What do people think about advertising like this on lemmy? Should it be allowed? Could it be stopped?

slazer2au, 10 months ago

Ideally like the nsfw option I would like a sponsored tag to filter on. Even a tickbox to avoid sponsored stuff like the hide bot posts.

567PrimeMover, 10 months ago

I feel like “sponsored” implies that Lemmy (be it instance admins or any platform devs) are getting something out of it, which I don’t think is the case. Right now if advertisers are signing up and posting ads i see that as no different than junk mail in my email inbox. It’s garbage that benefits no one at best and actively harms the platform at worst.

And if Lemmy does decide to take advertiser dollars, they better step carefully. That’s one of the places the slippery slope fallacy actually does apply. I do NOT want the fediverse to turn into Reddit 2.0

slazer2au, 10 months ago

Lemmy doesn’t have to take a cut for it to be classified as a sponsored post.

Think about YouTube with their contains sponsored content tags in videos. YT takes no cuts from hello fresh or Nord VPN being advertised in a video. YT only gets money from the ads they roll.

567PrimeMover, 10 months ago

Yeah, that's a good point. But in that example there's at least a relationship between advertiser and content creator. The content creator is showing their audience an ad in return for money from the sponsor.

Anyone advertising on lemmy right now is just getting free ad space. There's no relationship between the advertiser and the platform/content creator. They don't give the platform money for better servers, nor do they give creators money to create engaging content. They're more akin to a parasite than anything of benefit.

37219, 10 months ago

I refuse to watch/read/hear any kind of adds.

One of the reasons why reddit app is trash.

jesterraiin, 10 months ago

If you’re asking me, I’m banning all advertisers and karma-fishers on the spot.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Speckle, 10 months ago

As the instance rules? So if anyone posts an advertising post the account is banned? Or each person blocking and moving on?

Sibbo, 10 months ago

It’s spam. Report it.

Mugmoor, 10 months ago

I like the way /r/3DPrinting handled ads. Their mods put it like this,

“It’s okay for a Redditor to have a business and share it. It’s not okay for a business to have a Reddit account and do the same.”

Basically, does that account contribute to the community outside of their business? If so, I don’t take issue with it.

Overzeetop, 10 months ago

See, I'm okay with a business having an account and offering assistance. They should not advertise or proselytize, though I think a basic announcement of a new product is in a gray area.

TheDoctorDonna, 10 months ago

But how can you trust that their advice or assistance is genuine and not just subtle marketing?

Overzeetop, 10 months ago

I mean, it fixes the problem someone asks about or it doesn't. If the ownership is transparent I don't see much issue. If you ask a question about the print speed of PLA+ at 205C on a PrusaXL and @BambuOfficial replies that it's 200mm/s (and it's wrong) but their Carbon prints at 500mm/s, then they get DV'ed and the mod determines if they're being a little bitch about things. Its a bit like open source - if there's enough eyes and enough participation, someone will note the correction and flag the post as malicious/advertising/assholerly.

If @JosefPrusa replies that it's 250mm/s currently and the next firmware that is getting released in a month will include adaptive heat profiling for 275mm/s, that's both useful information and marketing...and probably a welcome official response from a manufacturer.

TheDoctorDonna, 10 months ago

I do see your point, but I can also see how the account could be used to manipulate the consumer too, which makes me wary.

all-knight-party, 10 months ago

You could take that to a logical extreme and have companies providing valid product solutions to user problems, while conveniently making it seem like their product is the best choice or deal, while purposefully obfuscating or omitting other products that are actually a better choice, or even just a better choice depending on the user.

Ideally, a neutral user involved in the industry or hobby being asked about would offer general best purchasing advice based on their experience through a willingness to help people like them.

A company would have an extremely apparent incentive to only promote their products, and perhaps even leave out potential issues or caveats with their products since it'd reduce likelihood of a sale.

Again, this is all worst case, and not to say that doesn't already happen by concealing the company rep behind a seemingly anonymous user account, but allowing companies to dilute advice with monetary incentives seems a slippery slope.

I should've just not typed all of this and said: conflict of interest

Mugmoor, 10 months ago

That’s a great example of a business taking part in the community. If they go out of their way to be helpful like that, which costs the money, I’m okay with them trying to recoup a little bit through the goodwill they put in.

KevonLooney, 10 months ago

“It’s okay for a Redditor to have a business and share it. It’s not okay for a business to have a Reddit account and do the same.”

That distinction is so minor it’s useless. I block all people who post dumb shit, regardless of whether they’re a business or not.

At least there are no “sponsored” posts that can’t be blocked or downvoted. That’s the real problem. If Taco Bell wants to post “dank memes”, let them. Just don’t sticky the post so it survives based on the voting. I block the meme communities anyway.

HollowNotion, 10 months ago

That’s fine, but if someone is making something actually interesting for a community I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be able to share it, provided that’s not the only reason they’re around. That gets harder to moderate, but if we’re talking “perfect world”, that’s what I would want.

zuhayr, 10 months ago

I think when redittors give a product as a solution to a genuine problem asked about in the forums, (like use xyz software to handle your abc issue), that’s an advertisement as well and one we can all agree with having.

Maybe, and that’s a very distant maybe, if you have a solution that you know would interest people in a specific group, (like some car part deal in a car enthusiastic group), that can be put out there.

In any case, the general courtesy of mentioning your use case (owner, developer or just a user) of the product should be followed.

eric5949, 10 months ago

I saw a couple from instances with no posts this morning so I just added those instances to my instance’s block list. I don’t mind corporate accounts being on Lemmy, I do mind them posting straight up ads.

hahattpro, 10 months ago

Some dude is making a living.

It is blessed that he is trying to find customer for his trade, not trying to scam people.

Transcendant, 10 months ago

I don’t mind small businesses, creatives etc advertising themselves. When you’re self-employed, marketing / promo is incredibly difficult (speaking from personal experience). Like you say, people are free to downvote or block these ad posts. I’d be sad if I made a post promoting a service I offer as a (very!) small business and it got downvoted to oblivion out of reflexive (and understandable) ad hatred.

Once advertisers realise there are eyeballs to be reached here, they’re going to start posting. Imo it will be handled best on an instance-by-instance, or even community-by-community basis. I started a community for trance, and as an example I would not be happy if a massive multinational like Threads, or Nestle posted an ad there. I WOULD however, be happy if an event such as Luminosity, ASOT or small local club were to post an ad. There would probably have to be limits if it got out of hand.

Wooly, 10 months ago

I think there’s a big difference with an artist or OF model posting content and then linking to their stuff, it’s still an ad really but at least it’s relevant to the community.

These ads are just random posting, I saw the a hair transplant ad just in a random community. If they want to post a before and after pic in the bald community or whatever, that would be more acceptable. This is just annoying, bot like, spam.

lohrun, 10 months ago

Yeet ads to the shadow realm, we didn’t flee traditional corporatized social media just to repeat the same mistakes of monetizing literally everything

Caffeinated_Capybara, 10 months ago

Are these spam accounts? Then they should be banned. I could only see ads in the context of keeping the servers running. I think outside of that it doesn’t make sense for this kind of platform. If lemmy.world can run entirely off of donations, then I don’t see a reason for ads at all, especially if those ads don’t even contribute to keeping the lights on.

cedarmesa, 10 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

💀

xc2215x, 10 months ago

Reddit is far worse for it.

fubo, 10 months ago

The nature of spam is that it is parasitic. Spammers don’t pay for the resources they use for advertising. They’re not sponsoring the site or funding development. Instead, they’re stealing from the commons.

It’s important that spam be unsuccessful here. Multiple Internet services have been ruined by spam before.

Rottcodd, 10 months ago

I don’t concern myself with it.

At the moment, advertising is so rare and low key that I’d have to go out of my way to be bothered by it, and since there’s no reason to go out of my way to be bothered by something, I don’t.

I assume that as time goes on, there will be more advertising on some instances. I might not know sbout it, since I block any and all ads I can by default, but if I do start seeing them, then I’ll just block the instances that run them.

And that’s that.

DannyMac, 10 months ago

I guess it’s a good sign that the Fediverse is growing! :) -_-;