With the advent of the internet, it’s very obvious that almost all aspects of life have been affected. From entertainment to retail to social interaction to education, all aspects of life have been affected. In thinking about the rise of consumerism and global connectivity, advertising revenue models have individually popped up, which have dramatically shifted how companies can interact with consumers.
With regards to just general interactions (and pros of advertising revenue), on the surface, it seems like everyone is getting a win. The hosts of ads are receiving money, advertisers are getting their products marketed, and consumers are viewing content that they enjoy. On a surface level, this allows advertisers to carefully improve their products and tailor them towards a specific, curated market. This also means that consumers will start to behave similarly to groups that they already exist in.
However, there are also very strong negative consequences of the rise of consumerism/advertising revenue models. For one, there is minimal permissions asked of users and consumers. People who want ads to stop constantly flooding their attention have minimal say on if the ads should be allowed to continue. Furthermore, ads and data collection often incite privacy concerns, especially if user behavior is tracked.
With regards to our product for this class, we think that ads would likely not be an appropriate item to use. Specifically, we don’t want our app to devolve into a platform that has other companies’ ideas, which may detract from the idea of the app itself. This may work for a mobile game, but for our app, we want the users to feel connected to each other and not feel as though using our app is a chore/has a lot of friction.
