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Gabriele Svelto

I made an experiment. Went to YouTube front page, blocked all the AI/crypto scam ads that popped up and then refreshed the page. They stopped coming after 13 iterations during which I blocked 17 different ads.

I'd really love to know how much of the ad business is made up of scams, because it feels like it's a lot.

@gabrielesvelto the stupidest thing is those platforms that have a "see less of this" option, but then it seems to count as engagement and it shoves even more of those ads in your face.

@gabrielesvelto @jonkoops

It's impossible to get the suggestion algorithms to stop trying to make me watch Joe Rogan/Jordan Peterson videos. They see from the metadata that I must be a white guy and shovel white nationalism at me like casey jones and seem to count dislikes as engagement. Gotta block the individual channels (of which there are so many) they keep suggesting to stop seeing them.

@hub I think there's nuance in there. I taught my kids that ads are lies. There will be exaggerated claims, manipulation, attempts to give you FOMO, etc... But they're still trying to sell you *something*. Maybe something useless but still something. Ads peddling scams are a brand new level of bullshit.

@gabrielesvelto they fake numbers to charge more. They claim to target, they don't. Etc. Two different scams going at once.

@hub yeah, this would warrant a yo dawg meme about scams within scams

@gabrielesvelto

Ad is a scam otherwise there would be not need to pay for it. The distributor would find intrinsic value in distributing it.

@gabrielesvelto

Seems like, if I were running scams, I'd put in big orders of CHEAP ad space. You need to find the 10% of people that are dumb enough to bite and still have money.

Most of my online advertising being this low tier garbage means to me either that I'm not a good demographic (algorithm can't find an advert willing to pay more) or that they're running out of high quality impressions to sell.

@Orb2069 I think it could be the latter. The only cost involved in these scams are the ads. So even if they funnel 90% of what they're making into more ads, they still profit from them. In turn that means they could actually make up a good chunk of the ad network's business.

@Orb2069 the only other type of ads that is so pervasive is for pay-to-win mobile games, and that's another business where the bulk of the costs is marketing, so they absolutely inundate the ad networks with junk.

@gabrielesvelto
This doesn't bode well for ad based Web services, advertising as a whole OR the economy.