The biggest offender in my opinion is not the web, where you can install ad blockers and avoid certain websites, but television, where you're forced to sit through something before you can get to the content you're trying to watch.
I find it especially offensive on paid services like Hulu. I'm paying for the thing, just let me watch it!
It's also pretty bad for F2P mobile games, although the solution there is easy (play different games).
I actually don't mind advertisements in big cities or on billboards, sort of adds to the flashiness factor in some cases. Though if I lived in a more concentrated metro area I might feel differently.
I visited a family member last night who pays for a commercial streaming service. They described an interesting TV program and tried to pull it up, but it had vanished. After using search function, it said "this content has expired".
This morning I woke up and the first thing my mother (who is literally dying of cancer and wanted to listen to a song on the way to hospital where she will receive medical attention for her terminal illness) said to me was that two years of her songs (she is part of an organized choir) have vanished because of iTunes, so she can't access her music in the car.
I for one am never buying another Apple product, use Linux nearly everywhere (despite the hassle) and try to help and educate others where possible. As a society, we have to stop trading long term freedom, stability and efficiency for short term convenience and planned obsolescence / landfill. Contribute to Wikimedia projects, use open source for media creation, and contribute to open culture.
> The biggest offender in my opinion is not the web, where you can install ad blockers and avoid certain websites, but television
Yes, I agree with this. I gave up on television about 20 years ago, and it was the ads that pushed me that way. Every so often I'll see a TV program, and it's still intolerable -- things are so much worse than they were 20 years ago.
Cable TV used to be ad free when it first came out. The whole reason people were willing to pay for it was to not see ads like they got on the free broadcasts. Then once telecoms got their market share the ads trickled in, as was originally planned I'm sure.
I used to watch cable tv when it was ad free. Then ads came about and I was really baffled why anyone would pay to watch ads. That was the end of cable for me many many years ago.
Also, I’ll never forget the first day I saw and ad in the movie theatre. That was mostly the end of theatres for me except on some occasions.
>Though if I lived in a more concentrated metro area I might feel differently.
I live in a metro area. Physical adverts are the worst type in my opinion. There are methods of eliminating every other type of ad: I use adblockers on my phone and computers, my network is pi-holed, I use plex/netflix instead of traditional TV, I pay for spotify instead of listening to the radio etc. But physical adverts? There's no way of blocking them, unless you consider "never going outside" an option. In a way, not having a method of opting out of billboards feels like they are being pushed on you without your consent, which is horrifying to me.
Physical adverts aren't nearly as intrusive and serve the interests of the locals at least. There's one right now in my town advertising addiction assistance, certainly not a bad thing. Then there's the electronic one they put downtown that is brighter than the sun and almost got me into an accident when it flashed stark white and blinded me.
>I find it especially offensive on paid services like Hulu. I'm paying for the thing, just let me watch it!
This is still better than what Netflix does, where they cram egregious product placement down your throat so you can't even just look away until it's over.
I find it especially offensive on paid services like Hulu. I'm paying for the thing, just let me watch it!
It's also pretty bad for F2P mobile games, although the solution there is easy (play different games).
I actually don't mind advertisements in big cities or on billboards, sort of adds to the flashiness factor in some cases. Though if I lived in a more concentrated metro area I might feel differently.