I've often wondered what would happen if we _taxed_ advertising [0]. The same rationale applies: it'll never work, and it'll never even be tested, but I agree, it was fun to think about.
In Thailand signs are taxed based on its size, text language (Thai only, No text or multilingual text and Thai text are placed lower than other languages, Multilingual text), and static/dynamic (I assume this applies to both digital and trivision).
This also not only for advertising but also normal signs like the logo of the business on buildings. You'll see most people circumvent the more expensive multilingual rate by adding small Thai text at the top of the sign.
Unrelated, but another interesting fact is that some bus stops in Bangkok are completely funded by an advertising company. Of course, they'll get the ads space for free as a result, and they only offer it in viable locations. The current governor doesn't like this idea and settle for a less fancy bus stop paid by public money.
He talks about a Pigovian tax for ads, which is interesting. I don’t have any thoughts other than “yeah good idea.”
But, something I haven’t fully worked out but have vague suspicions about: are ads actually a tax-favorable business model under the current system? We watch ads in exchange for some service, if it wasn’t an ad-supported service we’d have to pay money for it, and that transaction would be taxed.
Of course, the transaction between the ad network and the company placing the ad is taxed. But it seems like they could have a lot of play, as far as picking where that transaction takes place…
Ads should at least be taxed as heavily as if we had paid for the thing with money, IMO.
You're forgetting a very important problem: hard to implement. Sugar in drinks and CO2 emissions are easily measured. The definition of what's an ad is much harder.
> “A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.”
This is _such_ a good article -- although it's not _just_ CEOs that make this mistake!
I've used the "Icerberg Principle" to explain this kind of thing many times. And it's true not just for AI but for almost any kind of non-trivial, production-grade tech. The things under the water cannot be an afterthought; they're essential. The problem, however, is that people without what I call "sympathy for software" often fail to see this nuance and complexity.
As an engineer, it's no use lamenting this fact or expecting things to be any different, because they will _never_ change. Your job as a CTO ends up morphing into the "Chief Vocabulary Officer", where you need to communicate these complexities in ways that people _can_ understand.
Not AI specific but Joel On Software covered a lot of the same material and thinking, written a lot better, about 20 years ago - but that is because this is an evergreen problem - getting leaders to understand that a prototype is just a test or a demo, no a path to the solution.
A previous company had a rule that all prototypes were built with the express intention of throwing them away - no prototype code could ever make its way to live.
As an infrequent user of iMovie (and a past user of Xcode), I think that iMovie really gives Xcode a run for its money in bad UX. How that app got out of the lab like that is profoundly beyond my understanding. It’s not just bugs as such, but actively user-hostile as though a team of people really worked hard with the goal to make the most infuriatingly inconsistent and unintuitive app imaginable.
> “A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.”
I have this up on my wall and refer to it constantly (for both tech and non-tech challenges).
Sorry, it didn't land for you. It's something I've used for a while ("glass" for the screen, and "tin" for the back-end). Perhaps I'm showing my age or my Aussie slang. Thanks for reading, in any case!
You use the phrase twice in the article. Could I ask you to put an asterisk by the first one too?
(I came across it, stopped reading the article to Google it, couldn't find it so came to HN to search the comments and then went back to the article and saw the asterisk later on)
I’m genuinely surprised how much controversy this statement has caused. It’s something I’ve said many times in a professional environment and literally no one has ever picked me up on it. Makes me wonder if they were _ever_ listening …
Hahaha! dw, no controversy from me, just googled it's meaning and couldn't find an answer, so was confused. (and wanted the asterisk to help the future people out)
It could be a more local idiom common in your company/area or something?
[0]: https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0177-what-if-we-taxed-adver...