Why Do Facebook Ads Bother People?

Why do people worry about Facebook advertising?

Facebook

Currently, there are two types of Facebook ads.  One is a small ad that promotes a Facebook page or possibly a regular non-Facebook website.  These can be found on the right side of your news feed.  The second type of ad is a promoted post.  This appears in your actual feed and looks like a regular news feed item from one of your friends or “liked” pages, but is labeled as advertising.

Every time Facebook rolls out an update, people clamber to discuss whether advertising will become more “invasive” into the experience.   Every time Facebook shuffles things around or come up with new ideas, there is a huge outcry from people who would prefer it stays the same.  The biggest concern is that the ads become bigger or more distracting, but plenty of people complain loudly about them the way they are right now.

The question is … why?

We don’t pay for Facebook.  Even if we did, it might still have ads.  For hundreds of years people paid for the privilege of reading newspapers and magazines.  There are a lot of us who haven’t cracked one of those printed publications recently, but if you can get your hands on one, I urge you to flip to any page and look around.  Chances are you’ll find an advertisement, and it might even take up the whole page.

Yes … that’s right … we PAID for printed publications AND had to look at ads.

So, why does it bother people that a free social networking site that has to answer to shareholders is going to display ads, and they might not be small and easy to ignore?  Think about it and give me your opinions in comments below.