The Existence of Advertising Isn’t the Problem. UX is always the problem.
Two weeks ago, I wrote “Dear Medium, why didn’t you ask US?”
Know what the top highlight is?
A complete and total disregard for what the users want to see, that’s what the good old advertising model is.
I need to correct my own words. The existence of advertising, itself, isn’t the problem.
We’re all adults. We know companies need to make a profit.
If you think everything should be free, try paying your bills on volunteer work for a while. Safe to guess it wouldn’t work so well.
The problem isn’t advertising. It’s it’s user experience!
The television industry juggles that. How many ads can they cram into an hour before people quit watching? Imagine sitting for an hour to watch 20 minutes of show and 40 minutes of ads. Would you do it? Most wouldn’t.
User experience.
Imagine going to the Mayo Clinic website and not knowing which advice is legit and which is “sponsored” content that’s not labelled as such.
Would you trust them anymore? Could you?
User experience.
There’s not just one kind of advertising…
A lot of what we see online is the epitome of the worst advertising practices. Banners that outweigh content, interstitials that fill an entire phone screen, fake news and quackery abound. (One weird old trick!)
Just because some advertising is obnoxious, doesn’t mean all advertising is obnoxious. User experience.
Google runs 2–4 ads for every 10 organic listings and that practice hasn’t knocked them from the top of the search world. HARO runs a sponsored ad in every daily digest and it hasn’t destroyed the value to the reader.
Believe it or not, there’s actually advertising that enhances user experience.
It’s rare, but it’s out there.
The existence of advertising isn’t the problem.
Lousy user experience is why people hate advertising.
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