I use ad blockers and open source privacy focused software whenever I can but occasionally I have to use computers that don’t belong to me or an older phone where my usual applications aren’t installed and seeing all the advertisements just feels dirty and dystopian.
I think the worst ads are the text to speech ones that say “Download this app today”. The unblinking energenic people saying you can make a living at home are probably a close second.
Same, it’s so weird seeing normal TV or using the internet without blockers. Feels like living in Idiocracy.
One of my most used sites has a banner that says “Sign up for a small fee to remove the ads.”
I was a confused for a second, because I had never seen one.
Tried the site with another browser with my default protection off and holy shit, so many ads. The webpage is mostly unusable because of the shear number.
Yeah I agree.
It’s made me very intolerant of ads. It’s kind of surprising how much effort I will invest to avoid ads, and avoid supporting people who make a living from advertising revenue.
people who make a living from advertising revenue
That’s a lot of people, lad…
…just imagine if they were all doing something productive instead.
Props to @[email protected] for helping to discourage their parasitic behavior and ushering them toward career paths that might actually utilize their potential in a positive way!
Lots of the web is still run by advertising revenue. I know a few of the sites I like to go to rely on advertisting. I certainly don’t consider them parasites like you do, they’re just working within the system, because the alternative is to not exist, and I’d rather not have that.
That or force a subscription to use which I think nobody really wants
False dichotomy.
There’s loads of ways for content producers to get paid.
I don’t think that’s true at all.
If advertising didn’t exist then content producers and content consumers would embrace an alternative funding model because everyone wants content.
Enough to pay for it? Nope. I’ve been on the other sides of this equation, that is a very naive take.
Enough to pay for it … if it’s good enough to be worth paying for.
It’s that last part that kills most content creators. There’s people whose work I’ll idly browse as long as I don’t have to pay for it (even with ads: I love my ad blocker!). But you’re right, 99.44% of content creators whose work I idly look over would not get a single red cent out of me from direct payment.
So maybe it would be good to switch to payment-only schemes. That would kill off the crap creators and leave those behind who make something people think is worth paying for.
I mean … I still pay for books and music. I do pay for content. Just not shit content.
Enough to pay for it … if it’s good enough to be worth paying for.
I’ll give you an example. I use a site called lacemarket which is a buying/selling site for a niche hobby of Japanese street fashion. It will never be popular enough that enough people would be using the site in order for them to make enough to pay for hosting the site.
So they’re forced to run ad’s cause they have no other way to keep the site up. The owners are also not taking a percentage of people’s sales so they can continue to bring in people who want to use the site. But in order to not take money from the sellers, the only other option they have to keep the site running is ad funding.
It sucks but its too niche to do it any other way.
You mean you’re a content producer that couldn’t get people to support you directly? Did ad revenue solve the problem?
If advertising didn’t exist other funding models would be embraced.
Alright so journalists and reviewers can fuck off, then?
Journalists don’t make money from advertising revenue. Reviewers can fuck off.
Actually, since the Internet began to be public domain, physical newspapers has lower and lower sales. Since people can find the news online. This is one reason behind ads online.
Today, many local areas have nobody that works as a journalist, no local news=local politicians can do whatever they want without anybody question them.
So, what do you prefer? A community that has journalists asking the tough questions, digging for dirt or a community where corruption can flow free?
Support your local newspaper/news station with a subscription and use adblock.
I want to agree but I live in a place with a popular local newspaper that moved online and it’s still corrupt as ever here.
There are no more local newspapers or stations for all practical purposes. 70% of the UK’s “local” news media (print or broadcast) are owned by four media conglomerates. Most “local” television media in the USA is owned by the (right wing asshole collection) Sinclair Broadcast Group or (fellow right wing asshole collection) Rosebud Media. About 2/3 of “local” newspapers in the USA aren’t locally-owned or operated and don’t hire local reporters. Of these, about half are owned by 25 companies (themselves part of larger conglomerates in twisted, difficult-to-unravel relationships).
So it’s kind of difficult to support your local newspaper/station. Because it’s a unicorn for most people.
Actually I personally believe that public funded media is vastly better than independent. Private media has prudent itself incapable of being anything other than corporate / conservative shills.
I’m beginning to think you lack fundamental knowledge of how the internet sort of… works…
Oh my sweet summer child…
That’s a lot of people who are a net drain on society both economically and in terms of accomplishment. SO MUCH EFFORT is wasted on trying to get my eyes on their graffiti. The greatest engineers of the 1950s and 1960s put humans on the Moon. The greatest engineers of the 2000s onwards struggle to get eyes on ads.
It’s fucking repulsive.
Not really?
I’m always disgusted with tv ads and it blows me away that people just let commercials scream at them all day to buy viagra, anal leakage meds, insurance etc. Why would you let that shit in your home? Ugh
Why would you let that shit in your home?
Because you didn’t buy the anal leakage meds.
That’s literally my parents “background noise” it’s a news argument or commercial 24/7 over there.
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Why would you let that shit in your home?
because I find it amusing and it doesn’t do anything actually harmful.
I just feel annoyed… I hate their fake humor, fake happiness, fake everything. And they are so dumb.
I only see ads when I use YouTube on my phone, but my god the “humor” is terrible. Especially those “aren’t we weird and kooky?” Liberty Mutual ads, not one of which is remotely funny.
They aren’t creating awareness of their brand, so much as they are making people associate their brand with being pissed off. Looking at you Liberty.
What fake humor are you talking about? There was a snickers commercial last year that made me laugh. It wasn’t fake - it was hilarious. Had a pretty raunchy joke in it too.
YES the dumb skits are fucking excruciating. and they air them over and over. and some people laugh!
You actually find ads blaring at you amusing? What a truly horrid unpopular opinion. I’ll respect that though if you’re actually serious but it’s hard for me to comprehend.
I bet $5 they work in the advertising industry in some way, or maybe benefit from it.
Nope I work in customer service.
Ads are never “blaring” at me. I control the volume on my tv.
Sorta. But the FCC does, too, because advertisers were being dicks about even that: https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/government-verify/loud-tv-commercials-regulated-by-fcc-under-calm-act-fact-check/536-277e7a74-5e9b-427c-982b-fbf2bf49e2aa
oh yes! I remember hearing about this a few years ago from someone I use to be friends with. I always wondered why suddenly I’d be watching comedy central, and having to turn down the volume as fast as possible because some ad was just insanely loud.
I haven’t experienced anything like that recently but I notice some channels are quieter than others. Like everything is more quite on FXX than it is on COZI tv. I feel like that’s something else though cause the volume doesn’t vary for the ads like it use to.
I don’t often watch TV, but I get what you’re saying. Sometimes it’s fun to just watch through the ads and make fun of them with my gf until a movie comes on, it’s sort of a guilty pleasure
I hear you, it is an interesting cultural and quasi historic experience. It’s fun to go back and compare commercials over the decades.
One of my dad’s friends would mute the TV when commercials came on. We’d entertain ourselves by making up new narration and dialogue.
The viagra commercials were the best.
Yeah, that’s why I have a bunch of VHS recordings from the 90’s. They’re like little time capsules and the ad’s of the time are telling of the events at the time.
Haha, I understand both of the points made. I can’t get over the feeling I get from the obvious in your face push to tell you about a product. the obvious act of pushing a brand name and product to me is either annoying, depressing, or disgusting.
I would rather live happily with what I have. I am simply not the target audience. I can pick out that every ad and commercial I see is targeting the consumer and experts you to buy or think about it. I am neither right now, but that does not mean I am not going to get influenced to buy a product. Also, I want to prevent myself from being influenced by outside sources. I don’t know how to do it for everything, and advertising is an easy target to get rid of.
On the other hand, it is interesting and almost comical how some ads are made. Unfortunately, almost every commercial or advertisement made is short form content. There is almost no depth, and each video/ image/ text is made to be self-contained. I am someone who likes to have an overarching story tied with character development and meaningful changes from events. These commercials seem to be like family guy flashback/reference jokes or acting like a poorly done transition in between scenes that was introduced to force you to stop watching for 5 to 15 minutes with the added benefit of earning the Channel money.
Also, I want to prevent myself from being influenced by outside sources
I guess I am a special case in this way because I grew up in a religion that basically forced me to learn how to block out something so it doesn’t influence me one way or the other. I had go for 7 years blocking out religious garbage in my face so I am just use to looking at something, and not being influenced by it.
But most people don’t have that so no wonder its so invasive for them.
I also don’t get modern Family Guy hate but whatever. To each their own.
It IS perverse. You’re having your eyes groped by strangers, all trying to get you to do what you have no desire to do. You just want to get what you came for and leave, but no, everywhere you look something is trying to block your path and distract you from your goal. And it’s not even honest: you already know that none of these extraneous, unwanted come-ons you’re seeing is anything close to true. In some cases, it’s a full-on mental assault.
It’s vile. I used to leave some on, but now there’s not even such a thing as “acceptable ads” anymore just because of the sheer numbers involved. So now I don’t just block: I go full extermination mode. I’m usually on desktop so if it’s a one time thing, like a single ad on YouTube that managed to sneak by all of my walls and filters and I can’t just pass it by because it’s stuck in my field of vision, I’ll actually do an “inspect element” and delete it on the spot. But otherwise, if I can’t block 100% or very close to it, I find a different site or source, or shut down altogether.
I genuinely don’t think our minds were made for this level of constant information onslaught and never-ending manipulation campaigns, and I don’t think it’s healthy or life-affirming to subject oneself to it without limit. So I don’t. People get angry about it, but hey, more for them to enjoy if that’s how they wanna roll.
I had a 16+ year old Reddit account, but was shocked when the whole 3rd party app situation was going down to learn that patently Reddit had ads. Between pihole and browser ad blockers even when I used the web version I never saw them. Don’t think I was missing anything.
It IS perverse. You’re having your eyes groped by strangers, all trying to get you to do what you have no desire to do. You just want to get what you came for and leave, but no, everywhere you look something is trying to block your path and distract you from your goal. And it’s not even honest: you already know that none of these extraneous, unwanted come-ons you’re seeing is anything close to true. In some cases, it’s a full-on mental assault.
You paint an image in my head of a guy stopping you on the street to sell you a knock off Rolex.
This is the thing that got me.
I never used to mind ads that much, yea they were there but the sites had to earn money somehow and advertising was a fair way for them to do it. I’m not going to pay a subscription for every site that I want to visit.
Then one time I was looking at jeans on GAP and was bombarded for the next 3 weeks with ads for them on basically every damn site I visited.
I don’t hate ads that don’t track me about and are obnoxious in their presence, but that just doesn’t exist anymore.
And to ensure I don’t accidently use their site again, I grab it’s most background element and block it, hence effectively blocking the site as a whole.
Whenever I see someone’s computer who doesn’t use adblocker it blows my mind. I can’t imagine going back to that shit.
I just install uBO without saying anything ;)
Chaotic Good
Used to do this, however nowadays I worry it will fuck up their YouTube and they won’t be able to fix it themselves lol
It’s a fun game of too many ads leading to adblockers, which leads to those not using adblockers to get twice as many ads, more people use adblockers, etc. Until the only way for a company to make money on a website is either to sell your data, or charge for the service.
Yay.
I’d happily pay for a service if I could have a guarantee, with legal teeth (like a service level agreement with truly massive penalties for breach), that the service won’t ever do any of the following:
- Put an ad in front of my face.
- Sell my personal information.
I used to pay for some services to get the “ad-free” version, but almost invariably this chain got subsequently followed: ad-free → opt-in “curated” ads → opt-out “curated” ads → “curated” ads → dropping all pretense of there being any advantage to paying as the site becomes ad-o-rama.
So I won’t pay for sites. I just block their ads.
The pattern is always the same. No ads - ads - no ads if you pay - no ads if you pay but we sell your data - personalised ads because you pay, and we sell your data.
Every once in a while I find myself looking at the Internet without ad blockers. Like, newly-installing a browser on a newly-installed OS, or trialing a new browser on my phone or whatnot. And when it happens it’s a massive shock to me just how unusable the modern Internet is without an ad blocker.
If I were forced somehow to not use an ad blocker, I would probably stop using the WWW portion of the Internet and likely grossly cut down on other facets of the Internet.
its really jarring, and to see people just accept it, kinda hurts my soul.
Ads nowadays are little more than psychological assault and it can’t be healthy to be exposed to it regularly. My Home Ec teacher back in the day had a whole unit about the different manipulations present in advertisements and it was really enlightening and upsetting. Modern advertising should be banned or severely regulated.
I support significant regulation, but it won’t happen. But having a course like the one you took as well as media-literacy should be required middle-school education with a more sophisticated follow-up in high school. That also won’t happen because then you don’t get the people who vote for GOP pieces of shit. It’s in their interest to have citizens who are easily manipulated.
My father said babies were being aborted basically when ready for birth. I said there’s no way that was happening, said send me a link. One glance at the page and I didn’t need to read the article because of the gimmicks all over plus obviously bogus ads. He had a doctorate of mech engineering, but he couldn’t handle life on the internet. Typing this, I’m horrified to realize that I’m glad he passed when he did and didn’t end up with ever-increasingly wacko beliefs that could have harmed our relationship.
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Yo seriously can you explain how did Hungary get like that
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What a nightmare. what are you guys gonna do?
They have their own Trump except much more powerful.
I’ve wondered how businesses advertise anymore because I never see advertisements. I don’t watch TV. I don’t listen to radio. I have ad blockers on my devices. I just assumed most people used as blockers too.
Paid sponsorships mostly, since sponsorblock can’t do anything without anyone marking a segment as an ad, you will see it in a video eventually.
there’s always the boomers who can’t do it/don’t know it’s even possible and others that know nothing about computers that they can prey on
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I know more zoomers who don’t bother blocking ads than boomers who don’t.
Like by a LARGE amount.
Entire generations have been conditioned to accept ads due to the iPad, especially on YouTube.
I did say others :P
“Jarring” would have also been acceptable.
Most people are so desensitized to ads that they barely register. So the advertisers ramp up the attention-grabbing. Repeat. So when I actually see an advertisement it nearly knocks me out of my chair because I’m not desensitized anymore.
My sister shared me an Instagram reel for a [brand] bag review and asked me to buy it for her (there’s no [brand store] in her city).
It was such an obvious advertising campaign by the brand, when I walked into the store the same reel she shared me was playing in the store screens
I’m 90% sure I understood what you are saying, but I wouldn’t be angry if you ninja edited your comment to fix some of the typos. Here’s a cute turtle to indicate I’m not trying to be a dick, just gently nudge you cause I want to understand. 🐢
no worries mate, idk why my comment was missing some words, spaces and letters
The person who was instrumental in the development of modern advertising was also involved in the notorious little Albert experiment. That really says a lot about how unethical modern advertising is on a psychological level. As a psych major myself I am constantly disgusted by how manipulative and toxic advertising is. It actually troubles me how we’ve essentially just accepted this as part of our society now.
“The aim of Watson and Rayner was to condition a phobia in an emotionally stable child.”
There’s a documentary called “Manufacturing Consent” that is an interesting look at the PR and advertising industry that goes into the psychology of it.
Though some of them have no subtlety. Even as a teenager, I remember noticing the insidiousness of minivan adverts. They weren’t selling vehicles, they were selling the idea that a new vehicle will make your kids want to spend time with the family again. It was probably because I was a teenager at the time that I noticed it because I thought minivans were lame and knew I’d resent having to go for family rides just because we got a new vehicle that I thought was dumb anyways.
But these advertisements wanted to convince families to spend money they may or may not have been able to afford for an emotional result that was at best going to be short term even if your kids had undergone enough brain trauma to get excited by minivans. Eventually the novelty would wear off and they’d want to go back to eating paint chips or doing whatever kids who think minivans are cool like to do. And then the lonely parents are stuck with a vehicle that reminds them of the thing that made them sad and have a new incentive to get a new vehicle to help them forget about it.
I never got that from minivan commercials. They mostly focused on storage capacity without needing to get a full size van, not really family. Family was more incidental because someone without a bunch of kids didn’t need the space.
Yeah, to be fair that might have been one specific commercial or a trend that has since passed. It’s been a while since I was a teenager.
My husband refuses to use ad blockers for some unknown reason (I installed them on his computer, he won’t fucking use them/turns them off) and also is the person who gets the cookie settings menu and clicks “accepts all” every time. I get so stressed trying to use his computer but also like dude! Have you any idea just what you are allowing them to access??? Granted, I’m somewhat ignorant when it comes to how to be completely safe and private on the internet, but I try, and to see someone just blatantly not care makes me lose my cool a little.
My condolences on the divorce
I feel like this whenever I’m subjected to cable ads. Who the fuck can sit through like 4 or 5 minutes of ads every 15 minutes?
And they’re paying lots of money for it! It’s mind blowing
They even speed up old shows and movies to run more ads!
but occasionally I have to use computers that don’t belong to me
Do them a favor and install an adblocker.
If i had a dollar for everytime I’ve done this and been asked why I “downloaded a virus” because Google Chrome has a little red icon in the corner and now things don’t “feel right”, I’d have like 7 bucks
I mean, don’t do it against their will. At least put some effort into selling the idea of an internet without ads to them first. Then explain that Google and other companies are going to try to manipulate them into thinking that not viewing ads is a bad thing with false warnings and scare tactics like those. That it’s fine, and if they read carefully the warning it doesn’t say anything bad is actually happening.
I had a family member visiting that left early because “their games didn’t work right”
(Network blocking)
Sounds like you blocked a different kind of annoyance.
If they left for that reason, they weren’t visiting you, they were visiting your internet connection. :-(
Most people don’t appreciate it when you install software on their personal devices without their permission.
Boy would this be the quickest way to make sure I never allow you to touch my electronics again.
without their permission.
Nobody said that.
Fine. I don’t appreciate it when assholes inflict ads on me, so we’d be even!
I will occasionally suggest it if I am doing any kind of tech support but I don’t push it. Occasionally it can cause issues with webpages and if they aren’t savvy enough to have an ad blocker already I don’t know if they would have the knowledge of when to toggle it on and off.
