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 @DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 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.
You just think that because advertising exists as an option. If that circumstance was different, everything else would be too.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
“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
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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 ;)
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.
I put
dns.adguard.comon their browsers and phones.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.”
I’m used to seeing brief YouTube ads when I cast from my phone, but I was in a hotel recently where the only option was live TV (we were in the back of the hotel and the Chromecast didn’t have a good enough antenna to pick up the router), so it was the first time in years I saw full-on commercials. If the movie hadn’t been so good- After the Thin Man- I wouldn’t have put up with it.
Look into the gl.inet travel routers. I’ve got one of the smaller ones and it has helped me on a few trips. It can run as a hotel wifi extender. An AP for your devices while it logs into the hotel wifi or ethernet on their behalf, etc. Can even channel all your data over a VPN over the hotel connection which is useful if you’re overseas and want to use your services back home but need to un-geoblock yourself.
Worth a look for under $100.
I agree, and those routers can be extremely cheap. I recommend people plug them directly into ethernet whenever possible otherwise speeds basically get cut in half when operating as extenders (just like at home, excepting backhaul).
And in hotels without an obvious ethernet port: check behind the TV. There is usually a less metered port on the wall back there for use by the TV. Sometimes it is restricted, but I’ve been pleased to find that enough hotels don’t have the foresight to do more than simply obscure things a bit.
How do they handle the web portal login requirement that hotels typically have?
Thanks.
I’ve actually come to appreciate commercials after cutting Netflix. It’s a set time for me to take a little break, and it’s out of my hands. (I mute it too, of course.) Otherwise I could just keep watching on and on without a break, and that’s not really very good for you.
I have no will power.
Appreciating commercials because you have no willpower sounds… fraught, at best.
To each their own, I guess. They know you’re putting it on mute, by the way. That’s why they try to make it as eye-catching as possible.
Tangentially related, I recently replaced my Chromecast with a “Chromecast with Google TV”. It’s an Android TV box which you can install SmartTube on and cast YouTube with no ads. Yes, I am aware of the irony of paying Google for new hardware instead of paying them for their ad-free service, but the new device cost less than 2 months of YouTube Premium and I like tinkering.
Oh nice! I’ll have to look into that! Thanks! It’s not glacially slow, is it? That’s one of the reasons I never use the apps of my so-called smart TV.
My smarttube is glacially slow, but it’s the TV hardware that can’t keep pace, I assure you.
I’ve also noticed when the stream is cut by YT, smarttube will almost always manage to get it back, very rarely do I have to actively pick up the remote to fix it.
When my TV plays nice, it’s a perfect YT replacement, and I highly recommend it.
Thanks, I’ll definitely look into it.
I wish you a pleasant, ad/sponsor-free viewing experience sir.
As the other commenter said it’s about the hardware really. I tested it out on a really old device first to make sure it actually worked - it did but at a glacially slow pace. The new box is pretty snappy though!
The Thin Man series is worth commercials for.
Totally. I was loving it and watched the rest when I got back home.
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.
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
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.
I use a VPN which has an excellent ad & bs blocker. But occasionally some sites need me to turn it off to pay for things or whatever and I forget to turn it back on and end up browsing the internet in its normal state.
And wow… welcome to commerce central. It’s not that all the ads are obnoxious though some are, but the quantity of them is out of control on some websites.
To be fair, I’ve found it’s a good rule of thumb that the quality of a website is usually proportionate to the less amount of ads they have.
I also reviewed mobile games for a while and had to play without a VPN to get the same experience most players would get - game ads are the worst. Unrepresentative of the games they’re trying to sell, but also often sexist (veering towards misogynistic), obnoxious and with false endings.
Which VPN?
I use Surfshark but I expect most of the quality ones offer something similar. Nord and Express often get mentioned as the best VPNs but Surfshark as the best cheap VPN - I’m impressed with it, would recommend. You can even use Chrome on Android and most sites seem like normal, though I’ve switched to Firefox anyway
(If you are thinking of using a VPN just don’t use a free one because they’re probably dodgy)
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proportionate to the less amount
“inversely proportionate”
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
