Can boost choose better ads? Meta served ads pushing manipulative medical scams are not okay.

24 days ago by douglasg14b to c/boostforlemmy

I don't mind having ads, it provides income for boost from users who don't pay for it. This is okay, I'm not arguing against it.

However, trash tier ads pushing medical scams served up my meta of all places are another thing entirely.

That's not okay.

And no, "then just pay to use boost" isn't a valid response for a few reasons :

Not everyone will, and those that don't shouldn't be subject to manipulation and scams that could cause real world harm if they don't know any better. That looks bad for boost.
I run services myself and I don't hold my users hostage and use that as an excuse to get them to pay me money. A good user experience should convert users, not a bad one. I'd be surprised if you or boost do as well.

This is feedback for boost, not an invitation for flaming...

breadsmasher 62 points 24 days ago

… your lemmy client has ads?

use something else

voyager is great. zero ads.

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TragicNotCute 23 points 24 days ago

Voyager is excellent and ive been using it basically my entire 3 years here. Highly recommend. 0 ads or anything else you don’t want.

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cerebralhawks 12 points 24 days ago

Agree, it’s what I’m using as well.

Let’s assume OP isn’t an idiot. So why a paid or ad supported Lemmy client? Well, Boost was also a Reddit client, maybe OP is just a fan of the developer.

But still…

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real_squids 20 points 24 days ago

Can confirm, if you get used to it, it's very hard to switch to something else. Boost just feels right to me

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hanrahan 5 points 23 days ago

i used Boost for years, now using Summit and it's excellent.

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Rose 2 points 23 days ago

Summit was alright when Boost wouldn't display images on my end before that was fixed. I tried out Summit again more recently but it's just not the same experience and the difference is even bigger if you use light themes. I could never set up Summit in a way that would match my Boost experience.

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lastweakness 1 point 23 days ago

I used Sync for years before switching to Summit. It helped that I didn't really have a choice...

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db_null 22 points 23 days ago

There is a Lemmy client with ads served by Meta? Wild.

Voyager is my favourite, reminds me of Apollo in the good old reddit days.

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real_squids 14 points 24 days ago

blokada works fine (specifically, blokada 5)

edit: but also, consider paying the poor fella, not directing at you, i just think it's neat how the dev switched to lemmy

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cardfire 6 points 23 days ago

I'm so frustrated Boost for Lemmy won't let me pay, because I don't let Google Play Store have my identity and money, and there's no alternate path. I still use both the old Boost for Reddit app (revanced, worth it still to this day) and then this Lemmy app side by side.

I paid $5 for the old Boost multiple times. I'm seeing ads in this new one due to the Dev's inattention and lack of options for paying outside of Google. It's weird to be in this situation.

And yeah, the ads are awful. At least I know they aren't well targeted.

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frongt 5 points 24 days ago

Tap that little blue triangle thing and you should be able to report it.

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h_ramus 5 points 24 days ago

Summit app can new made very close to boost. Was on voyager but the Summit UI feels closer to what I'm familiar with. Give it a try, no ads and open source.

Summit App

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myyass 4 points 24 days ago

"I don’t mind having ads"

I take it that you're a bit younger than me and don't remember not getting spit roasted by advertising all day. It's not good for mental health nor society. I mean what next, consenting to getting strip searched to go on a flight or having to drink suck the verification can cock?

Pretty much all advertising is a scam.

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helpImTrappedOnline 4 points 24 days ago

Disclaimer; this is mostly off-hand knowage, might be a few details I missunderstand.

Quick edit, I'm rereading your post, and pretty sure you already know boost doesn't choose the ads, but asking to pick a different provider so..........oh well, I'm not gonna delete this.

Those adds aren't specifically chosen by Boost (or whatever site/app your using). It's whatever the ad provider decided to inject. Boost just says 'place add here' - its up to the ad provider to figure what ad to place here. The ad providers (google or facebook) use their algorithms to guess which adds your most likely to engage with, this why you'll see the same thing in multiple place, and ultimately the whole point of data collection - to sell us more shit.

If you're using Lemmy, it's probably fair to assume that you use some form of add/tracking blocker - which means the ads you get aren't targeted, and you get the ones that are paying to get broadcast randomly instead of focused based on user data (which I assume costs more, but gets a higher click through rate).

There's probably some settings the Boost developer can set up, but I'm not sure what the granularity is. Someone who has actually used the service would know, I can only assume there's some basic categories like language, age group, and generic things (music, tech, sports, ect) that determine if your site shows ads for matchbox cars or "hot (insert race&age) ladies in your area". I highly doubt there's a setting called "disable scam ads".

For a site/app to have full control of what ads they display, they would have to make deals with the actual business wanting to advertise (think a direct youtube sponser vs an auto-ad that plays whatever). For an independent ad developer that would be like giving yourself a full time marketing job, and for a business it would be a nightmare to manage every individual.

This is where the advertising agencies come in; "you pay us lots money of money and we'll find lots of "billboards" to show your ad to - give us more money and we'll only show your ad to people likely to buy your stuff"

And on the flip side "let us put a billboard here and we will pay you money everytime someone engages with it, things like popups/video/auto play = more money. We'll also buy any user data you have so we can optimize the billboards for maxium engagment, that way we can charge the businesses more to advertise and you can fund whatever you're doing (as long as it's advertsier friendly, but don't ask us for clear guidnece on that)".

Google wants to crush third party app stores/developers in the name of safety, but will gladly serve bullshit to users for as long as they get paid.

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TropicalDingdong 3 points 24 days ago

You are seeing ads? What kind of toxic bastards are injecting ads into the fediverse?

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limelight79 12 points 24 days ago

The app is showing them, not the fediverse.

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TropicalDingdong -2 points 24 days ago

Regardless. Its antithetical to the principles the fediverse is founded in and operates on.

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real_squids 12 points 24 days ago

Dev's gotta eat

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homosapien -2 points 23 days ago

That's not an excuse. Switch to Voyager or Blorp

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TropicalDingdong -3 points 23 days ago

They can have a pateron just like everyone else

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kingkong 2 points 24 days ago

ai slop scam fraud ads is a design feature by meta facebook. they have yet to be slapped even for their last q 15 billion in scam ads fraud ads. if there is any it would be cost of doing business with 50% profit margin on fraud by meta. and hallucinations of course.

anyone using anything meta should expect to be lied to. also twitter/x and any fang stonk right now

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MonkderVierte 1 point 23 days ago

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real_squids 1 point 24 days ago

Oh, adding onto this, google also serves some insanely shitty ads. I get a few reports here and there from (indirectly) working with them

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YiddishMcSquidish 1 point 23 days ago

A couple of weeks ago it was straight porn.

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cardfire 1 point 23 days ago

Ngl, I would probably prefer that to the ads I'm getting on Boost for Lemmy.

I wish we could just pay for the app. My avec to pay is disabled, and I don't let Google play run amok on my gear.

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southsamurai 1 point 23 days ago

Thing is, none of the other options are any better. You'll find scam and propaganda on all of them. Google, meta, whatever; they all just take the money and do not give a fuck.

It's essentially either pay, adblock, or just deal with the shitty ads.

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ayyy 0 points 23 days ago

There are a ton of ad-free options.

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southsamurai 1 point 23 days ago

sure, and? OP likes boost. They asked about boost.

Since boost, despite having flaws, is a fully functional app with a lot of options (including some that are either absent or poorly implemented in other apps), there's a lot of people that would br resistant the switching. It's not my top pick, but it's a good third option for when Sync fails.

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ayyy 0 points 23 days ago

Why would you use a client that injects ads? That’s malware behavior.

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