I've been blocking ads for so long that actually seeing them feels perverse

I use ad blockers and open source privacy focused software whenever I can but occasionally I have to use computers that don’t belong to me or an older phone where my usual applications aren’t installed and seeing all the advertisements just feels dirty and dystopian.

I think the worst ads are the text to speech ones that say “Download this app today”. The unblinking energenic people saying you can make a living at home are probably a close second.

satanmat,

I forget that YouTube has ads. And then I go to watch on a platform that doesn’t have blocking and it freaks me out.

Thurgo,

The NHL put computer graphic advertisements on the boards and it has nearly ruined the sport for me. There are some bootleg streams that have a broadcast without the advertisements but most of them I find have the ads. Flashing shit. Cars driving down the boards. Animated logos. It’s insane what the NHL decided to do with their broadcast product.

bela,

This is exactly how I feel. Whenever I had to watch a youtube video with ads lately my lovely Hungarian government has not failed once to put a lovely propaganda piece before every single video. It’s insane that people actually live like this.

What I think about is how “surfing the internet” has entirely lost its meaning. When looking for something specific your only bet is your search engine’s 3rd to 7th results (the first two just being ads or “sponsored”), and you need to put in serious effort to discover unique and interesting stuff.

I can not wait for the ad bubble to burst, and maybe then we’ll get some sort of a usable internet once again…

TimewornTraveler,

Yo seriously can you explain how did Hungary get like that

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

They have their own Trump except much more powerful.

bela,

deleted_by_author

    •
    TimewornTraveler,

    What a nightmare. what are you guys gonna do?

    Catoblepas,

    I feel like this whenever I’m subjected to cable ads. Who the fuck can sit through like 4 or 5 minutes of ads every 15 minutes?

    EeeDawg101,

    And they’re paying lots of money for it! It’s mind blowing

    JackbyDev,

    They even speed up old shows and movies to run more ads!

    VanillaGorilla,

    My colleague uses chrome like Google intended and every time she shares her screen I question her sanity. Terminal instead of iTerm, ok. Not using oh my zsh, well, if you insist. But that? You can barely identify the information you're looking for between all that screaming nonsense.

    kaitco,

    I notice this more when I have to search for things online on the work laptop. I had no idea how bad some sites were. Things blinking on the one side, a video playing on the other. Huge banners everywhere telling me to download this or click here for this clickbait article.

    I’m so accustomed to Firefox, uBlock, Facebook Container, Privacy Badger, and a VPN at home that I feel overwhelmed when I’m online without them. Even my phone has ad blockers and the VPN. It’s a nightmare when you’re running sites…raw.

    bug,

    Can you not install uBlock Origin on your work machine? I’d argue that it will improve your productivity and reduce the chance of losing the company’s info to trackers and the like!

    kaitco,

    Nope. It took a coup for me to just get Firefox installed instead of just using Chrome and no add-one are allowed.

    bug,

    Mental.

    Imajustlayhere,

    "When I'm watchin' my TV
    And a man comes on and tells me
    How white my shirts can be
    But, he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke
    The same cigarettes as me"
    The Rolling Stones

    FARTYSHARTBLAST,
    @FARTYSHARTBLAST@kbin.social avatar

    That's because it is.

    ButWhatDoesItAllMean,

    Pihole was the best thing I ever set up for home Internet consumption

    Darkassassin07,
    @Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca avatar

    Add on a OpenVPN instance to keep mobile devices behind that pihole when on mobile data/external wifi.

    Plus a little extra encryption across public networks couldn’t hurt.

    DogMuffins,

    Yeah I agree.

    It’s made me very intolerant of ads. It’s kind of surprising how much effort I will invest to avoid ads, and avoid supporting people who make a living from advertising revenue.

    sebinspace,

    people who make a living from advertising revenue

    That’s a lot of people, lad…

    Sterile_Technique,
    @Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world avatar

    …just imagine if they were all doing something productive instead.

    Props to @DogMuffins for helping to discourage their parasitic behavior and ushering them toward career paths that might actually utilize their potential in a positive way!

    HidingCat,

    Lots of the web is still run by advertising revenue. I know a few of the sites I like to go to rely on advertisting. I certainly don't consider them parasites like you do, they're just working within the system, because the alternative is to not exist, and I'd rather not have that.

    DogMuffins,

    I don’t think that’s true at all.

    If advertising didn’t exist then content producers and content consumers would embrace an alternative funding model because everyone wants content.

    HidingCat,

    Enough to pay for it? Nope. I've been on the other sides of this equation, that is a very naive take.

    ttmrichter,
    @ttmrichter@lemmy.world avatar

    Enough to pay for it … if it’s good enough to be worth paying for.

    It’s that last part that kills most content creators. There’s people whose work I’ll idly browse as long as I don’t have to pay for it (even with ads: I love my ad blocker!). But you’re right, 99.44% of content creators whose work I idly look over would not get a single red cent out of me from direct payment.

    So maybe it would be good to switch to payment-only schemes. That would kill off the crap creators and leave those behind who make something people think is worth paying for.

    I mean … I still pay for books and music. I do pay for content. Just not shit content.

    cubedsteaks,

    Enough to pay for it … if it’s good enough to be worth paying for.

    I’ll give you an example. I use a site called lacemarket which is a buying/selling site for a niche hobby of Japanese street fashion. It will never be popular enough that enough people would be using the site in order for them to make enough to pay for hosting the site.

    So they’re forced to run ad’s cause they have no other way to keep the site up. The owners are also not taking a percentage of people’s sales so they can continue to bring in people who want to use the site. But in order to not take money from the sellers, the only other option they have to keep the site running is ad funding.

    It sucks but its too niche to do it any other way.

    ttmrichter,
    @ttmrichter@lemmy.world avatar

    If it is that niche, it is not a self-sustaining business model (with the evidence for this being that they instead have to sell their users to third parties).

    Perhaps it’s just better left to die than to propagate an economic model that commoditizes human beings who aren’t even part of the business?

    cubedsteaks,

    no, its a hobby community and its been running since at least 2014. There is a demand for it but only in that community.

    So letting it die wouldn’t be an option. It’s not a ton of people but I can think of lots of communities that have like 300 ish people in them who would be fucking livid if that site went down.

    ttmrichter,
    @ttmrichter@lemmy.world avatar
    1. And 300 people couldn’t find the resources to keep a small server up? For the equivalent of $1 per month each the very first VPS provider I found on a search gives you more than enough horsepower to support that small a community. …com.au/…/vps-virtual-dedicated-server-detail

    That’s the very first result I found.

    And you need ads to support this!?

    cubedsteaks,

    No, only like two people run the site.

    The groups I’m talking about are the people who use the site to buy and sell the clothes on there.

    ttmrichter,
    @ttmrichter@lemmy.world avatar

    I understand that. And those people buying and selling clothes on that site can’t afford a buck a month?

    cubedsteaks,

    They probably could but getting them to is another story. The ads are just easier.

    ttmrichter,
    @ttmrichter@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m happy that the total destruction of the Internet into a Hellscape of graffiti and malware is helping your 300 people save a buck a month.

    cubedsteaks,

    I mean, tell those girls that. They’ll dox your ass but I’m sure it’d be worth it to make a point about advertisers.

    ttmrichter,
    @ttmrichter@lemmy.world avatar

    Ah. So turning the Internet into a Hellscape of graffiti and malware is fine so that 300 idiots who can’t afford a buck a month won’t, and I quote, “dox my ass”.

    What’s the word again for a (typically very small) minority trying to force their will on a (typically very large) majority by using actions intended to create fear? You know, actions intended to create terror in the target audience. The word’s on the tip of my tongue…

    Fuck the 300. If they can’t afford a buck a month then their hobby can just die. I don’t want to have to put up with advertising spam on literally everything my eyes fall on just because 300 “girls” will “dox my ass”.

    cubedsteaks,

    It’s a niche hobby so they don’t really effect any part of the internet other than their own.

    Do you know anything about Japanese Street fashion as a hobby…

    ttmrichter,
    @ttmrichter@lemmy.world avatar

    If they perpetrate and normalize advertising-driven income, they effect every part of the Internet. That’s the whole point of this entire thread: ads are the Original Sin™ of the Internet and shit little sites like this perpetuate this toxic mix.

    If they can’t pay a buck a month for themselves, their hobby deserves to die.

    DogMuffins,

    You mean you’re a content producer that couldn’t get people to support you directly? Did ad revenue solve the problem?

    If advertising didn’t exist other funding models would be embraced.

    grue,

    You just think that because advertising exists as an option. If that circumstance was different, everything else would be too.

    sebinspace,

    Alright so journalists and reviewers can fuck off, then?

    DogMuffins,

    Journalists don’t make money from advertising revenue. Reviewers can fuck off.

    cavvema,

    Actually, since the Internet began to be public domain, physical newspapers has lower and lower sales. Since people can find the news online. This is one reason behind ads online.

    Today, many local areas have nobody that works as a journalist, no local news=local politicians can do whatever they want without anybody question them.

    So, what do you prefer? A community that has journalists asking the tough questions, digging for dirt or a community where corruption can flow free?

    Support your local newspaper/news station with a subscription and use adblock.

    ttmrichter,
    @ttmrichter@lemmy.world avatar

    There are no more local newspapers or stations for all practical purposes. 70% of the UK’s “local” news media (print or broadcast) are owned by four media conglomerates. Most “local” television media in the USA is owned by the (right wing asshole collection) Sinclair Broadcast Group or (fellow right wing asshole collection) Rosebud Media. About 2/3 of “local” newspapers in the USA aren’t locally-owned or operated and don’t hire local reporters. Of these, about half are owned by 25 companies (themselves part of larger conglomerates in twisted, difficult-to-unravel relationships).

    So it’s kind of difficult to support your local newspaper/station. Because it’s a unicorn for most people.

    DogMuffins,

    Actually I personally believe that public funded media is vastly better than independent. Private media has prudent itself incapable of being anything other than corporate / conservative shills.

    cubedsteaks,

    I want to agree but I live in a place with a popular local newspaper that moved online and it’s still corrupt as ever here.

    sebinspace,

    I’m beginning to think you lack fundamental knowledge of how the internet sort of… works…

    DogMuffins,

    Oh my sweet summer child…

    DogMuffins,

    Not really?

    ttmrichter,
    @ttmrichter@lemmy.world avatar

    That’s a lot of people who are a net drain on society both economically and in terms of accomplishment. SO MUCH EFFORT is wasted on trying to get my eyes on their graffiti. The greatest engineers of the 1950s and 1960s put humans on the Moon. The greatest engineers of the 2000s onwards struggle to get eyes on ads.

    It’s fucking repulsive.

    ItsComplicated,

    I always get the same 2 responses:

    Its not that bad or I dont notice…grrrrrrr

    oddspinnaker,

    “I’ve been beaten into accepting it.”

    cubedsteaks,

    so you’ve never heard “It makes me feel nostalgic and I enjoy it”?

    ItsComplicated,

    Honestly, nope. That would be a new one!

    cubedsteaks,

    I guess I’m a new one lol

    I have VHS recordings that have ads still in them and its like my prized possession. I love those recordings.

    sin_free_for_00_days,

    Same, it’s so weird seeing normal TV or using the internet without blockers. Feels like living in Idiocracy.

    The_v,

    One of my most used sites has a banner that says “Sign up for a small fee to remove the ads.”

    I was a confused for a second, because I had never seen one.

    Tried the site with another browser with my default protection off and holy shit, so many ads. The webpage is mostly unusable because of the shear number.

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