Happy Nice Mall

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I have nothing against ads. They make it more convenient for us to watch “Monday Night Football” and read The New York Times. I love a well-made crying TV commercial.

What I don’t like is the young companies that have become addicted to advertisements – to our detriment and perhaps to theirs.

DoorDash started delivering this week more prominent placement to restaurants that pay for their listings when people are looking for pizza or tacos. Competitors Uber Eats and Grubhub offer similar ads. Instacart, a grocery delivery company, getting wider paid product placements. Even Amazon continues to hand over more shopping real estate to the merchants who pay us to burn the dog beds.

At best, ads can help us find something we didn’t know we wanted and save money. (Coupons are also advertisements.) The trick is to strike the right balance between serving the companies that pay the advertising bill and the interests of us on the receiving end.

I’m afraid more companies have made the switch from a fair advertising trade to the devil’s bargain. Companies like DoorDash, Instacart, and Amazon are putting our online browsing and buying experience at risk. pathetic by cramming more and often irrelevant ads. And let’s be honest: Seeing a burger restaurant in a prime spot on Uber Eats isn’t helpful, not because the food is good, but because it pays for the privilege of being seen there.

Companies that get into advertising as a side hustle rely on advertising for two reasons: peer pressure and to cover up the financial flaws of app-based delivery services.

I am understanding. Getting couriers to restaurants or grocery stores and then to your door is hard work. I understand why Instacart took money from Altoids to be the first product listed in the app’s snacks section. I understand why the Altoids are willing to pay to stand out.

And traditional supermarkets have been doing this for a long time. Those chips at the end of the hall may have paid the store to be there.

We still don’t have to be happy to glorify some useless marketing in the next generation of shopping that promises to be better. And there’s something wrong with navigating the aisles while the company makes money by diverting us from one brand of toothpaste to another, whether it’s a physical store or an app.

Jason GoldbergDigital advertising has become a race to the bottom, said the chief business strategy officer at advertising firm Publicis Communications.

Three companies that are essential portals for online information — Google, Facebook and Amazon – all slowly started to translate ads. They’re giving more screen space to links, posts, or products from companies that pay to view them, and less room for information that companies determine may be most relevant to us.

Goldberg said the constant shifting of more ads in traditional media like online and TV is forcing everyone to consider doing the same.

The best defense of what companies like DoorDash, Instacart, and Amazon are doing is that ads can make convenience services more affordable. boss of Instacart told this ad helps to lower grocery delivery prices. DoorDash can charge lower commissions for most restaurants and offer paid promotions for those willing to pay for it.

Now I’ll be the usual grunt crank: If the delivery apps or other convenience services we love need to be supplemented by ads we hate, maybe those convenience services has no financial meaning?

Sridhar Ramaswamy, former head of Google’s advertising arm, described advertising as a “stress relief valve” for companies feeling financial pressure. “Sounds like free money,” he told me.

Ramaswamy left Google and founded an ad-free digital search company named Neeva, who earns money from the subscriptions of people who pay for the service. I don’t know if Neeva will be successful. But we should be glad that more companies are trying to break their bad advertising habits.

Before you go …

• Is Instagram bad for kids? Complicated. My Colleague Jessica Grose into some research whether social media use makes teen girls feel worse and offers tips to parents. New York Times Opinion’s Farhad Manjoo takes us on a brief history of moral panics He talks about video games, “sex” and city gangs, and says that exaggerated fears risk distracting us from underlying problems.

• Okay, *who* makes a living online? Axios poses an important question: Is the creative economy doing what they love on YouTube, Twitch or Substack more democratic than the old entertainment and media industries? Or only 1 percent of stars live a good life, and everyone rushing for peanuts?

• How Slack is changing office work: Atlantic did a long read on how Slack and similar chat apps for office workers are blurring the lines between work and life. and give workers the ability to challenge their bosses. We’re still trying to understand how technologies like this affect the way people interact.

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Alyssa Barry makes engaging TikTok videos about life in a Florida animal shelter. This Wilbur the pig “helps” Barry on his morning tours. (I first read this TikTok account from my colleague Julia Jacobs.)

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