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Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

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Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#51

Post by noneeeed »

jacquesm wrote: post #34
caust1c wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought a lot about what plagues our modern world and I've come to the same conclusion. I'm at a loss for what can be done about it though. We can't very easily ban advertising. Any regulation has to be lightweight because it's nearly impossible to enforce at internet scale (as we've seen again and again). Curious if you've thought about any ways to fix the problem we're in.

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.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#53

Post by aigo »

jacquesm wrote: post #34
caust1c wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought a lot about what plagues our modern world and I've come to the same conclusion. I'm at a loss for what can be done about it though. We can't very easily ban advertising. Any regulation has to be lightweight because it's nearly impossible to enforce at internet scale (as we've seen again and again). Curious if you've thought about any ways to fix the problem we're in.

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.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#54

Post by Nextgrid »

noneeeed wrote: post #50
ok_dad wrote: post #4

Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…

Thoroughly agree about adverts. Have you read Tim Wu's "The Attention Merchants"? On the social media thing, I find they are always better when they just show you the things you've asked to see, in chronological order. It's all this algorithmic "hey, your aunt's brother-in-law's gardener just commented on a post by someone you don't know" bullshit that causes the problem. If I just look at Twitter posts from the peop…

The reason behind the algorithm is again advertising. A chronological timeline makes it super-easy to tell when you've caught up. An algorithmic one can recycle posts endlessly in a different order, making you spend more time trying to make sure you've caught up - this means more opportunities for them to insert ads.

The problem with social media isn't "social media", it's advertising and the fact that money is made out of "engagement". You kill that disgusting industry and so many problems would disappear overnight.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#55

Post by ryandrake »

scrooched_moose wrote: post #13

In the last few years I feel like we've reached "notification hell". Technology used to be a tool that was used when needed, now it constantly demands our attention. I feel like something is always beeping at me across countless services and just stresses me out. Windows beeps every time I click anything now, every app wants to spam notifications every our, Jira, countless chat apps, email, even the credit card machi…

Do-Not-Disturb mode on all your devices, 24/7. It stops all notifications, messages, dinging, buzzing, phone calls, everything. Huge, instant, and permanent quality of life improvement. I've been doing it for a few years, now, and I could never go back to life with my phone dinging and lighting up like Reno ever few minutes.

A lot of people think they can't do it (OMG what if I miss that one important call out of thousands?), but I lost that anxiety after about a month. So nice to use my phone on my own terms and review my missed calls when it's convenient for me.

You should be issuing commands to your computer, not the other way around.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#56

Post by grech »

jacquesm wrote: post #34
caust1c wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought a lot about what plagues our modern world and I've come to the same conclusion. I'm at a loss for what can be done about it though. We can't very easily ban advertising. Any regulation has to be lightweight because it's nearly impossible to enforce at internet scale (as we've seen again and again). Curious if you've thought about any ways to fix the problem we're in.

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?

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#57

Post by handrous »

noneeeed wrote: post #51
jacquesm wrote: post #34

Earlier 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.

They're banned on some stretches of interstate (maybe where they cross federal land? Not sure) and damn, it's nice. Even relatively dull and shitty landscapes are so much better without that blight.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#58

Post by Nextgrid »

chrismorgan wrote: post #35
ok_dad wrote: post #4

Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…

I basically don’t encounter any ads in my day-to-day life, digital or physical. I have no TV, and use uBlock Origin (including annoyances lists) on laptop and phone. I live in a tiny rural town so that practically the only advertising posters within a 35km radius are first-party advertising on two or three Telstra public phone booths, and in the decent-sized towns 40km away in either direction there’s barely any more…

Advertising is cancer and should die, but billboards and real-world display advertising is probably the least bad version of it. I'd prefer if online advertising (and the associated data collection and privacy violations) were nuked first.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#59

Post by thoraway66 »

Throwaway cause reasons; Job life, finding a job.

My education was in the late-90s in electronics. Offshoring took that career away by the 2010s.

Oh, I don’t know web app development or anything above CS200 by heart, or haven’t contributed a decade of free labor to open source; fuck off.

A modern college education and different experiential timeline does not make a college educated person anymore than 1 of 7 billion like the rest of us.

Real on the ground life issues for millions are waved off as nbd cause the data shows those millions of able bodied people who see society act indifferent they exist, as they are just a rounding error, seems to be acceptable discourse.

It’ll be interesting to see how this all unfolds in a nation with a second amendment and one political party recently sharing plans internally to announce they are overturning the election to protect their demigod.

It’s not tech that’s the issue; it’s humanity itself. Its root social language is feudalism and moral relativism. Tech is just the latest vessel for those behaviors.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#60

Post by brightstep »

ok_dad wrote: post #4

Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…

Advertisements are violent, they are invasive and manipulative. Agree, they should be illegal.
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