Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

191–200 of 498 posts

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

#191

In a city plagued by a decades-long, top-down devotion to capture value from tourism at the expense of the quality of life for its own citizens, Airbnb democratized things so the average Joe can contribute to ruining things for permanent residents, too.

lol, yes!!

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

#192

I 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…

>too much: 2020 OS, nothing but eye candy,

I wish. Clearly you missed the early 2010s, with skeuomorphic/glass design everywhere. I would have preferred that over the flat/featureless designs we have today.

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

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't think of a less bad alternative to billboards, so I don't disagree with your claim, but I'll say that I didn't realize how much billboards suck until I spent time driving in Vermont, where they're banned. (I'm originally from Wisconsin, where the freeways have billboards for sex shops, CBD, fireworks, and fetuses every few hundred feet.) The driving experience is so much better without them that I'm pretty co…

That's a pretty dramatic change, as far as billboards go. I think most of the rest of the northeast still has billboards, but they are for, like, normal products.

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

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying the product is the primary goal, but they don't expect you to act right away. It's about impressions. You see 1000 Coke ads and product placements a year. When you finely decide you want a sweet fizzy drink, well the decision has already been made for you.

I would be very, very surprised if this sort of subliminal effect was strong enough to make advertising worth it.

I've had some work in this field -- it is as far as the marketing teams are concerned.

One of my previous employers (international mega company) spent millions on advertisements each month, with no clear way to measure their direct impact. But they did it for the impressions.

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

#196
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 came to say Advertising as well

I doubt it has the effectiveness that people say it has when they are everywhere.

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

#198
post #24

Everything requires a telephone number now, and many (due to spam/abuse/whatever) don't accept VoIP/disposable numbers, so it's basically like a universal tracking cookie. I have like six phones to keep my various identity facets separate. It's gross and annoying, and I worry about everyone else who just has one number and uses it for everything and links their accounts everywhere together; most people in the world a…

Plus anyone with more than one phone is treated like a pervert/cheat and/or drug dealer.

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

#199
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.…

[deleted]

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

#200
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How do you navigate around sites that insist on you removing the ad blocker?

A. F12 and remove the div that says so or one of it's parent.

B. find another website that offer the same thing.

C. give up and temporarily disable adblock for that website until you do what you need to do and enable it again

what I find really annoying is website that tangle login to their ads, so when you have adblock software enabled it just silently fails.

the most recent example I encountered is https://www.edf.fr/ a government owned company, I couldn't get electricity for my new house unless I disabled ublock.

Post reply on HN