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

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

#511

Post by matheusmoreira »

dionidium wrote: post #506
matheusmoreira wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the conclusion absurd? Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Comparing it to theft is actually a very generous interpretation. To me advertising is more like mind rape for profit. Someone pays money to violate your mind and insert into it whatever noise they want whether you consent to it or not.

How is that different from what you are doing to me right now?

How could it not be completely different? We both came to HN. We saw this article about advertising. We clicked the "450 comments" link because we wanted to see what other people were posting. We wanted to participate. That's what we're doing right now.

I didn't pay money to put this comment on your screen to make you read it every time you try to do anything on your phone or computer. No, we're the ones who came here to talk about this stuff. Speech is not advertising.

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

#512

Post by throwawayboise »

Macha wrote: post #427
throwawayboise wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who uses those ridiculous kiosks? Most people I see still just go to the counter, order, and pay. It's much faster.

Don't know what mcdonalds you're in, but most of them combine the kiosk revamp with cuts to the amount of staff hours. It's definitely not faster to join the single line in 5th place than use one of the 3 (of 5) vacant kiosks.

And they wonder why sales are declining

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

#513

Post by grishka »

dml2135 wrote: post #483
whiplash451 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the ticket covers much less than the infrastructure cost. Then public spending covers some of it but ads are needed to fill the gap. Public money that would be spent to cover the ad revenue would not be spent elsewhere (in a hopefully useful way). I hate subway ads just as much as you, but wanted to make this reality check.

Good point, but I wonder what % of say, the NY MTA’s operating budget is funded with ads. I feel like these things are sold for way cheaper than they should be. I think I remember reading that the naming rights for Citibike were sold for like 40 million dollars. Seems like an incredible bargain for literally thousands of mobile ads all over the city.

I remember being blown away by how much a subway ticket costs in London (2.5£). One would think it should cover a substantial chunk of the cost of running the whole thing. Still, there are ads, everywhere, unending craploads of 'em.

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

#514

Post by knolan »

Mathnerd314 wrote: post #443
knolan wrote: post #9

I cycle to work on an ebike. About 25 km each way. One of the major issues is the lack of proper infrastructure and awful attitude by drivers, in particular service drivers. Advertisement company vans are a prime example. There are rolling advertisement posters in most bus stop shelters. These drivers will park up on the footpath blocking pedestrians and those using the bus to update the advertisements, often in the…

I don't know where I heard it, but there was a story about a hammer-wielding bicycle gang that smashed up cars that weren't friendly to bicycles. Sort of like https://abc7ny.com/bikers-attack-car-bmw-attacked-flatiron-n... . When the police won't enforce the laws then I guess groups emerge that take matters into their own hands.

Here in Ireland lots just ride with an action camera in the hope that the police might take some action. They usually ignore you or threaten you.

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

#515

Post by throwawayboise »

dylan604 wrote: post #454
throwawayboise wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing really. There has to be a business school case study there in how you go from being the trail-blazer and biggest success story in fast food, to one of the worst and getting worse with everything you do.

It's also a school case study in showing how regardless they've gone down hill in food quality, in service quality, etc, their customers continue to patronize them.

Maybe it's just me getting older, but I used to eat at McDonalds several times a week, at least. I have maybe eaten there once or twice in all of 2021, I'm not even sure I ate there at all. Same with my friends. It's just awful in every way now, from the experience to the food itself.

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

#516

Post by gjs278 »

blackhaz wrote: post #15
smarx007 wrote: 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…

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…

No post body was provided.

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

#517

Post by knolan »

visarga wrote: post #145
knolan wrote: post #9

I cycle to work on an ebike. About 25 km each way. One of the major issues is the lack of proper infrastructure and awful attitude by drivers, in particular service drivers. Advertisement company vans are a prime example. There are rolling advertisement posters in most bus stop shelters. These drivers will park up on the footpath blocking pedestrians and those using the bus to update the advertisements, often in the…

> We forget that cities are for people. We let cars dominate the majority of the available space. In my city it's especially bad. Cars on the road, cars on the road side, cars on sidewalks, cars on pedestrian crossings, cars chasing you while crossing the road on the designated crossing. And as you say, if you object they become abusive. It's a large Eastern European city that is living the American dream of going ev…

From what I’ve seen it’s endemic in here in Ireland and also next door in the UK. It’s particularity crazy here because our cities and towns are tiny.

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

#518

Post by tomjakubowski »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #486
Seirdy wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This essay looks amazing. Can you please reference it?

The quoted essay is called Cut It Out. Hard to find a full text of it without OCR noise.

https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/banksy-accused-of-plagiarism-...

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

#519

Post by dylan604 »

throwawayboise wrote: post #515
dylan604 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a school case study in showing how regardless they've gone down hill in food quality, in service quality, etc, their customers continue to patronize them.

Maybe it's just me getting older, but I used to eat at McDonalds several times a week, at least. I have maybe eaten there once or twice in all of 2021, I'm not even sure I ate there at all. Same with my friends. It's just awful in every way now, from the experience to the food itself.

"A sucker is born every minute"

Of course, people typically "age out", but economics of that $.99 menu put together with their powerful marketing means constant flow of new patrons.

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

#520

Post by Fnoord »

shukantpal wrote: post #440
Fnoord wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Should we cut down all trees next to road? They’re a beautiful distraction.

Its voluntary and you need to deliberately watch them. They're not planted to catch your attention in ANNOYING ways.
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