16 Jun 2024

happy Father’s Day, here’s a Dad joke

Ready? Joke time. Here’s an old one.

What’s the difference between a donut and a turd?

I don’t know.

Remind me never to send you out for donuts.

What reminded me of that joke is all the surveillance advertising companies going on about how surveillance advertising is so good for small businesses. But if they have so much trouble telling small businesses and fraud apart, how can they know? Maybe surveillance ads are just better for fraud. The interesting comparison to make is not between a legit business at times they have surveillance advertising on or off, because the scammers competing to reach the same customers are leaving the surveillance ads on. IMHO you have to look from the customer side. If surveillance advertising helps legit companies reach people who can benefit from their products, then people who use ad blockers or privacy tools should be less happy with the stuff they buy.

Instead, people who installed ad blockers for a study turned out to be less likely to regret their recent purchases, and that’s surprising enough to be worth digging into. Maybe it’s not fraud, just drop-shippers. Lots of drop-shippers/social media advertisers are finding existing cheap products, marking them up, and selling using surveillance ads. It’s not illegal, but the people who click the ads end up paying more money for the same stuff. Maybe the reason that the ad blocker users are happier as shoppers is that they search out and buy, say, a $20 product for $20 instead of paying a drop-shipper $99? Or maybe ad blocker users are just making fewer but better thought out purchases?

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