Remember when the web didn’t suck?

  • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Here’s what’s behind that stupid ad

    https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-online-ad-advises-people-to-wrap-doorknobs-in-foil-when-home-alone

    It clearly implies there is some kind of safety benefit to it. But there is not.

    Clicking on the ad leads to a lengthy slide show which eventually gets to the doorknob story.

    All it says is aluminum foil can be used as an alternative to tape to cover doorknobs and hardware while painting.

    It has nothing to do with safety and the inclusion of the phrase “when you’re home alone” was only used as clickbait to make the ad seem more important.

  • sgibson5150@slrpnk.net
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    5 months ago

    I can remember around 1999-2000 if you clicked the wrong thing in IE you’d get 50 popup windows with ads for porn. At least that’s behind us.

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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    5 months ago

    Sorry, I couldn’t resist. And contrariwise to this pic I do agree with you, the web used to be better. Sure, ads were always a fucking annoyance, but they’re reaching unbearable levels nowadays; a lot of people (like me) tend to not see it because of ad blockers, but once you turn them off? Eeeeew.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Well, you could land on a bad site full of nasty ads or wind up downloading software that offered you the finest of malware or viruses.

      And you could just not go to them, or not download sus programs or warez.

      Now the sites and apps hunt you down and shove it in your face. They follow you, rat on you, sell your info, and constantly try to sell You stuff every page you land on.

      Yeah, Old Internet wasn’t great, but it wasn’t institutionalized malice like we have today.

    • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      Wild that the original of this image edit was “remember when /b/ was good” back in 2005

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Whenever I turn off AdGuard on my phone to get something to work and then forget it’s off I’m bombarded with ads everywhere and I’m like “oh, yeah, gotta turn that back on”

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      5 months ago

      There was, like, a golden age in the early 10’s before popups and animations everywhere, and after popups and animations everywhere.

      It’s possible I’m just nostalgic. If it sucked some way I’m not remembering I’m very interested to hear about it.

    • molave@reddthat.com
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      5 months ago

      It’s the nostalgia filter. By the 2030s, some would think the year 2020 is the closest thing to utopia humans actually experienced

  • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Remember when the web didn’t suck?

    No, I don’t. Not since 2000, when I logged on from home for the first time. The majority of it has always sucked. Then the web can suddenly do new things… and finds new ways to suck.
    It has, however, always had excellent little areas and corners.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    So I think the idea of the tinfoil is that somebody grabbing the knob will make noise.

    Therefore altering you.

    You’d be better off with an alarm system and a deadbolt lock, though.

  • krnl386@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    Actually the ad matches the article. To me the ad is “fringe” and it has infested the “mainstream” (CNN).

  • hungryphrog
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    5 months ago

    Why are they quoting a wolf? They didn’t talk the last time I checked.

  • Glifted@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I’m so frustrated with the internet right now. My wife started making Castile soap and I’m trying to find out if its some fu-fu-berry-bullshit or like an actual decent soap. Google is feeding me momfluencers (which range from ‘fine but there is no accountability’ to blatant grifters) and sites that are simply trying to sell this stuff. I’m going to try again with kagi tonight, but it’s still very frustrating that I never know what to trust anymore. The bullshit is coming faster than I’m able to handle it

  • katy ✨
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    5 months ago

    me: what a silly article who could ever fall for this

    also me: buys lots of tinfoil just in case

    • Deebster@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      It’s an ad in your post, fittingly (although yours isn’t particularly ironic).

      Do you know of oulipo.social? No fifth symbols found on all of that domain.

      • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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        5 months ago

        (btw i wanted to somehow word in “at least once per day”, but found using “per”, “every”, “for each” etc challenging to translate)

        • Deebster@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          “I might try to put up a (compliant) post a day for a half-fortnight”?

      • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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        5 months ago

        thought it fit! >:)

        ooh, kinda wonky of los oulipos to call that thing just cuz of that only work which had this gimmick

        also i think that the original book allows using “the”, in fact it also allows “me” and forms of “be”. so los oulipos gonna <this is hard>, huh?

    • perishthethought@lemm.eeOP
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      5 months ago

      If you mean via ads like this, I would agree. They could do more to filter out the garbage.

      But if you mean in their content, I’m not seeing that, beyond the usual (long history) leaning to one side or another.

      But these are two very different things and shouldn’t be equated.