Not so much it seems:
Research on the causal effects of online advertising on consumer well-being has been limited due to the challenges of conducting large-scale field trials and tracking results over a long period of time. We analyze a long-term experimental field of online advertising in which a random subset of 0.5% of all users is assigned to a group that has never seen ads. We recruit a representative sample of Facebook users from ad and ad-free groups and estimate their social benefits from using Facebook using a series of incentive-based choice experiments. We find no significant difference in social benefits from Facebook. Our estimates are fairly accurate reflecting our large sample size (53,166 participants). Specifically, there is little noticeable difference in the average rates for standard limits of $3.18/month compared to the base rate of $31.95/month for opting out of Facebook. That is, we can reject the hypothesis that the median error from advertising exceeds 10% of the median base estimate. Our findings suggest that consumer advertising’s disutility may be relatively minor, or have countervailing benefits, such as helping consumers find preferred products and services.
That’s according to a new NBER working paper on
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