Google Pulls Beauty and the Beast 'ad' from Home

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
38,850
Users of Google Home have been up in arms about an ad for Disney's Beauty and the Beast making its way into their "My Day" updates. Google has now pulled it. According to Google this was not intended to be an ad, but rather a relevant calendar update. A company like Google certainly has to walk a fine line between bringing in that Google money, and not pissing off its users with its ads, so maybe it should't be a surprise that they make a mistake every now and then. To me, however, it should have been pretty evident that this one would have gone over like a lead balloon.

I guess sometimes organizations can have the kind of group think that can result in this sort if thing. In my opinion, Google should take this as a warning sign that their corporate culture may have become too disconnected from their user base, and make some much needed changes before it is too late.

He added that Google faces a different challenge to Amazon, which markets rival home assistant the Amazon Echo.
"Google's primary business model is predicated on advertising," he said.
"Whereas for Amazon its about transactional revenue where a voice assistant like Echo can help drive sales."
 
advertising however should be done as a a business model for service.
When you buy a product, you don't expect there to be unwanted ads associated with that product. Or else it should have been free or deeply discounted and should have been known that it comes with ads.
Like the phones you can get from amazon that are like 50$ off if you allow them to put ads on it.
I haven't been paying attention to the google home device and how it's marketed, but i'm going to assume from the user outrage it wasn't sold to them as a ad platform for google.
 
^^ It wasn't. I've got 7 of them throughout the house, they are great for what they advertised, smart home controls, whole home speakers, but they better not put ads on them or that shit's going on ebay if they don't pull it. I didn't pay close to $1000 for ads, just like the music subscription i bought from youtube, not to hear ads. If I wanted that shit I'd stay on the free side of life
 
Maybe in the last century. We can resist all we want but the new "normal" will be ads in everything you buy soon enough.
People will figure it out and not buy it.
Would you buy a car with ads all over it?
Would you buy a wifi router that pushes popup ads to you when your browsing?
Most people wouldn't buy it. Most people would try and return it/get their money back if their product started operating in a manner in which they didn't agree to or bought it knowing.

can't wait for windows 10 ads to really get here.
 
People will figure it out and not buy it.
Would you buy a car with ads all over it?
Would you buy a wifi router that pushes popup ads to you when your browsing?
Most people wouldn't buy it. Most people would try and return it/get their money back if their product started operating in a manner in which they didn't agree to or bought it knowing.

can't wait for windows 10 ads to really get here.
People buy cars with ads all the time. Dealership license plate frames are easy enough to swap, but some have a habit of slapping vinyl or even 3d badges onto the vehicles they sell. Do you get a discount for them sticking their advertising on your car? Dunno, personally I'd demand they pull that crap off.

I'm honestly surprised the ad driven wifi thing isn't happening already, but ad driven ISPs have already been a thing(like Net-Zero's free service years back). Hell, considering that some public access points intercept and inject crap into your browser, I wouldn't be shocked if they did it with ads(but then again, I don't use public wifi).

You drastically underestimate what people will put up with depending on the "perceived value" even if ads are involved. Hell, you may have a situation where something is free or heavily discounted but over time that cost rises. Yeah, people will buy it. You buy games, they start with ads. People pay for TV, littered with ads.
 
The little I've seen/heard about them didn't let me know they had ads. I would say people have a right to be upset if that fact had not been clearly revealed along the line somewhere.
 
"This wasn't intended to be an ad," said a spokeswoman.

"What's circulating online was a part of our My Day feature, where after providing helpful information about your day, we sometimes call out timely content.
Riiiiiiight... so like the exact reason companies track your surfing habits with cookies, to find out information about you to target you with more relevant ADS.
 
This is even funnier than paying for an overpriced phone bundled with a "free" OS that spies on everything you do.
 
Back
Top