I hate ads.
That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say. Just loathe them with a burning passion. More than i do anything else in my day to day life. I feel an urge to scream it into the world every single day just how much i despise ads and whoever invented them.
I hate ads.
I can’t escape them. I feel like i’m trapped in a sick psychological torture experiment. Can’t even go outside for a walk without seeing them everywhere. This is not how human beings should live.
I hate ads.
Do the people who make ads not feel any shame for what they are doing? Stop trying to sell me your shit, i don’t want it! I don’t want to give you my money, stop trying to take it away from me!
I hate ads.
I agree, I live as free as I can from ads. Ads that I cannot block (real life) can always be tagged up!
My agreement with you is deep like a mineshaft.
Every ad represents, in the final sense, a missed opportunity for a meaningful communication, displaced by redundant consumption.
At some point i may have to go live in the forest for the sake of my own sanity.
Too bad most of the forests are either burning or owned by a degenerate.
I’m always amazed by how much of the neoliberal economy is held up by ads. Producers want people to buy their products so bad that they literally throw away hundreds, thousands, millions of dollars so that 1.0% of us rubes might click a link or go to a drive-thru.
My brother works in marketing. He’s explained the ROI for ads. I just don’t believe it. It’s a fucking shell game.
I’m with you, I hate ads!
It seems like every day, the ruling class is pushing us towards the dystopia in the Black Mirror episode, Fifteen Million Merits. Our ads are becoming cringier, stupider, and oversexualized, and they are so unbearable.
I’m sure you’d love one of YouTube’s proposals for a new ad system!
Didn’t MoviePass already try that?
No, the CEO stated that they were thinking about a service where a user could watch several dozen ads for a free movie tickets.
The eye tracking was deemed unfeasible to begin with, so they opted to give the user a set of questions at the end of each ad that they have to answer correctly.
When reality turns into a Black Mirror episode…
Hilariously that episode about the society built on ads was their second ever episode.
They’re the worst thing ever, first you literally cannot live without adblock on YouTube or anywhere else, and second it can be anything, almost every time you open some site, it’s basically guaranteed for 5+ random shit to start poping up all over the screen, it can be either of these: question to allow ads, if you want to subscribe for this and that, to allow info access or not, notifications, and then you have to turn off 5+ random shit before you actually see what you wanted to see on that page, like can they just piss off!?
idk if where i live just has particularly few ads but i almost never see them outside and i dont watch tv cuz its awful and i have adblockers on everything i use for the internet so idk they play such a small role in my life that it doesnt bother me when i see the occasional one.
Must be nice where you live. I can’t step foot outside my door without seeing billboards.
One of the things I miss the most about growing up in USSR is not having ads shoved down my throat at every waking moment. Being able to walk around on a street without constant flashing lights trying to get your attention is frankly blissful.
One of the things I miss the most about growing up in USSR is not having ads shoved down my throat at every waking moment.
Whoa, really? I mean the no ad stuff makes sense, but I didn’t know you grew up there, comrade.
Oh yeah, I was lucky enough to catch the last decade of it.
What’s a good adblock?
Ublock origin
On Android, use Adguard DNS for some system-wide effects.
On all operating systems, use Firefox + uBlock Origin as your browser.
On all operating systems, use Firefox + uBlock Origin as your browser.
👍
Additionally I’d recommend Arkenfox, which is a portable user.js for FF which is a configurable set of browser variables (many of which are hidden in about:config) that helps block browser fingerprinting, tracking and can disable some of the awful “conveniences” that FF ships with. There’s a FF fork called LibreWolf which implements most of the Arkenfox recommended policies if you’re not comfortable meddling with files.
I also like to use NoScript with uBlockOrigin to have more granular control.
Welcome to late stage capitalism
I don’t want to make things worse for you. I really don’t. But I feel the same way about billboards and posters. We go about our day surrounded by ads of all types, both digital and physical, and once you sorta snap out of the haze and notice how unsightly and annoying they all are it’s impossible to not be constantly annoyed by them.
I hate that driving down a nice road with trees and fields and pretty things is just FULL of dumb ass giant billboards the whole way. Like you can’t look in any direction and see something nice, only ads fucking up the view. I hate it.
You only notice how insidious and shit ads are once you properly experience what life is like without them. As someone who browses internet only with uBlock Origin, obtains media only through ethical means (piracy), I cannot stand ads at all. Then one day I am forced to experience ads. Like maybe I am visiting someone who is watching cable TV. And I cannot comprehend how someone just does not go berserk seeing ads.
My father was watching YouTube on a smart tv and there was a whole one and half movie as an ad. It was skippable but who puts an entire movie up as an ad? And why? They also put up kpop boy band music videos as ads. For my late-middle-aged Hindu fascist father, a fact that YouTube knows owing to the browsing history. I don’t understand advertising at all.
YouTube ads have gotten so intrusive and so frequent that it has become virtually impossible to use that platform without adblockers. You’d have to be a masochist to watch YouTube without them. And even when you adblock you still have sponsored segments in the videos themselves. Shit is inescapable.
In case you didn’t know, there’s a browser plug-in called Sponsorblock which help skip those in-video ad segments. It relies on user input to work, so someone has to watch the video and timestamp the ad segments and maybe a couple other important points in the video, but it works really well most of the time.
Sometimes it has sponsor data for videos which one could consider obscure. The people populating that database are absolute heroes. It even skips intros and outros if you want.
I was listening to a podcast, and the host was talking about how his son (early middle school age) apparently came home from school singing ad jingles just because of how much they were exposed to it. It’s basically the plot of a dystopian novel.
I think that’s horrifyingly normal honestly. I can still remember jingles from adverts from my childhood that I haven’t seen in decades. It’s really insidious.
I’ll never understand how people are like “okay I agree to a bit of brainwashing in exchange for watching this :)”
I do my best to actively work at not buying anything I see advertised. Often there’s little choice, but I like to think successfully showing me ads is a net negative to the company.
I do my best to actively work at not buying anything I see advertised.
Same, but at the same time we have to recognize that none of us are immune to psychological manipulation, even when we are aware that that is what they are doing. With enough repetition ads will still work subconsciously even though you may consciously make an effort to try and resist them. It’s mental rape. You did not consent yet you still have this shit thrust into your brain.