tools or something.
That makes perfect sense!
Sure, some of it can be puff-pieces for the company and they are quite clearly just bullshit but it's easy to leave and go elsewhere if they take the piss.
A banner at the top of a blog post saying "this content was kindly sponsored by <insert company relevant to the content>" is a great idea and more should do it.
But they don't!
They use ad networks that track the ever-living shit out of every move you make.
I mean if your product fills a unique niche it should be really easy to rank high. Get your first few customers like that, then because your product is revolutionary, word of mouth will do the rest.
A real-world example: Monzo, a modern bank in the UK. They only very recently started using advertising, but got their first million customers with nothing but word of mouth. Their secret? Simply making a product that's light-years ahead of what the existing banks provide.
Your product is not revolutionary? Oh then I don't know (actually I do - make a revolutionary product - switch industries if necessary), but you're not entitled to waste my time, attention & privacy with ads just so your business can survive. Being profitable is not a right, I couldn't care less if you go out of business.
SEO, good content marketing, sponsoring blogs and videos (when done tastefully), product placement, engaging with communities, talking about it in HN/ProductHunt/etc.
All those things are acceptable to most people who block ads, IMO.
Some of those things still sound like ads. I’m not convinced that a company, for example one that sells shoes, would not profit from running ads everywhere
Promoted tweets are generally annoying, I can't speak for others but it's just slightly satisfying to tell the advertiser to eff off for breaking my reading flow. I literally don't care that the company is trying to sell me stuff, it's a company, why should I? I follow people, companies and orgs that I'm interested in, and Twitter suggests similar and I often take them up on the suggestions. Those users will advertise if they're selling things in tweets, I don't need Twitter spamming me with adverts as well.
I don't use Twitter, but if I'm specifically looking for something, I will actively seek out and do the research. I suspect many others who block ads and such are the same.
What about when you are not specifically looking for something? How do you find out about new shirts, or cars, or coffees or trips or whatever? Do you stumble across them on web sites, like in articles? On TV? If you usually find out things word-of-mouth, then how do your influencers find out about them?
I am experiencing an almost 100% disconnect with almost everything you wrote.
I don't find out about them then, and my savings and 401K continue to grow unabated. Maybe I'm missing out on cool stuff, but assuming I never found out I was missing out, then my life isn't impacted negatively regardless. I don't really know what an "influencer" is; is it the internet equivalent to the ShamWow or OxiClean guys?
I have 0 tolerance for people or companies actively telling me what I should buy or like, and distrust anyone who does so.
Don't take me the wrong way: I hate ads too. I usually find out about things from other people, or ads in non-online media, or when I am physically at a store or on Amazon searching for something.
I tend to by generic/commodity items over brands, but there are some notable exceptions.
I pick my groceries by checking the grocery ads and seeing what's on sale.
I don't think I've ever clicked on a search ad or a mobile ad except accidentally.
Concerts and stuff I learn about through ads.
It's kind of an eclectic list, I guess, but ads do seem to serve some purpose. I'm just hard to reach via them unless I'm going looking for something.
I'm going to present an alternate take on "how to live" from you and several other people who replied, not to say your way is wrong, but to say that others live other ways.
I like hearing about cool stuff, I like sharing it with friends. I like style, looking fashionable, and being apprised of trends. I don't plan to die with savings.
You wouldn't trust me, because I often tell my friends about things they should know about; not because I have anything to gain, but because we all do this in all of my social circles. If I hear about a nootropic they might like, I tell them. If they know of a bar I should try, they tell me.
I like a lot of ads because I like knowing what's going on in the world. Even in a post-capitalist Star Trek world, I'd want people who made stuff to tell me.
I'm not the OP, but I'll answer the question anyway. When I'm not specifically looking for something, then I don't find out about them. My attention is limited, I don't have enough to give to every little outfit interested in taking my money. I don't need a new shirt, or car, or coffee or trip. And when I do, then I'll google it and I'll happily see all the ads that Google will show me.
I don’t want to find out about any of those things. They don’t, as the saying goes, spark joy in my life. Sure, trips might be the exception from your list, but also any trips I go on I can plan for myself in a way that is both cheaper and more enjoyable.
That's what Twitter is really good at already, it's literally just people chatting and shouting about stuff that other people are chatting and shouting about.
I can't imagine Twitter being good at reaching a market unless you've gone viral. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like it's like pouring a taste of wine into a fire hose. I don't think I've ever learned about a product on Twitter (but I block ads and don't do much on there). I hear about news and stuff from Twitter.
You have to have a following and be careful with how your market your stuff but yes, I've discovered many products via Twitter BUT they are almost always aligned with my interests and hobbies. Those that aren't, typically promoted tweet, get blocked.
Yep, same. And it's word of mouth from people/entities I trust. And that trust has been built up over time. I have zero attachment to Acmecorp or Joe Random, and generally zero trust in them.
