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I Block Ads

coryd.dev

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Re: I Block Ads

#151

Post by zmnd »

numbsafari wrote: post #66

I was stuck at an airport. I downloaded a free backgammon app on my iPhone, to kill some time. It showed me ads between every game. The ads were mostly for other apps. Most of those apps were games. Games that involved implied incestuous rape, non-consensual voyeurism, and other highly repulsive things. I just wanted to play backgammon. I uninstalled the app (thankfully, that's an easy thing to do on iOS, for now...)…

If you don't want to see ads, why you didn't want to pay a couple of dollars for an app? Or how do you see developers compensated in this case?

Re: I Block Ads

#152

Post by bombcar »

bee_rider wrote: post #32
chasebank wrote: post #3

Advertising is so completely intertwined with everyday life, it’s impossible to block them. The worst kind of ads, IMO, are the non-intrusive, organic looking articles / news stories placed there by PR. The ultimate brainwash. Most of HN and Reddit content is advertisement whether you realize or not. Front page CNN, outside of weather events and sports, it’s closing in on 100%.

What do you mean by “HN and Reddit content?” I think most of the people here are real (not ad bots) and most of the comments are just their opinions. I mean you can sometimes see folks who are clearly either super-fans or actual paid shills, but if they were the majority, I think people would give up on the sites.

Some of the HN content is explicitly advertising (the posts you see you can't comment on) but some percentage of the "native/organic" content posts are just advertising - which may not be bad mind you, I'd much rather have company X put $Yk dollars into well written posts that are actually useful than have them buy a stadium.

But other are pretty thinly veiled, and some commenters are pretty obviously pushing something. It gets cleaned up decently well.

Re: I Block Ads

#154

Post by bombcar »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #36
chasebank wrote: post #3

Advertising is so completely intertwined with everyday life, it’s impossible to block them. The worst kind of ads, IMO, are the non-intrusive, organic looking articles / news stories placed there by PR. The ultimate brainwash. Most of HN and Reddit content is advertisement whether you realize or not. Front page CNN, outside of weather events and sports, it’s closing in on 100%.

I find product placement and 'organic' ads annoying, but I don't think they are as effective as regular old advertisements. If they were, the fraction of the advertising budget would be heavily shifted towards 'product placement' and away from '30 second pre-roll ads' and banner ads.

Advertisers are addicted to what they can measure, you can measure 30 second pre-roll ads and you can measure click-throughs, but you can't really measure how many Nikes sold because Forrest Gump wore them.

Re: I Block Ads

#155

Post by agluszak »

omginternets wrote: post #53

I occasionally tear down ads in public spaces. I'm sure many will disagree with me, but I do think we should be able to move through public spaces without the incessant assault on one's attention and head space. I haven't been caught yet, though I'm sure I someday will, at which point I'll pay the fine and keep doing it anyway.

I totally agree with you and I do the same. High five! Recently I've learned that most posters being hung in public space are illegal anyway (at least in Poland). I've heard it from... An outdoor advertising company employee.

Re: I Block Ads

#156

Post by tomrod »

I completely agree with the content.

Perhaps ironically, the blogpost itself shares many attributes common to advertising:

(1) audience relevance

(2) branding the author

(3) Crucially -- a call to action for a change (though in this case, it doesn't enrich a specific corporation AFAICT).

Re: I Block Ads

#158

Post by bombcar »

chrismorgan wrote: post #115
chasebank wrote: post #3

Advertising is so completely intertwined with everyday life, it’s impossible to block them. The worst kind of ads, IMO, are the non-intrusive, organic looking articles / news stories placed there by PR. The ultimate brainwash. Most of HN and Reddit content is advertisement whether you realize or not. Front page CNN, outside of weather events and sports, it’s closing in on 100%.

> The worst kind of ads, IMO, are the non-intrusive, organic looking articles / news stories placed there by PR. I live out in the country. I don’t do TV, radio, newspaper¹ (including even general news websites—anything that’s important, I’ll probably hear about from siblings or parents). I don’t use any software with anything like banner ads. As for things like billboards, I know of one pair of billboards on the sid…

> ¹ The local paper is called The Weekly Advertiser. I’ve measured it a few times, and it’s consistently been about 75% ads by surface area.

I mean it's what it says on the tin. We have a local "paper" but it's not a paper, it's just an advertising flyer, and sometimes it is useful if I want to look up something local.

Re: I Block Ads

#159

Post by tombert »

satysin wrote: post #149
tombert wrote: post #147

You know, I don't even want to deprive people of money; as a yuppie who has money nowadays I am not opposed to paying for things I use if I could avoid the tracking and propaganda of ads. YouTube Premium, for example, is pretty solid for the most part, and I'm happy to spend some money to support the creators I like, but they kind of fucked that up because now I have to deal with the endless ads for RayCon or Express…

SponsorBlock is what you want to auto-skip all in-video sponsored segments/ads https://sponsor.ajay.app/

Sure, but what I'm kind of getting at is that I would like to pay money for the ad to not be there in the first place. What annoys me is that YouTube Premium only gets you halfway.

Re: I Block Ads

#160

Post by bombcar »

bee_rider wrote: post #95
omginternets wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is excellent news. I wonder what it would take to propose this in Massachusetts.

I think either MA must have some laws limiting the density of billboards and their content? We definitely haven’t gotten rid of them enough, but it is not as bad as the stuff you get outside of New England.

Many cities and counties have already rolled something out, which would be where you start. Once there's not that many billboards in total, a state-wide ban becomes more acceptable.
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