I know people who just automatically click yes. I don't think they ever even cared to read what is says. They just have the habit to click yes to every prompt to "make sure it works"

Decades of bad UI design have trained people to click away these kinds of things without reading them. Even people like you or I who should otherwise know better frequently do it.

I wonder what percentage would remain if the no-consent button was the primary button (filled button, saturated colour, bold font, etc.) and the consent button the secondary (outlined or transparent background without a border, regular font, etc.). I can't imagine it going much above 0, and I'd even guess that the ones who do consent intended not to consent but are expecting it to be the de-emphasised button.

He switched the yes/no button position... they would have automatically click "no" instead...

"What are the benefits? "

? That the site exists in the first place ?

Why is it so hard for people to do business math and these conversations on HN never have anything to do with material reality of the parties involved?

It's understandable that we all want something for free - that's easy - but it's not understandable that we can't grasp how revenue is used to pay journalists etc.. We know they're all on the edge of going out of business and that thousands of news organisations are gone.

Whatever our 'personal cost' is, targeting ads definitely works, it makes money.

So that's the 'benefit' - you get people doing labour for you which otherwise, you'd have to pay for.

Needing ad revenue and needing to track visitors are different things.

Structurally obviously we are now in a situation where “well targeted ads” can generate some revenue, and “well behaved ads” barely can. The future has to be one where dumber ads pay more because tracking isn’t technically possible and/or illegal.

> The future has to be one where dumber ads pay more because tracking isn’t technically possible and/or illegal.

The other option is that everything ad supported goes out of business because the ROI on dumb ads is negative.

I don't want to sound like I know this for a fact, but I'd just like to point out that the future doesn't "have" to be anything. There are always multiple options.

> The other option is that everything ad supported goes out of business because the ROI on dumb ads is negative.

Yes by “has to be” I was expressing a personal desire and prediction, nothing else.

It’s probably not one or the other but somewhere in between.

That's fair. I think I was tired when I read your original comment.

You have a nice day.

We have a past where dumb ads used to work reasonably well, and could sustain a huge diversity of publications of all sizes.

There may be some reason why this can't work again, but all of the reasons I can come up with point to a higher ROI for those ads, not lower.

You mean we are going to see proportionally more content from people who actually know what they are writing about rather than professional clickbait writers? Doesn't seem so bleak to me.

I am afraid the incentives are we'll see more press releases from sources. Guess who has an interest in paying to publish and host things? Those who have content which makes them look good. Not exclusively of course but certainly a higher proportion. Ironically the clickbait crap makes that sort of shilling less effective akin to how TV ads have less influence with streaming. It displaces the views and thus reduces incentive to produce it.

'Unpaid home hobbyist writers' don't have more credibility than newsrooms, with budgets, copy editors, massive networks of sources, researchers, professional staff support - which costs money.

I thought the 00s proved that embarassingly that they did, as five minutes of fact checking with a search engine proved they had gotten Middle School level facts deeply wrong.

This is a little bit sarcasm, fine but there news is professional business.

Random bloggers generally don't have credibility, they can in some instances check facts and even break big stories and so so in a very credible way, however, there's little incentive and they have no power, because they don't make money and mostly don't have an audience. More importantly, nobody cares about them. If they want to speak to 'The Minister of Defence' about an important event, the Minister will not respond. When the BBC/CBC/CNN needs that interview, the Minister will likely, if there's something on the agenda.

Because they don't have credibility, sources won't trust them which is the most major source of difficult-to-get-at information.

Wikileaks and other teams had to build credibility.

And of course the fact that news rooms cover a massive array of subjects.

Resigning the entirety of news to 'some checks on Google' is glib.

I would rather have the law lay the ground rules of what's acceptable in a society. "Free markets" (not totally free, but free enough) can adapt to the new terrain. IMO, most laws trying to get into the weeds and direct desirable business models end badly. They entrench current models, reward easily gamed metrics but not the intended results, or are written by lobbyists.

Even tracking ads don't allow many sites to make a decent dollar!

But if we assume that tracking ads provide enough revenue, and we make the tracking illegal, once the market settles I bet that non-tracking ads will be reasonably close.

> Ergo they are out of business and you get severely limited content

Yes. That’s a side effect I think needs to be taken into account. I see ad blocking and the GDPR as a way of cleaning out bad actors (and their content), but hopefully also a way to give an advantage to good actors. Like authorities shutting down restaurants that don’t pay their taxes. The selection short term goes down, jobs are affected etc., but it’s unfair competition if they aren’t playing fair.

> where is this 'magical ad tech' that enables newsies to make a decent dolllar? It's non existent.

To be clear I don’t mind if ad blocking and the GDPR in concert work to kill 90% of the 2000-2020 era web in terms of “free content”. Should the survival of online firms, content producers, the adtech industry etc even be a consideration here?

> people can chose to share some basic information

I’m all for that. But without transparency like what the GDPR tries to enforce, people aren’t making an informed decision.

I never consent to anything even on sites I really enjoy and wish would survive, because I don’t trust the chain of actors involved, nor do I understand exactly what I consent to.

But I’d be happy to fill in an extremely detailed survey about everything I’m interested in down to my shoe size, and have that data accessible by any site without even asking me. That together with the browsing context should be more than enough to show targeted ads.

In the end this discussion usually comes down to the question “yes you think subscriptions etc is better but don’t you think others should be free to pay with PII if both sides of the transaction agree? They are adults after all” to which my answer is basically “no”.

I consent to website 'Measurement' cookies - I'm happy for most websites to do statistical analysis on their visitors. I opt out of marketing cookies etc.

The author of the article mentioned a GDPR compliant alternative to google analytics that doesn't require users to give consent for tracking simply by not relying on personally identifiable information.

I was told it would make my shopping experience more targeted. That I would want my materialism overlords to have a detailed accounting of my wants and likes to make consuming oh so much easier.

The same reason I enable telemetry in software I use - I want the system to be optimized for my usage pattern.

Except that tracking here is used for advertisment and not to give you a better service. Would you still accept it ?

Some people would rather have products they are interested in rather than products they aren't interested in

Some people would rather have products relevant to the site they are on rather than products irrelevant to the site they are on

Presumably those are the 90% of people who, given the choice, opt out.

Products that you didn't find yourself by deliberately searching for them are never the products you want.

I would certainly. Have you seen the kind of ads people can get on Youtube for example? There's some crazy bullshit there. I would regularly go to Google Ads preference page and correct their profile of myself (sadly many time that would means that I keep getting the same 2-3 ads because it then become too specific, but it's much better than the alternative). I also advise it to people that complains about ads on Youtube. It's also a great way to show people what Google can infers easily from you using your data. Luckily now Google let you pay to get Youtube without ad, so that's what I do.

If tracking means the website I enjoy get more money out of me, and that I get better ads for it, I'm all for it. For website I don't enjoy, I agree completely, I wouldn't share anything with them, but I would also try to avoid them, so essentially, I do that naturally consent or not.

Google (search) had that kicking-ass feature that it would show you some 20 ads relevant to your query clearly marked on the side bar. It was incredibly useful.

Then they decided to track everybody, so the ads stopped being relevant and were just about stuff you were already looking for and for the pages you have already opened. Useless as it became, people stopped clicking and they had to start the dark patterns of mixing the ads with content, and filling the first page with it.

Now you are saying tracking is improving your experience, but you just said the ads are useless. Why is that? Are the original ads harmful? And you are protecting from that by surrendering extra information?

> Now you are saying tracking is improving your experience, but you just said the ads are useless.

Where did I say that ads are useless? That's kind of scary that you come to that conclusion from my comment.

Is it because I am talking about ads available on Youtube? I hope you don't get theses ads, but there's some crappy ads on there that most people will see, unless Google believe you fit in theses criterias (thus crappy ads some people gets).

Normally I would have suggested you to go find a conspiracy theory channel and then watch what Youtube would give you afterward, but I think Google fixed that. At one point I was interested in watching people debunk flat earth conspiracy theory, and god my whole Youtube experience changed, I stopped doing that quickly.

> Google (search) had that kicking-ass feature that it would show you some 20 ads relevant to your query clearly marked on the side bar. It was incredibly useful.

Incredibly useful for what? The end goal of any ads is to make a sale (it can be extremely long term, but still, it's to get cash out of you). In the past few days I watched videos on theses 3 channels:

- Baumgartner Restoration

This one is about art restoration. I like to watch it on the side while doing something else, or right before sleeping, it's amazing, you should try it. Will I ever buy any art related stuff? Unlikely... Art restoration? Unlikely...

- Mathilda Hogberg

Someone that did a MTF transition. I got her on my suggestion feed, no idea why, but I was interested in the result of a full transition so I decided to watch it and then some others of her video. I'm not considering transition, I don't have her taste, I don't have much related to her. Would I buy anything then in this sphere? Unlikely

- Micarah Tewers

She makes dress and is quite interested into historical dresses. She is funny, have a quirky personnality, is quite ressourceful, and what made me enjoy her content is a rant she did about historical dresses on a recent winner of a Best costume award. I'm not considering buying a dress, nor am I interested in making one (I am male just in case it make it more relevant to you).

So in total, for theses 3 channels, ads would have been a waste on me considering the content. I watched at least 3-4 hours in between all 3 channels and they deserve to be paid for producing that content that I enjoyed. Luckily I am a Youtube Red subscriber, so they'll get paid whatever happen, but if I wasn't, then they would have gotten nothing out of my views.

I should receive a Ryzen 5 3600 tomorrow (not an XT sadly, but $/performance a 3600 is better). Google knew it, perfectly well believe me, my suggestions confirm it ;). If any reseller had any ads over one of theses videos, I would have most likely brought it from them. That's what happened when I bought my first netbook in 2010, Google Ads on Gmail (never mentioned it on any email, Google got it from a previous search). So if I had an ad about that processor or any related component, well maybe Baumgartner Restoration, Mathilda Hogberg or Micarah Tewers would have gotten a bit more from ads that I viewed ;).

> Useless as it became, people stopped clicking

That's a big assumption. Google is a trillion dollar industry and that's not from Youtube, it's all from ads. You don't become a trillion dollar industry by doing worst, but by doing more. Why would you then assume it made less money and not that it was simply a way to make more money? It's crazier considering then that you consider that their next step was a solution to make more money... Both tracking and mixing ads with result were to make more money.

> Are the original ads harmful?

What? Harmful? I'm really interested in your thought process, third time now that I ask myself how you get to a conclusion, in 3 paragraphs. The original ads were not as useful. I don't care about dress, please don't show theses ads to me, you will lose screen estate and you are assured to get no click from me, you are losing money by providing me a service that I can't pay for. Show me what I may be interested in buying, and that's most likely be technologically related, even on a art restoration channel.

> And you are protecting from that by surrendering extra information?

I am protecting? Like myself? No I protect the service and his likeliness to get money out of me. That extra information, I give it voluntarily already. If I search on Google, I am telling Google that I am interested in theses things. It's not extra information.

The 9% is probably people trying to opt out by selecting the minimum amount of cookies and hitting the big green "Accept all cookies" button instead of the small gray "save changes" button.

On this case, the form is very simple and clear. So I don't think you can easily brush them off. It could be affected by some people really not caring/understanding. It could also be affected by some people wanting to support the website.

I honestly kind of like getting instagram ads relevant to my interests. Right now I'm getting a lot of solar charge controllers.

But that's not how advertising normally works.

They don't want peanuts from solar charge controller companies, they want big money from say political campaigns whose ads or news articles will read "<opposing-politician> wants to defund solar" or "<our-politician> loves solar".