Live data from Hacker News

You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

bearbin.net

491–500 of 633 posts

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something different about streets and web. I'm not sure but on my laptop i kinda expect things to go to the point, fast. A street is not a mean to an end. So a bus stop with some ad.. doesn't really changes everything. Consider web ads more like annoying bus boys trying to get you to order something in their restaurant by stepping in front of you and mirroring every move.

It changes a lot if you have ADHD. IMHO, it's an accessibility problem for people like me.

Yes!! It's hard enough to maintain attention as it is. Last thing we need is entitled corporations stealing it every chance they get for the sake of profit.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#492
post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they do. You have to mentally process the incoming data first, then discard it. It's a waste of attention, especially with mind-catching ads you can't figure out immediately. Sometimes they are as blocking as browser pop-ups, e.g.: logotypes (or even full ads) displayed before a responsive UI is shown to you, duty-free zones in the airports, and so on. I am pretty sure we will soon have real-life targeted billboa…

What annoys me most is advertising on highway and in traffic. I am not allowed to use a smartphone because it distracts me; fair enough. What about safety on the road though? All these signals are pure noise, irrelevant to traffic.

Safety takes a back seat to corporate profits of course. Who cares if some schmuck crashes his car because he was looking at a billboard depicting a nearly nude woman, right? The need to sell products to these people is all consuming, they just gotta do it and all other concerns don't really matter to them.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#493
post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why should I care? Market changes, adapt or disappear. This is not the market changing, it's a law crushing a free market that already existed.

> This is not the market changing, it's a law crushing a free market that already existed. In that case, what’s the difference between a free market and a compulsory market? If market participants must only participate by choosing to spend or to not spend, they are beholden to the economic system, and are unfree actors in the status quo “free market” economic situation. And yet by exercising political freedom to make…

The "unfree" participants could choose not to visit the websites, thus not receiving the content/services they want.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#494
post #55
post #7

But ads in real life do not prevent me from going on about my day. There is no analogy to interstitial pages with ads like in Forbes some time ago with the button Continue to your article: it would be infuriating if you had to view an ad before being able to use the subway ticketing system. You also don’t have ads on at the airport timetable screen. You don’t have pinkertons following you to learn your habits and sho…

Have you run into the IRL pop up ads? People walking in front of you, interrupting your UX for a quick "5 min conversation" about their chosen cause? These pesky ads get through my blockers no matter how often I update my filters.

Sounds like a typical stroll down Market Street. Never a shortage of people trying to get you to sign up and donate money to some cause, and they won’t take “no thanks” for an answer.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#495

Fuck my city deciding what adverts I see. That's called censorship. Want something like that check out drab soviet era cities were advertising was banned. Banksy certainly seems to have thin skin if he gets hurt feelings over adverts. Fuck that too, I'm responsible for my own feelings.

Look into the city of São Paulo, Brazil, before and after banning billboard ads before drawing an example from the USSR

just read a guardian article about that, they brought back advertising in a controlled way. This seems fair. Also Googled before and after pics of the city, can't say there was much of an improvement. I live in the UK, advertising is probably controlled by planning laws here, I live in a very historic touristy city, there's advertising but it doesn't impact the beauty at all.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they do. You have to mentally process the incoming data first, then discard it. It's a waste of attention, especially with mind-catching ads you can't figure out immediately. Sometimes they are as blocking as browser pop-ups, e.g.: logotypes (or even full ads) displayed before a responsive UI is shown to you, duty-free zones in the airports, and so on. I am pretty sure we will soon have real-life targeted billboa…

Quoted post unavailable.

Not really. Comments are comments. Not ads. You came here to read the comments. Nobody paid some ad company to show it to you and force the ideas into your head. The fact you agreed with the comment doesn't mean it's an ad, it means you found it persuasive.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#497
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they do. You have to mentally process the incoming data first, then discard it. It's a waste of attention, especially with mind-catching ads you can't figure out immediately. Sometimes they are as blocking as browser pop-ups, e.g.: logotypes (or even full ads) displayed before a responsive UI is shown to you, duty-free zones in the airports, and so on. I am pretty sure we will soon have real-life targeted billboa…

> People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. … Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no…

>They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else.

wow, it is like they know me!

but anyway, I'm all for blocking ads when you go out, and hopefully once they can do that the technology can be extended to allow blocking of people who are not sexy enough, because imagine what I could do with the power of invisibility!

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But ads in real life do mar the landscape, the real world, with their presence. You can drive through the countryside, and have the idyllic rolling hills scarred by a giant poster for the nearest McDonald's. Even in cities, they're visual pollution.

If you don't like it, buy the property and take the ad down. I understand the eyesore, but I draw the line before telling someone he can't have a sign on his property.

We don’t allow things on your property to emit all kinds of things without limitations. Smells, gases, smoke, radiation, etc. Why is visible EM radiation an exception? In fact it isn’t: try displaying pornography on your property.

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#499
post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not the market changing, it's a law crushing a free market that already existed. In that case, what’s the difference between a free market and a compulsory market? If market participants must only participate by choosing to spend or to not spend, they are beholden to the economic system, and are unfree actors in the status quo “free market” economic situation. And yet by exercising political freedom to make…

The "unfree" participants could choose not to visit the websites, thus not receiving the content/services they want.

And those same “unfree” participants are free to legislate what websites may or may not do with information that websites collect. The websites are similarly free to not do things that are prohibited by law in a given jurisdiction, or else not offer services to users subject to that legal jurisdiction.

There was never any “free market” status quo in the absence of regulation to begin with, either in statute or in practice. There always are forces external to the market which act upon it, and some of those forces are individuals and groups of people.

To say the free market exists, did previously exist, or could one day exist, is a truth claim I don’t see the evidence to support. Advocating for a “free market” as opposed to the status quo is both an economic and a political position, and thus should address both economic and political aspects of the issue you present.

What about this would you rather be different, and how so? Or what about this would you characterize differently?

Re: You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

#500
post #7

But ads in real life do not prevent me from going on about my day. There is no analogy to interstitial pages with ads like in Forbes some time ago with the button Continue to your article: it would be infuriating if you had to view an ad before being able to use the subway ticketing system. You also don’t have ads on at the airport timetable screen. You don’t have pinkertons following you to learn your habits and sho…

Reminds me of the miniseries Maniac. It portrays an "alternate future" without Javascript, etc., where targeting advertising is in fact taken to these extremes, including the "Pinkertons" idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniac_(miniseries)

Post reply on HN