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Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

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Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#222

Post by cwkoss »

codazoda wrote: post #150
ok_dad wrote: post #4

Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…

Just last night I was thinking about how much of my life is wasted watching advertising on TV. 15 minutes is worth more than a few dollars to me. I was watching a movie on the Roku Channel. Because the channel is free, it's got commercials. The more I watched, the longer the commercials got. At some point I gave up and turned it off. The movie is 132 minutes long and there are 10 stops for commercials. The last comme…

We need to start a collective action where audiences punish advertisers. How can we lower the ROI on advertising as a society? Harass customer service lines with complaints about the advertisements? Organize focused boycotts of worst offenders? Form a journalistic non-profit that investigates unethical and illegal business practices, ordering targets by ad spend?

Maybe we should mock friends and acquaintances that purchase things that are advertised in annoying or manipulative ways.

Ads are stupid, and being influenced by them should be socially embarrassing in the same way that participating in MLMs is.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#223

Post by jacquesm »

TchoBeer wrote: post #202
jacquesm wrote: post #29

I think there is an 'optimum' level for technology of all kinds, below that you really want more and it is clear that there is room for improvement. But once the optimum has been reached any further additions will degrade the experience. Examples: Car controls: pre: direct taps and gauges plumbed into engine parts and such, real switches and levers. optimum: does what it should, not more, not less, more reliable than…

Do you recognize that this is subjective? YouTube is way better than TV, imo.

Maybe being better than TV was a bit of a low bar to shoot for. Youtube has super good stuff but it's like with email: there are very good emails and then there is the spam. But there is no youtube 'spamfilter'. Hm... idea?

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#224

Post by rco8786 »

lolsal wrote: post #120
hippie_queen wrote: post #94

Even though I love my friends, I just don't like being available or able to be contacted all the time. I kinda miss the era of basic SMS and, for real-time chatting, MSN Messenger (or IRC). Nowadays, it feels like I can never truly "log off". That said, I have no genuinely good reason why I haven't tried going back to a similar personal setup. Maybe it's time to see how it would work out.

You don't need technology to solve this problem for you - you can choose not to be available.

You're thinking about it backwards. Technology created this problem. Choosing to not be available is effectively making yourself a social pariah if your social circle is otherwise highly available.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#225

Post by ploxiln »

jacquesm wrote: post #29

I think there is an 'optimum' level for technology of all kinds, below that you really want more and it is clear that there is room for improvement. But once the optimum has been reached any further additions will degrade the experience. Examples: Car controls: pre: direct taps and gauges plumbed into engine parts and such, real switches and levers. optimum: does what it should, not more, not less, more reliable than…

I think this resonates with your point: https://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm

Basically, for the first 50 years, airplane technology advanced at an amazing pace. And people thought it would go on to supersonic aircraft and space travel, and they tried to make that happen, but it just didn't make practical sense, and today we use jumbo jets very similar to what was introduced 50 years ago, and they still work better than the more advanced alternatives.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#230

Post by smoldesu »

evergrande wrote: post #152
ok_dad wrote: post #4

Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…

This is an under appreciated point about web3. We can get away from the ad-based business model. Web2 has an adversarial relationship with the user, web3 is much more aligned with the user. https://www.jonstokes.com/p/web3-the-rise-of-the-aligned-web

Zoidberg voice Why not both?
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