21–30 of 278 posts
Ad-free goes hand in hand with distraction-free for me. Thus "Stay up to date with Adfree Cities" and "Watch the video to see three steps you can take today" do not speak to me, at all.
I have personally gotten very aggressive at removing as many ads from my life as I can. I pay for the "premium" version of everything I can to remove ads (Spotify, YouTube, podcast subscriptions) and use adblocker aggressively. It's so much nicer than the alternative. There are two places where ads remain: 1) Social media where the ads are integrated and not blocked (Facebook, YouTube in-video promos) 2) Billboards i…
Was it cleaner? Was the architecture just very modernist? Did it have something to do with the season?
Eventually, I realized that the difference I was noticing between Switzerland and California (my home state) was that there was simply much less advertising in the physical spaces of cities.
I am not sure if this is a result of some legislature there or if it is just a result of the way the Swiss think about visual design and advertising.
But I absolutely loved it. It was so refreshing to see the beauty of a city block without being bombarded by advertisements.
It really lets the character of a city shine through.
LA, SF and Sac seem to be on the opposite end of the spectrum… practically the only thing you notice are the billboards.
The award of the contract for the outdoor advertising space (bus shelters, roadside space) in my city was tied to providing and maintaining a cheap metro-area wide bike sharing scheme. For 30ish euros a year I get unlimited 45 minute trips on bikes that are widely available, well maintained, and easy to use. In 2022 there were more than 10 million trips taken on these hire bikes and nearly 84,000 annual subscribers.…
It's not a good trade, there shouldn't be a monopoly on public ads, local businesses should be able to reach consumers without having to go through a monopolist that captures all of the value.
The fact that you can advertise in cities is the reason that big tech doesn't capture 100% of profits in every single market. Advertising in cities, from billboards to flyers to stickers is the only way to reach people directly, without going through an intermediary big tech monopoly. I have a sense that the people most likely to support this thing also whine a lot about big tech, so this is just another bullet point…
At first there's a bit of an uncanny valley effect, particularly when driving around a city. Eventually that settles down, and the reduction in low-level visual stimulus is really appreciated. Coming back home, you might see the insane levels of visual pollution we deal with in a new light.
Not qualified to comment on the broader economic ramifications of this, but as a normal person navigating the world, it's pretty great!
* Advertising in the form of pasted posters, signs for nearby stores, etc.;
* "Large scale" advertising, e.g. the 60+ foot free-standing or roof-mounted pillars that are common in US cities and on roads;
* Mixed-digital advertising that usually has some kind of analytics or tracking mixed in (e.g. the much-maligned "digital front" displays that some convenience stores are installing[1])
To my mind, the first is mostly unobjectionable, the second is usually visually offensive (and should be price-adjusted to reflect the diminishing effect it has on the urban environment), and the third is civically offensive (and should be outright illegal).
[1]: https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/business/walgreens-freezer-sc...
I have personally gotten very aggressive at removing as many ads from my life as I can. I pay for the "premium" version of everything I can to remove ads (Spotify, YouTube, podcast subscriptions) and use adblocker aggressively. It's so much nicer than the alternative. There are two places where ads remain: 1) Social media where the ads are integrated and not blocked (Facebook, YouTube in-video promos) 2) Billboards i…
I have personally gotten very aggressive at removing as many ads from my life as I can. I pay for the "premium" version of everything I can to remove ads (Spotify, YouTube, podcast subscriptions) and use adblocker aggressively. It's so much nicer than the alternative. There are two places where ads remain: 1) Social media where the ads are integrated and not blocked (Facebook, YouTube in-video promos) 2) Billboards i…
I didn’t realize until recently that almost all billboards are made of a thick plastic vinyl material.
I recently saw one of these billboards folded up on the ground before it went up. It’s just a giant chunk of plastic that I imagine ends up in some landfill somewhere.