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I use an adblocker and I have for a while now. Every so often I hear a moral argument about why adblockers are bad (ads support free internet, etc) but to be completely honest, I simply don't care anymore. Advertising is in such a malicious state that yes, I'm going to put my own experience quality over whatever collective good there is in watching ads.
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Definitely not safe for work!
Know Your Meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/big-bill-hells
> This highly over the top commercial was originally produced as a joke in 1990 for a faux award show put on be the Advertising Association of Baltimore called The Ad Follies. The AAB searched for agencies willing to produce ad spoofs mocking the top agencies in the city despite the impending threat that people working on these spoofs may place their jobs in jeopardy for doing so. The production was conducted at television studio WBFF and all of the footage originates from car manufacturer promotional videos and generic stock footage. The writer and narrator of the copy are still both unknown.
> The video was never intended to be shown outside of The Ad Follies show because of the vulgarity and the possibilities of being viewed by the mocked. Copies were only distributed to people who worked on production and to WBFF employees following the screening.I’ve used Adblock aggressively for the last 10 or 15 years. I don’t have a TV, don’t read magazines or the newspaper, don’t listen to the radio. I essentially don’t see or hear ads in my life.
There are still physical printed ads on billboards you can't really avoid, as well as all the branding from anything else you encounter in the streets: cars, bicycle, shops, drink coasters at the bar/pub, etc which are by essence advertising. Also many cultural things are full of product placements, all movies, many songs, event sponsoring, etc. As much as I do to avoid ads (using adblocker, priorizing gemtext caches…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I hate ads as much as anyone but they are not in any way comparable to rape. Please have some sense of proportion.
Friends, ignore this thread. Move on. Don't engage.
A lot of sites are essentially unreadable. There are things flashing at you, videos that autoplay, and the page will reload every 30 seconds and you lose your place. And even if ads are respectful of user experience, there is a cognitive load to having the content you want to consume bombarded with unrelated content, especially when it’s trying to manipulate your emotions in some way. Site owners don’t have a right t…
and I realized its like a video game. we've actually been trained to try to keep your eyes on the actual content and go through a series of skilled motions just to be able to read it.
Would you be willing to pay a small sum per piece of content? Maybe 10c per video or article? Maybe 1c for a short or something? Assume that it’s anonymous and frictionless (big assumptions, but this is just a thought experiment).
I use an adblocker and I have for a while now. Every so often I hear a moral argument about why adblockers are bad (ads support free internet, etc) but to be completely honest, I simply don't care anymore. Advertising is in such a malicious state that yes, I'm going to put my own experience quality over whatever collective good there is in watching ads.
“[…] moral argument […]” I mean, that’s pretty rich coming from the folks willfully engaging in human rights violating surveillance to overwhelm you with obscure useless nonsense that is literally an assault on your time, attention and mental health all for the 0.00001% chance of a vague hope you’ll click or tap their lie of an ad for snake oil that doesn’t work and is designed to steal your credit card number anyway…
It still doesn't quite hold, and the fact that it's being handed to them by the companies who get most of the profit is a big red flag.
But it's at least understandable why the site owners don't see themselves nearly as badly as we see the ad companies.
I only watch TV where I can pay the service for an ad-free tier. Every podcast I can I subscribe to to get rid of ads if I listen to it regularly. I had an ad blocker, of course. No ads in my music streaming. YouTube Premium, and I skip embedded ads.
Any ads I see are infuriating. I’m pissed at Apple starting to shove them in my face more and more. App Store is whatever. But MAPS??? I chose Apple because they DIDN’T do stuff like that.
But gotta grub that money to make the stock keep going up for no sane reason.
I’m all for regulating the advertising industry more somehow. I realize there is value to advertising at times, but they have managed to piss me off far enough I don’t care.
I totally understand what the article is about though... I went on to my wife's instagram and her ad load is unbelievable. She probably has to look at 1 ad for ever 3 reels or images or whatever the hell they call them. I couldn't imagine having to see that many ads.
Last quick note - part of the reason why I avoid that kind of media, and use the tech to block it. I had a professor in college who pointed out that the purpose of ads is not to sell something, its actually to make you unhappy.