Video Ads Are Coming to All Your Uber Apps | The Wall Street Journal

dirtmayor@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 96 points –
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What the fuck? You're already paying out the ass to get food delivered why are they shoving ads in your face?

But what are you going to do about it, go pick up food yourself like some plebeian?

We should all be thankful that our Uber Eats Chipotle burrito only costs $57. These ads should help maintain these ultra low food prices.

I'm so fucking tired of advertisements. I'm sick and tired of it.

That's basically why I am here. I can't go back to Reddit's official app and its ads after using Boost and Joey for years.

Agreed.. Augmented reality is going to be a nightmare hahah

There are ways around adds; alternative apps, addblockers, roms and privacy focused browsers. The only mandatory adds are on street corners imo

If adblockers didn't work, I'd be living alone in the woods somewhere.

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Me too, I've basically left all traditional social media because of it.

This, I feel monetized. I dont like that feeling and it's the one of the reasons i've stopped using reddit

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Apps that autoplay video adds really don't respect people on mobile metered connections. Especially if these videos are 90 seconds long. This is such a greedy addition to an app where you are already paying for a product...

The over-commercialization of everyday life we see in the Cyberpunk genre is finally becoming real. Now where’s my flying car?

At least let me get some cybernetic enhancements off the street or something...

69,666 ads away to enter the raffle. Start watching.

Why the fuck are ads even profitable? Seriously? Who actually sees an ad and thinks "I'm going to buy this product"? When I see an ad I think "fuck you" and I'm less likely to buy their product.

You'd be surprised. Advertisers wouldn't be running the ads if they didn't have positive ROI (return on investment). A good ROI is usually at least 5x (that is, for every dollar the advertiser spends on ads, they make five dollars). Google's estimates are even higher at 8x:

we conservatively estimate that for every $1 a business spends on Google Ads, they receive $8 in profit through Google Search and Ads.

(source: https://economicimpact.google/methodology/)

Retargeting ads - the ones where you view a product somewhere then see ads for it on Google, Facebook, etc - are especially successful. They have a very good clickthrough rate since the product is already something the user expressed interest in.

People who are very anti-corporation/advertising/etc are unfortunately a minority.

They’re paying for a portion of your attention. They’re slowly building an association with their product such that when you finally get around to buying say a VPN subscription your first thought is “Nord.”

It’s not going to affect everyone the same, for instance my thoughts on VPNs are “anything but Nord”; but they only need a fraction of users to develop a positive association with their brand.

Nord's cheap and keeps my ISP off my ass for torrenting. That's all I need.

so do 100 other options, though.

but nord is a huge advertising spender so it's what most people associate with 'vpn'

They’re everywhere to the point where I wish I had an adblocker built into my eyeballs. Watching NHL there’s ads on the ice, the jerseys, the helmets, popping in from the sides, overlaying the score etc. it’s so out of control and that’s just one thing.

Either it’s a giant pyramid scheme that keeps getting money funnelled into it or if this shit really just works. The sheer amount of money spent on it is absurd, sometimes as much as the budget of some movies to promote said movies.

non-paywalled link: https://archive.is/foKCB

The reason simply seems to be a: "Well, what are you gonna do? We want to squeeze every cent out of you"

What am I gonna do? Simple. Just stop using your services. You either respect your customer or you don't. There are plenty of alternatives.

I don’t use any services with ads. None. This will be the end of me using Uber.

Video ads will run on the primary Uber app while users wait for their drivers to arrive and during their trips, said Mark Grether, vice president and general manager of Uber Technologies’ advertising division. They will also appear on tablets installed inside certain Uber cars.

The Uber Eats app will play video ads after customers place orders and continue until their deliveries arrive; Drizly will run them in search results on its app and website as well as other areas of the site.

Why do they think anyone will leave the app open after ordering, if it just plays ads nonstop? Is the idea that each time they load it to check their order status an ad starts playing?

Audio for ads on the company’s apps will be muted by default, while users will need to manually turn off the audio and display components of the in-ride tablets, according to Grether. Ad inventory will initially be sold directly to buyers in the form of brand takeover packages, with only one company’s ads running during any single ride or transaction.

In-car tablets with audio-enabled ads for a single company on repeat. Poor poor drivers.

I bet the first thing a driver will say once a patron gets in is "you can click this button right here to disable the ad (please please please)"

Wait, so there's ads playing in the car, but the driver doesn't get any extra revenue as a result? Why would the drivers even allow that? If I were a driver and was forced to install those tablets, I'd probably just unsolder the speaker.

Maybe they do get paid extra? I'm not sure.

Or maybe they'll prioritize drivers who have the advertising package. Wouldn't want riders to get an inferior (read: less ad-filled) experience, now would we?

This is so egregious that it sounds like a scene from a cyberpunk movie. Almost humourously bizarre.

I’ll be happy if they go through with this. I already have trouble resisting the lure of easy access food, but this will help me kick that habit.

Are they expecting people to pay for the service, AND watch ads?

It's worked for cable TV (and some streaming services) for a long time. I guess other companies want in on it too. Strange to see Uber doing it though.

Are people really spending that much time in the uber app that the money they'll make is worth the community reaction??

I’m still too broken up about Google Readers untimely death.

But really, I have been using more RSS feeds lately too. The only issue I have been having recently is that a lot of the websites that offer RSS don’t push the whole article to my feed and I still have to go to their website so they can serve me their ads.

I think the ad driven revenue streams are what is gonna keep us from seeing a major RSS resurgence.

have you tried the RSS feeds from Lemmy yet? I havent I was just wondering

Give FreshRSS a shot if you can self-host. It's actually quite nice!

I have been running moonmoon for a while but its EXTREMELY minimalist and I think abandoned at this point. FreshRSS seems like a promising replacement tho. Since I already have the VPS, I may just throw that on there instead. Thanks for the recommendation!

with 0 uber apps on my phone I will see exaclty 0 ads :)

I am so sick of ads being everywhere. It's such a mental load.

same. fortunately with all the apps I use, I havnt seen an ad anywhere in ages, not on youtube, ig, web, anywhere

My pihole helps quite a bit, but some still sneak in. I had to use a VPN to get a cheap rate for Youtube premium which helps a ton. Instagram ads and mail ads are unavoidable still.

mail ads? on instagram, i use instander (android)

Yes, at least in the US, we get a ton of ads via mail (post). It's a huge pain. I use iOS and I don't think there are any Instagram alternative apps.

oh i remember, i get tons of email ads, theyre just in a separate tab lol. so i never see them

I mean physical mail, lol. You go out to your mailbox and have a handful of crap that you have to throw away.

I genuinely believe ads are a form of pollution. The pollution they spread is psychological but it’s pollution nonetheless, ads exist to make us feel bad about something enough to make a purchase and why shouldn’t things that exist to make us feel bad be removed from our environment?

Absolutely. It's loud, bright, disruptive and disrespectful. And it can make some things and places less accessible. In the last 5-7 years it's really gone out of control. We need serious regulations.

They can't show you ads if you don't have their app installed.

Uber and lyft both work on web mobile. Still a good reason to not use uber though.

Uber is learning from social media apps

Hahahahahahahahaha.

People begged city hall to allow Uber to operate here. Begged. I wonder how they're going to play apologetics for this now.

Huh. Guess I won't be using Uber's apps then. Anytime I'm a paying customer I do not want to see ads shoved in my face. Good thing there's competition.

It says no subscribed communities even though I am subbed to multiple different communities.

Edit: I refreshed the app and that seems to have fixed it.

@dirtmayor That's not an issue if you rarely open them 😎👉👉

But yea, if you have a low powered device you just want to get to your destination quicker. You do not want to wait for a full ad to finish in order to get to your drive.

(okay, this might not be an issue if you wait for your car anyway, but still).