Comment by solenoid0937
5 days ago
> We managed OK before the internet enabled targeted ads. Back then, local newspapers were a thing (I still get them around here), and you could put an ad for your barber shop or dance hall in that
To be fair, we are in a wholly different world today. The small business landscape has changed dramatically - most of them are online. I get instagram ads for my really niche hobbies, and I don't mind.
Example: Let's say you're into "titanium miniature puzzles" (https://www.lazels.com/)
There is no chance of that business surviving based off of local newspaper ads alone - the likelihood of finding a viable customer base in your town is low. Generalized ads would be totally unaffordable to reach widely enough to cover your viable target customer base, which is sparse and global. Search based ads don't work because people don't even know this exists until they see it.
But good ad targeting enables instant global reach to the specific people that are likely to be interested in what you're selling. There may only be 1k-10k people globally interested in buying $500 titanium miniature puzzles, but if you can reach them, that's enough for your small business to survive.
Lots of small businesses rely on this. I'm not sure about "millions" but on the order of 100k seems likely, if you assume there's one interesting niche business for every 80k people.
That kind of example matches what I was saying about forums.
Targeting ads to a forum is (with consent) fine, in the way that targeting a person isn't.
I see what you mean - but I am not sure it would work for the "you don't know what you don't know" cases, or cases where the user isn't invested enough to follow the relevant forum.
I personally wasn't interested in miniature titanium puzzles until I saw the ad - I'm not interested in puzzles in general, so I wouldn't have found it via a puzzle forum.
The same pattern can be seen in my other hobbies (tritium collecting, mokume and titanium/zirconium Damascus items, unique independent watches, flashlight collecting, rocks).
I'm involved enough to buy something from an ad while scrolling through my friends' timelines or reels, but certainly not enough to frequent a forum on these topics. So I am not sure forums suffice.