> There is no ad model where you can justify paying that sort of money for random people at scale.
The ad industry wouldn't be interested in this for random impressions, but I'd be interested¹ to see how much different it would make for the average person² with full stalky personal history based ad matching enabled. They know who you are from your app profile and for the free rides the app could demand access to contacts/messages/other³.
Of course this would have great potential to cause embarrassment for some people in a taxi-sharing situation. I can see the reddit-thread-copied-by-buzzfeed-copied-by-everyone-else listicles of stories now, you'll not believe number 12!
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[1] and not at all surprised to find someone has worked it out in detail and submitted a business plan if the numbers don't look atrocious
[2] the tech-savvy might be able to block the stalkiness, but the average person either can't or doesn't want to make the effort
[3] if not for regular rides, I can see a service offering one free ride in exchange for this access – Amazon offered me a £5 voucher in exchange for just the date of birth of my non-existent baby a while back (I'd been looking for something for a friend who is far less anti-child than I!)
The ad industry wouldn't be interested in this for random impressions, but I'd be interested¹ to see how much different it would make for the average person² with full stalky personal history based ad matching enabled. They know who you are from your app profile and for the free rides the app could demand access to contacts/messages/other³.
Of course this would have great potential to cause embarrassment for some people in a taxi-sharing situation. I can see the reddit-thread-copied-by-buzzfeed-copied-by-everyone-else listicles of stories now, you'll not believe number 12!
--
[1] and not at all surprised to find someone has worked it out in detail and submitted a business plan if the numbers don't look atrocious
[2] the tech-savvy might be able to block the stalkiness, but the average person either can't or doesn't want to make the effort
[3] if not for regular rides, I can see a service offering one free ride in exchange for this access – Amazon offered me a £5 voucher in exchange for just the date of birth of my non-existent baby a while back (I'd been looking for something for a friend who is far less anti-child than I!)