Is it possible to launch an offensive against advertising by spoofing humans that consume ads so numbers increase so dramatically they’re meaningless?
We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]
81–90 of 285 posts
Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]
#82Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]
#83Am I right that the only truly systemic solution to the problem of ads is government regulation, with communism as its final degree?
Something I believe but have no evidence for, and reality is continuing to, bafflingly, defy my expectations:
Ads are basically zero-sum in the sense that they mostly take customers that need something, and shift them to the brand that is advertised, instead of the one they would have heard of naturally (now, there is some element of ads actually increasing demand, but as people are quite cash-strapped or in debt nowadays, I guess it can only function up to some limit). Companies that advertise are engaging in an ever-increasing (more sophisticated, technical, and more expensive) competition to capture some allocation of this demand. Because we’re burning an increasing amount of money in a zero-sum competition, eventually the ecosystem must collapse under its own weight.
We can sort of see this, I think, in people becoming increasingly grumpy about how expensive everything is. But the system is very circuitous, so we misallocate blame all over the place.
Trying to regulate ads—I dunno, it seems hard to regulate without stepping on free-speech toes (US perspective, ymmv in other countries). I would rather regulate the collection of data, which doesn’t seem to be particularly protected in any sense other than that private entities can mostly just do whatever by default (it seems functionally similar to the sort of stuff that the 4’th amendment was intended to protect us against, except it is done by Facebook and Google so they get away with it) (but to be explicit, I think it is probably legal at the moment for companies to run vast surveillance networks, we need new laws).
Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another tip for youtube is to use https://sponsor.ajay.app/ -- helps skip the ads that are increasingly embedded in the video itself.
The same author made another app that replaces click bait video titles with a cloud sourced video title. It also replaces cluck bait thumbnails.
https://dearrow.ajay.app/ (super awesome project)
Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that like being wowed by people who pay to have their car oil changed, instead of doing it themselves?
Yes, plus I wonder how "responsibly" do people who replace their car oil, dispose the old oil. One of the reasons I don't do it myself, is.. 'what the hell do I do with the old oil?' I know someone that parks/aims right over a grill that is there for the rain water, and all the bad/old oil goes straight there. I ain't no angel, but that person is an absolute cunt. So.. I really hope that the garages that throughout m…
For what it's worth, where I live in New Jersey, automotive shops have to accept used oil - precisely to avoid this sort of issue. (And I trust that someone, somewhere is making sure that all of their oil actually goes somewhere safe, instead of - as you point out - being dumped into the ocean.)
I still don't change my own oil, because I'm at the point in my life where I can afford to throw $100 at that particular problem, rather than spending a dirty and greasy hour+ under my car.
Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]
#86My way to circumvent most of this: I am using Safari with AdBlock Pro and AdBlock and see zero ads when browsing the web. I spend more time on YouTube than I care to admit, so I got a Premium subscription, bought an extension called UnTrap for YouTube to hide most recommendations and turned off all YouTube history etc. I regularly visit BlueSky, Hacker News and YouTube, but not X, TikTok, Instagram or Facebook. The h…
Is there anyway to fully disable youtube shorts/reels/whatever that mess is called ...? I quite like youtube long form content but have found myself occasionally in short form rabbit holes (which are both very addicting and extremely unsatisfying and which motivated me to delete instagram to escape when i realized how much a time and emotion suck they are)
Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]
#87Is it possible to launch an offensive against advertising by spoofing humans that consume ads so numbers increase so dramatically they’re meaningless?
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Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's just propaganda. Our society is more like kings and serfs that capitalist these days.
This is absurdly false. The serfs can become kings as evidenced by newly minted millionaires every year. However, the reverse is also true as there are plenty of fortunes lost as well.
Yes, yes, we're all temporarily-displaced millionaires.
Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> bought an extension called UnTrap for YouTube I will never understand this. My ex bought tons of extensions to do stuff with Safari that other browsers do for free. He paid for a PiP extention for some websites, password managers, Tomagachi pets... dozens of trinket apps that would be depreciated in 2 or 3 major updates. I'm continually wowed by Mac users that insist on paying for a native solution to a problem tha…
Isn't that like being wowed by people who pay to have their car oil changed, instead of doing it themselves?
Bad analogy imo given doing it yourself isn't that much cheaper and clicking "install extension" isn't exactly a complex maintenance operation
Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]
#90I have been groaning about income inequality a lot but it is amazing how much of this can be explained by it. People do not have the disposable income to spend on services so you make people pay with attention. Give them the carrot for free so they don't notice. On top of that, the product is free so there is no expectation of support for the end user. You're getting it for free so what are you complaining about?