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We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

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Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#161

I accepted cookies, watched an ad, dismissed a popup for a newsletter to watch a video about ads. That really nails it.

For balance, I clicked the link and (after a moment of my browser imposing my will) the video started playing. Opera + Ghostery is quite a pleasant experience, at least when compared to mobile browsing (at the other end of the spectrum).

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#162
post #156
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least, generally, they no longer open hundreds of windows above or below the current window, which may or may not have browser control bars, may ‘warn’ on exit etc etc If a page wants to cover itself in noise and dialogues, sure it’s annoying but it’s not quite on the same level as back then.

Why do I keep seeing, "it's not as bad as that" as a defense? It's still bad!

The one saying it’s not as bad are probably the same ones whose salary depends on their users’ engagement with those same pop ups.

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#165
post #28

My 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)

https://github.com/Onsotumenh/YouTube-Cosmetic-Filters-for-u...

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#166
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm like the parent, on Safari – apparently also using an "inferior" way to block ads that, somehow, inexplicably, works 100% of the time and has never let an ad slip through. Is it supposed to be inferior because it's brittle and requires constant work on the side of the developer? Is it blocking too much and I'm just not aware of it? Is there some new ad tech that it's not prepared for, and can't adapt to, and will…

It’s inferior AFAICT because the API is more limited, and it looks an awful lot like the world’s biggest ad company (Google) has arranged that specifically to be less effective for ad and tracker blocking. It’s a good reason to use Firefox.

It's also inferior because the filter lists for requests must be hardcoded and can only be changed through extension updates, which Google (or whoever owns the browser's extension store) can delay or block at their discretion.

This also means users can't install their own filters, which was widely used when YouTube began aggressively bypassing adblockers.

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#167

One thing I've noticed is that Reddit is very, very aggressive about how it implements its telemetry. Not only is the endpoint that it uses for collecting events randomized each time you load a page, but it also happens that every event collector URL is a valid API endpoint that is used for other things. You can't block any of them with regular ad blocking tools unless you're okay with blocking the corresponding API…

> It's evil and I hate it.

That sums post-IPO Reddit up rather well

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#168
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The terminal helps automation? How?

Most input is text, most output is text, commands are text. Vast majority of programming languages can process and produce text out-of-the-box. There are countless utilities for processing text. You can store, load, split and join text easily. Send and receive it through most channels. When everything is text, text files become libraries. Text editors become macro processors.

yep if you can think in the terminal (scripts, files, pipes) you can automate anything

+ the minimalism in the age of ad-les enshittification is refreshing

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#169
post #97

I accepted cookies, watched an ad, dismissed a popup for a newsletter to watch a video about ads. That really nails it.

The funny thing is that we fought so hard against pop-ups throughout the 90's and 2000's only to re-implement pop-ups in javascript as soon as we could.

I have always wondered what the web would be like if we added the scripting language later and only solidified CSS and HTML for the first 15 years or so.

I wonder if things would actually be better overall. I’m not going to argue that having a scripting language for the web was a mistake, it definitely isn’t on the whole, but I think having it come at a more mature point for the web might have helped stave off a lot of really bad decisions

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#170

I 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?

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