811–820 of 835 posts
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Ignoring the cryptocurrency angle for a second (to avoid distracting knee-jerks)... Have you thought deeply about why micropayments have not been embraced?
ads
AML/KYC costs money, enough to make truly micro micropayments impossible.
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I'm fond of the ones with a fake close button, so tapping it just launches the ad's site. Instant uninstall and 1-star. (Yes, I know it's mostly the ad's fault, but there's no practical way to punish them directly. So force apps to pick better-behaving networks.)
This is usually against ad network rules, so if you're willing to go out of your way a bit, you can screenshot those ads and report directly to the ad network
They could have a separate ad-reporting UI in every ad-running app (so you can report stuff later), and they could reward valid reports by skipping all ads on their network for a month or something, but doing that would reduce fraud, and that means reducing their profit. So none of them do it.
I'd say they probably need an oversight committee with teeth, to strongly punish every single violation (so the networks develop functional defenses), but they'll probably just VW-emissions-fraud their way around it.
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I will note we effectively have that law already for political text spam. No robo-texting it has to come from a “real” person. Doesn’t seem to have changed the amount of text spam I get, they just all start with “This is Bob from People Against Things …” You could probably hire a lot of “town criers” on fiver for the cost of a 30 second TV spot.
When I say I would accept town criers to get rid of those ads I mean literal town criers. Not people sending me mail, email, texts, or calls. People being kinda loud and/or holding up big signs in public places. They can offer me a flyer when I walk by, I suppose.
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I struggle with this too. I struggle less when I remind myself of how much the tech sector has grown in the past 20 years. Not even just in power and control over critical infrastructure, but in wealth. Market Cap by Year Year 0 1 2 3 4 2025 Nvidia (4.6T) Apple (3.9T) Google (3.8T) Microsoft (3.5T) Amazon (2.6T) 2020 Apple (2.3T) Microsoft (1.7T) Amazon (1.6T) Google (1.2T) Meta (777M) 2015 Apple (598M) Google (534M)…
This is sort of my line of reasoning as well. In my own petty way. I consider this my pushback against a system that is pushing oppressive systems onto me. But really, I'm partially glad this system works and partially annoyed that this is the cost.
The dramatically widening gap with the 0.01% is just absurd. Capitalist economies need capital to flow through the system, not pool up. I mean look at Mackenzie Scott. She's trying to throw her money away as fast as possible but earns it faster than she can give it away lol. And that's only 35bn.
I just won't be guilt tripped by people who are at the top. Especially when they're calling the kettle black and just flat out lying (e.g. companies "struggling". Struggling to what? Outperform the previous year's growth? In the middle of a global pandemic? lol)
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When I say I would accept town criers to get rid of those ads I mean literal town criers. Not people sending me mail, email, texts, or calls. People being kinda loud and/or holding up big signs in public places. They can offer me a flyer when I walk by, I suppose.
Sure I get it. I just don't think your annoyance level is going to go down that much. It wont take many sign twirlers on every corner, or people driving up and down your neighborhood at all hours of the day with a "ad truck" to be more annoying than the worst of youtube's advertising. Imagine if every fedex or ups truck and amazon van you see was also blaring a loud speaker advertising businesses. Door to door salesm…
I doubt that would be an efficient use of money, and that doesn't really seem like crier behavior.
And is that kind of noisemaking legal in most places?
If I need to specify the criers only use their own voice, then consider that specified.
> Imagine if every fedex or ups truck and amazon van you see was also blaring a loud speaker advertising businesses
Blocking that double use is part of why I tossed "independent" into my earlier post.
And door to door salesmen coming onto my property definitely don't count as criers.
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Also decreasing the likelihood of content that you like watching gets made? The creator is being paid from that ad revenue too.
if my viewing actively cost the video creators money from me watching I'd probably feel guilty and stop but this isn't the case, I'm completely cost neutral to them but it does directly cost Google money... and I'm perfectly fine with that
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>The world would definitely be better without ads. I don't have the proof but I'm guessing that this is provably wrong. Without advertising in some existance it would be nearly impossible to start a business which means everyone would be peasants farming for subsistence living. I think the problem is that the propose of ads has become divorced from product. The issue is poor regulation not the existence of ads. Think…
Why would it be impossible to start a business? You would still be able to list your business in mediums where potential buyers willingly go and search for products and services. If anything, it would level the playing field, paying more for ads would not mean you getting your poorer services more visible buy paying more for ads.
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The world would definitely be better without ads. All ads are poisonous. All of them first convince you that you and your life as it is is not good enough, and that in order to be happy again you need to spend money to buy a $product.
>The world would definitely be better without ads. I don't have the proof but I'm guessing that this is provably wrong. Without advertising in some existance it would be nearly impossible to start a business which means everyone would be peasants farming for subsistence living. I think the problem is that the propose of ads has become divorced from product. The issue is poor regulation not the existence of ads. Think…
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Sure I get it. I just don't think your annoyance level is going to go down that much. It wont take many sign twirlers on every corner, or people driving up and down your neighborhood at all hours of the day with a "ad truck" to be more annoying than the worst of youtube's advertising. Imagine if every fedex or ups truck and amazon van you see was also blaring a loud speaker advertising businesses. Door to door salesm…
> people driving up and down your neighborhood at all hours of the day with a "ad truck" I doubt that would be an efficient use of money, and that doesn't really seem like crier behavior. And is that kind of noisemaking legal in most places? If I need to specify the criers only use their own voice, then consider that specified. > Imagine if every fedex or ups truck and amazon van you see was also blaring a loud speak…
It works for ice cream trucks, and when you ban all other forms of advertising, it's not like there's any more efficient places to spend that ad money.
> Blocking that double use is part of why I tossed "independent" into my earlier post.
So we'd just wind up with fleets of "independent contractors" doing deliveries for part of their income and advertising for the other part. It's not like a bunch of those vans and trucks aren't already contractors in the first place.
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If you're aware of it and think you're susceptible then you can make it impossible to be influenced by it. Ie, You can disable all 'related videos'/feeds/home page on Youtube with Unhook, and sponsored segments with SponsorBlock. I'll probably never see a Youtube thumbnail for the rest of my life, throw in Adblock and your exposure is extremely limited. > Sales guys love people like that. You can also easily never sp…
> Ie, You can disable all 'related videos'/feeds/home page on Youtube with Unhook This is not specific to YouTube. It’s billboards, product placement, etc etc etc. > You can also easily never speak to them. I know they exist, but as a consumer I can't think of anytime I've had a sales interaction with a salesperson Ok, so you make every major purchase online, probably don’t own a car, never purchased a home or lived…