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.
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.
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.
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.
Not really?
“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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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.
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.
without their permission.
Nobody said that.
Boy would this be the quickest way to make sure I never allow you to touch my electronics again.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Appreciating commercials because you have no willpower sounds… fraught, at best.
Whenever I see someone’s computer who doesn’t use adblocker it blows my mind. I can’t imagine going back to that shit.
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.
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.
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.
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)
Level 99 mafia boss checking in 😎
proportionate to the less amount
“inversely proportionate”
yes, I despise ads. It’s gotten to the point where if I’m forced to endure an ad before a youtube video, I’ll mute it and avert my eyes. It feels like a psychological assault out of nowhere. it’s worse at gas station pumps, where I can’t always mute it
Oh right? I never watch or listen to them. Given no other option I’ll even cover my ears and hum. Ads breAk the soul, and I literally feel healthier not being subjected to them.
Wait your gas station pumps have ads!? Where do you live?
United States. there are Ads everywhere. for the wildest shit, too. Ads for medications and prescription drugs are the worst of them, shouldn’t even be allowed… but, ya know… lobbyist money (A.K.A. bribes)
The worst ones I’ve ever seen by far are ads for mobile games. Some, if not the majority, are full of fetish content, gore and other gross and disturbing stuff just for the shock value; most of the “gameplay” that’s shown has nothing to to with the actual game.
Some ads have real people in them act out what (supposedly) happens in-game, those are almost worth watching for their trash value.
Those ads bother me more than most because It’s entirely false advertising. Nothing shown in those ads for the most part reflects the actual gameplay in any way shape or form.
There was somebody who actually released a mobile game that has all of like the fake game mechanics from all the advertisements that you see on those ads and it’s awful but really funny lol
its really jarring, and to see people just accept it, kinda hurts my soul.
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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 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!
My latest ad-shock was over at a friend’s house. I’ve not had cable since probably '03? They have cable because a parent lives with them and insists/pays. Just having the TV on playing random things felt weird. Weirder still is having the movie interrupted by ads every 5 seconds. And the ads are just gross. The only thing that was decent was using it as a discovery service. The movie, one of the X-Men that was not one of the good ones, was what we stumbled upon. We watched for a bit, then ended up switching to watching it elsewhere to dunk on it. In ad-free, interruption-free, 4k with surround. Paying for the cable experience (which is rapidly the streaming experience) seems entirely anachronistic.
