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You may have never seen a good ad then. There was a period of time I would actively look at ads on penny-arcade, because the owners of the site only ever allowed ads (mostly for games) that they themselves could at least tangentially endorse. This meant I basically got hand curated ads for products I was genuinely interested in, by people who’s taste I understood if not agreed with.

That said this ended up being the exception to proof the rule about ads being mostly noise, and I agree the world would be better with less of them. And almost certainly the current state of algorithmic ad serving is a disaster.



Just like the guitar mags I grew up with. I looked at all the ads, and even bought stuff based on what I saw in competing ads along with gear reviews.

For that matter, the same goes for motorcycle magazines, and just about every other kind of magazine that caters to a niche market.

Those kinds of ads can be great, even.


Okay, but did those ads contribute anything beyond reading Penny Arcade's reviews of games? For you as a user, how does the ad improve your experience?




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