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Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

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Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#101

Post by lstamour »

eloisius wrote: post #95
gruez wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android: firefox for android, or the plethora of adblock browsers out there iOS: adblockers are natively supported through "content blockers", plus there's a plethora of adblock browsers

But not possible in native apps which have largely supplanted the use of web pages.

Users can still choose not to install native apps. For as long as the web remains free, I’ll happily support newspapers, magazines, YT Premium and Patreon with my dollars, while absolutely not using the apps with ads in them, in favour of using 3 different content blocking extensions in Safari, and Strict privacy mode in Edge with uBlock Origin on desktop.

That said, because ads are inserted by third parties, you can often block ads with DNS and/or VPN. It’s a shame that iOS has never allowed changing the DNS while on mobile networks, though.

Really though, I miss when we were building open standards for content though, like RSS and podcasts.

Feels like a different era of the Internet, as we never saw an open standard take off for ChromeCast/AirPlay2 or the mentioned-on-stage open standards for FaceTime. Even the RIAA is trying to lock down music again by promoting MQA (Tidal) over FLAC (HDtracks, Amazon).

Closest thing to “open” that I can think of recently for content would be HLS streaming, which optionally supports encryption, but is otherwise open to use or implement.

Given recent history, I think it could go either way, but I doubt users will ever fully accept a closed web, so as long as the web provides open alternatives on every platform, we’ll still be in the clear... for now. :)

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#102

Post by oefnak »

SippinLean wrote: post #100
gruez wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android: firefox for android, or the plethora of adblock browsers out there iOS: adblockers are natively supported through "content blockers", plus there's a plethora of adblock browsers

> or the plethora of adblock browsers out there I use Brave, is there another someone likes more?

I use Kiwi browser, which supports all chrome extensions.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#103

Post by as1mov »

_frog wrote: post #68
sneak wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s already not true on mobile generally. No view source, no extensions, no user injected scripts. You get the page the server wants you to see.

This largely only really true on Android. iOS at least lets you install content blockers that work with Safari as well as any embedded web browsers within apps. The only place I typically see ads on iOS is in free to play games, and in those cases that's usually a pretty good incentive to play something else.

On Android you have DNS66 (non-root) and AdAway (root), both can kill ads in browsers + webviews + native apps.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#104

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #57
BurningFrog wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TV zeitgeist is gone. People used to all watch the same shows at the same time.That made it the thing everyone had in common. Now TV is more like reading books. Everyone does it n their own time. It's still a big things, but it doesn't create a nationwide community. On top of this, you're also getting old :)

If you heard about Game of Thrones or Westworld or Stranger Things, or most recently, Tiger King, you'd realize this is very much still a thing for a large population. Weekly shows of certain types have massive speculation and plot discussion crowds with podcasts and analysis channels. Then there's a second viewership wave created by all the memes. Netflix's just drop the whole season model has cost them a lot in pub…

> If you heard about Game of Thrones or Westworld or Stranger Things, or most recently, Tiger King, you'd realize this is very much still a thing for a large population.

This isn't the same thing.

In the 1990s, everybody watched The Simpsons. Even the people who hated it still watched it so they could complain about it. It was on broadcast TV so everybody had access to it. And Friends, and Cheers, and so on.

Game of Thrones is on HBO. If you have Netflix and not HBO, it's not there. Stranger Things is on Netflix. If you have HBO and not Netflix, it's not there. A lot more people watched Friends than Game of Thrones, because Game of Thrones was less available and had much more competition.

You can find a website full of fandom about Game of Thrones, but you can find a website full of fandom about Battlestar Galactica. Passion and popularity are not the same.

Popularity is what matters to the zeitgeist. It's not a matter of being able to find a place where all the Game of Thrones fans hang out and whinge about the last season, it's about being able to go into a room full of normies and make a reference to last night's episode and expect nearly everybody to get it. Which isn't really a thing anymore.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#105

Post by takeda »

bosswipe wrote: post #20
downerending wrote: post #7

It's like a creeping cancer that cannot be stopped. Back around 1981, advertisers would take a certain percentage of ad pages in each newspaper or magazine and consider it a reasonable deal. These days, they absolutely will not accept this unless they get a lot more space, obnoxious animations, force-play videos, and overlays that you have to click through, and often various registration walls, cross-site tracking, e…

The only reason you can block ads on the web is because there was a small window where the idealistic academics that built the internet and the web were able to keep commercial interests out so they were able to use open universal protocols. The same will not be true for VR.

WebAssembly is also trying to close that small window in the web.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#106

Post by oefnak »

eloisius wrote: post #95
gruez wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android: firefox for android, or the plethora of adblock browsers out there iOS: adblockers are natively supported through "content blockers", plus there's a plethora of adblock browsers

But not possible in native apps which have largely supplanted the use of web pages.

DNS level adblocking is possible untill DNS over HTTPS becomes the standard.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#107

Post by takeda »

kardos wrote: post #38
sneak wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s already not true on mobile generally. No view source, no extensions, no user injected scripts. You get the page the server wants you to see.

Firefox is an exception here, which really underscores it's importance

yep, and that's why it is set as my primary browser, sadly integrated browser in the apps is still chrome :/

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#108

Post by oefnak »

roland35 wrote: post #65
sneak wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s already not true on mobile generally. No view source, no extensions, no user injected scripts. You get the page the server wants you to see.

Thank goodness for my pi hole, but unfortunately that only works at my home network! I'm always unpleasantly surprised whenever I leave the safety of 192.168.1.1

You could also use a VPN to your home network.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#109

Post by 0x5f3759df-i »

eloisius wrote: post #95
gruez wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android: firefox for android, or the plethora of adblock browsers out there iOS: adblockers are natively supported through "content blockers", plus there's a plethora of adblock browsers

But not possible in native apps which have largely supplanted the use of web pages.

On Android there are options such as the open source Blokada [1] that abuse the VPN features to block ads in all apps.

[1] https://blokada.org/

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#110

Post by grawprog »

downerending wrote: post #96
blululu wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the real dystopia. Ever talk to the adtech experts? The question they ask is how can we display the ads that people will enjoy seeing the most? Hence Instagram is effectively all ads.

I'm willing to try that. So far, I only see ads I hate. What ever happened to gold like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcWPusAmaWI

Those are just the ads you recognize. How many ads do you see in a day that you don't even recognize as ads because they're not obvious or obtrusive, they just subtly bring your attention to a product that you never would have thought or cared about without it. Quiet product placement, ads disguised as news, fluff science sponsored by corporations, then there's those big companies that create lifestyles around their brand and people become so entrenched in that company's products, they don't even think about the fact they've never even considered an alternative.
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