Seen in a SF Muni station
Edit to add: Jeez, relax. I was on my way home from a doctor’s appointment and saw that ad. It made me chuckle so I posted it here.
If seeing this post really upsets you, take some deep breaths and keep scrolling. With any luck, you’ll have fully healed in a couple of days.
Over a hundred people up voting… an ad.
Here’s the thing. The reason ads are bad is because almost every single one is for a product that will exploit the user. Mullvad is a product that does the opposite. They ask for money, but don’t force it. They intend to give power of the user’s life back to the user. Thus, some ads are actually okay. Ads about VPNs, self hosted systems, anti-corporate anticapitalist services, software that is for you to use and only ever takes telemetry for software improvement, and then only if you consent first.
Hell, before this garbage, on TV the only ads were products and charities, and everybody grew really sick of the African child ads because its sole purpose was to exploit the viewer’s empathy and get their money. Same with now, except if it’s not money they want it’s data, and data is money to them.
Related note
I’m a Ublock Origin kinda guy, but not a SponsorBlock one
Because gestures at capitalism is the thing for now:
Sponsorships, when transparent and well-chosen and clearly labeled and clever, are less grating and don’t use anti-privacy targeting methods. That’s a path forward I’m pretty much OK with (remember capitalism is the thing, you & I have to eat like the YouTubers?).
My expectation is not “everyone should do everything for free” or “you’re only allowed to sell merch, without ever mentioning it” or “uploaders must have live shows and sell tickets if they ever want a dollar”. It’s “ewww, ads” and the malware that we’re exposed to alongside them.
Meant to make a post about this but your comment triggered it early :)
Surpressing sponsors is a perverse incentive too; all the more reason to not disclose who’s paying the creator.
And yeah, any ‘moral’ justification for web ads is dead like 100 times over. I hate how hard it makes life for ‘old web’ style sites with like one innocent banner ad, but still.
Are you saying creators should not disclose their sponsors? If so…
I disagree, we need more transparency about finances of companies in the world. If a sponsor can pay somebody like LinusTechTips 40k a video to promote their video, than that means we as a consumer are overpaying for the product.
In a lot of European countries you can just see an annual report of a company which you can use to say filter out dropshippers since they generally spend a lot on ads and marketing.
We aren’t going to be able to stop ads on the web unless we start paying subscriptions for everything and that is a good way to get a lot of people into financial trouble. I also wish we could more easily go back to simple websites with no tracking and barely any ads.
Nah I meant the opposite. Journalistic integrity was learned through long, hard history.
Now that traditional journalism is dying, its like the streamer generation has to learn it from scratch, heh.
Wow great point!
btw I’d also thought to mention how I wish it could just be merch or live show tix b/c: did that creator I love REALLY like the new widget that was released or were they financially incentivized?
Which is why I mentioned transparency & labeling. Some will falter and some good people will subconsciously be incentivized, but some will choose sponsors so well they’ll be fine, too.
Its kinda like influencers (and their younger viewers) are relearning the history of journalism from scratch, heh.
I only use SponsorBlock because I do not use adblock. I pay for YT Premium, and YT Premium views are worth far more than ad-driven views. I don’t like paying for something and seeing ads so I skip sponsor spots
You can allowlist certain channels and allow certain types of sponsors (self-promo for example) from what I remember
Not saying you have to get sponsorblock tho
I like that
i will stop using sponsorblock the day sponsorships stop feeling like those fucking cigarette ads in the flintstones, it’s disgusting and the alternative to sponsorblock is unsubscribing from anyone who does sponsor reads.
Nah, the reason ads are bad is because they poison your mind down to the unconscious parts. It doesn’t matter if the company behind it is moral or not, it’s still memetic pollution.
Edit: For the record I don’t have a huge issue with this post being here, but I wanted to chip in with my opinion that ads are bad even if you separate them from the product they’re advertising.
How would anyone be informed of something existing without telling people the product exists
I agree that ads can help people be aware of a product’s existence, but I believe, especially at this stage when I am tired of being spoonfed, that a more organic way is preferable. For example - forums, product reviews (REAL ones ofc), product storefronts including online marketplaces…
When someone needs something, they can go looking for it. A door that grates on a frame for example, may be talked about on a forum, which discusses the products others have found to help. In this case a mouse(shaped) sander. The person can then follow breadcrumbs to the most convenient store that sells it.
This is actually the way I find most things I need. The vast majority of products shown to me, passively on various items in the streets or in video format, are useless to me. Regarding VPNs, I first learned about them when I looked for a solution to a website article having an error page stating that it cannot be viewed in my country. Again when I pirated movies. Eventually I saw Mullvad mentioned on Reddit, when I entered more FOSS and Linux spaces
that would be valid if ads were just “hello here is our product”, which they almost never are.
I’ve never had a problem with ads made in this way. My only complaint would be it looks like an actual post. Even though OP is just sharing it, a filterable tag, like we have for nsfw, would be nice.
This form of “passive marketing” (I’m making up terms), I.e a random picture in the feed that you can easily scroll past is fine (assuming its marked appropriately and there are not too many). If the post catches attention enough that people start sharing it because they liked it, the marketer has done a good job. I also consider banner ads “passive”. If they actually filter out the scams and malware, and if someone wants to sponsor Rod’s Radical Recipes with a banner ad, who cares.
I do take issue with I’ll call active marketing. This is an ad you’re forced to engage with, like an unmutable gas pumps that’s playing audio, a commercial break or a pre-roll add. If I’m getting something for free, then sure an add or two seems reasonable (well, 15 years ago it did), but I’m already paying for the gas, shut the fuck up and let me enjoy my 3 minutes of stress watching the numbers go up without some guy screaming about beef jerky.
Edit: reworded the second paragraph, definitely didn’t look at the background too quick and think it was a real poster somewhere and talk about random posters on a wall…nope defiantly not.