Gamification of the attention economy
Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
101–110 of 498 posts
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
My life is as close to advertising free as possible. The only thing that I can't really do much about is advertising signs by the roadside, but other than that it isn't a problem.
I'm sure I remember reading about a city (somewhere in south america I think) that banned all billboards, and it was like the city was reborn.
Sounds like the São Paolo Clean City Law:
https://newdream.org/blog/sao-paolo-ad-ban
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#103Same with restaurant or bars. More and more use some scummy third-party platform that requires an account, asks for more personal information than necessary and will no doubt use said information for nefarious purposes such as spam. Similarly, since the pandemic, paper menus have been replaced by a stupid QR code that often loads a bloated page or PDF and may contain trackers. Doesn't help that phone service is usual…
[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
My life is as close to advertising free as possible. The only thing that I can't really do much about is advertising signs by the roadside, but other than that it isn't a problem.
Me too, ad blockers and all my media on Plex, etc. For me it's only when I watch live sport that I see adverts now, which I quite like, it's like a little window into what most other British people are seeing when they watch TV all week.
PLEX really makes me feel like I’m living in an awesome future, the one I imagined as a kid on the early internet where I can watch whatever I want whenever I want. Then I go to YouTube and am grossed out by all the ads and the sponsored portions in every video.
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#105Nuclear weapons are the greatest technological threat, and low probability events are guaranteed to occur over a long enough time frame. Nuclear deterrence has prevented world war, but clandestine nuclear weapons programs have given dangerous leverage to violent pariahs.
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#1061) Privacy / surveillance. There's a lot of things that govt and corporations don't really need to know about you, but now they do.
2) Attention. The double edged sword of easy information is that digital junk food is also easier to get. You can read Feynman lectures or catch up with the Kardashians, up to you.
3) The idiots can find each other. There's no village idiot anymore, they've gone global.
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#107Interactions with humans. They are extra stupid now.
Maybe because they don't have to think for themselves anymore?
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
My life is as close to advertising free as possible. The only thing that I can't really do much about is advertising signs by the roadside, but other than that it isn't a problem.
Curious to know, how did you manage to get to an advertising free life?
It sounds like the steps are pretty simple. I live in the suburbs of a US city, and billboards are banned, so unless I go into the city proper (a few times a year) I hardly ever see advertisements.
1) move to the countryside or at least outside a major city, or a place where billboards are banned
2) Don’t own a TV
3) use uBlock Origin/Adblock on all your devices
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#109I think there is an 'optimum' level for technology of all kinds, below that you really want more and it is clear that there is room for improvement. But once the optimum has been reached any further additions will degrade the experience. Examples: Car controls: pre: direct taps and gauges plumbed into engine parts and such, real switches and levers. optimum: does what it should, not more, not less, more reliable than…
There was definitely spyware and bloatware in the 90s. Remember popups? Or winrar? Remember how illegal copies of windows (that never got security patches) were used in DDOS attacks (and more recently ransomware attacks)?
I agree there is too much eye candy, especially in phones.
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#110Well social media for example is mostly not in my life, but it still has an effect, which is to turn everyone else into a shallow-thinkin', slogan-spewin', snap-judgin', twitchy, goldfish-attention-span-havin', narcissistic snowflake who can never be challenged on anything they say. There's no one left to talk to, and being the only patient wise guru in a room full of children gets fucking old fast. I've been hanging out with Boomers lately, and it's actually pretty good. They have a sense of perspective.