25
Hazarth
2y

!dev

This may be a petty rant, but It's been grinding my gears for a few months now... I fucking hate ads, it's starting to be incredibly ridiculous. You start a video... 2 ads... you watch for 2 minutes, another 2 ads (and no, adblock isn't a solution, that only works on PC, not devices)?!!! You start an App... ads, you listen to music... ads... you go to google... ads, you click a website... ads... you look out of your window... ads... you walk down the street... ads... ads.. ads...
Seriously, what the fuck have we done?!! As a society we fucked up so badly... Look, no matter how many times you offer me an ad for a furniture, I'm not going to buy a fucking furniture on just any random day. You are completely wasting my already limited time... If you don't have any ads to show me, then don't show me ads, fuck you, you fucking piece of shit software... How is it that it used to be enough to click away one static, non-intrusive ad, but now 6-8 15-20 second ads, popups and intrusive, mid-content ads are the norm?! And then a piece of shit like MoviePass DARES, FUCKING DARES, To work on some sort of camera-enabled check that you actually LOOK at the ads?!!!! ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME?! WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE YOU RETARDED PIECE OF BLACK MIRROR SHIT, FUCK OFF WITH THIS BRAINWASHING BULLSHIT, I'M ALLERGIC TO IT, FUCK ALL OF THIS.

I fucking promise that any software I'll make will be either free and open source, or paid only by alternative means, no ads, not ever. I will never fucking add to this retarded bullshit. Never fucking ever will I lower myself on a level where I need to actively waste the time and psyche of thousands or millions of people to get money. Fucking hell.... As if the world doesn't suck enough already, we treat humans as cattle, and It's pissing me off... In the past I used to just delete any app that annoyed me with ads, but what the fuck do I do about youtube since it's the de-facto content source on the internet? And worse, my friends and family watch youtube.. even if I avoid it that doesn't mean the problem is solved... There needs to be an alternative, and paying subscriptions for every single fucking service on the web isn't a solution. Even worse with the current economy... I'd rather eat real food, than buy shit like premium on ShitTube, Fuckify, all the random news website I might read and every app or game I start once every two months... Shit like ad-less premium accounts aren't giving me an alternative, just a way to shoot myself in the foot longterm...

Godbless everyone that releases open source software, apps, tools, websites and such. I hope to god decentralized alternatives to youtube need to happen and not in the web3 way, because that's also retarded...

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Shit, Fuck Shit, Piss, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Retards, Fucking absolutely disgusting pieces of shit... ... alright, I got it out of my system, but It's gonna be right back the next time YouTube forces me to look at 20 seconds of something I already skipped 48 times today...

Comments
  • 2
  • 3
    @magicMirror Tried that, doesn't work for YouTube (I even tried the scripts that claim to work no youtube, but didn't notice difference, probably patched) and a lot of Apps also don't respond to it + I had some issues getting it to run stable and often internet access just stopped working randomly, but that's just me not putting enough effort into debugging it I guess
  • 3
    feel you. For me youtube works mostly fine, most vids just have some 10s at the beginning but man other videos... like every 2-5mins a 15s ad, t h e s a m e ad none the less - thats just fucked. I'm glad it's rare and creators still have a say in this to some degree
  • 3
    I just won't add ads to my stuff because I don't know how
  • 4
    I literally don't see any ads on most days. I use Youtube and the web a lot. But i am no mobile peasant. I don't use Youtube on the go - but only on a browser having uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock installed. I also don't travel (but i wouldn't mind the static ads on the streets anyways).

    Of course you can just rant and keep enduring the ads. But you could also fix the problem on your side and make the ads disappear from your life.

    Life is better without ads. Try it.
  • 1
    @Oktokolo When I said "other devices" I didn't mean "mobile devices". TVs have this problem as well.

    Also, as I mentioned in the rant, unfortunately, it is not enough for me to avoid ads my self, I'm concerned for the entire state of this system and how it affects my family, friends and future children. I don't want to just pretend it's not there, I want it fixed ;_;
  • 1
    @Nanos

    Good answers, let me try and answer

    ---

    That way, everyone gets free software, and you can afford to pay the rent..

    Unless there is a better way ?

    ---

    I believe there is. I mean I can pay rent because I have a job, I do software on the side as a hobby, but that aside. You can always just sell the stuff normally and there's always the pretty popular "pay what you want" solution where 0€ is accepted. You can also always add a donations button and do it the wikipedia way. And lastly, if it really has to be ads, there's a much better design pattern where you give the user the option to watch an ad for something as a reward, otherwise the rest of the software is free and without ads: "You want to use some premium features? Watch an Ad to unlock them for 30 minutes" stuff like that where it's non-intrusive and it's my decision to bite the bullet.

    I don't like this new form of micro-capitalism where every little thing has to make money to justify it's existence though.
  • 0
    @Nanos

    ---

    do I design them with clean lines, and no logo, because that is what I would like.

    Or with a logo so folk know I designed them..

    ---

    I don't mind logos, but to be fair, you don't have to pick one or the other here. The logo can be displayed only in a specific part of the application. With mobile apps it can be a splash screen, or it can only be in the menus or settings. With webpages it can be in the footer but it can also just be in Contact or About... You can always just put your personal logo or signature where it makes most sense so it both looks good and feels good. I'd argue that forcing something you don't like design-wise is going to give the same unpleasant experience to the end-user, so that's a big design red flag to begin with... hmm..
  • 0
    @Nanos

    ---

    What is the web3 way ?

    ---

    The ones that always have the premise of "Use it to magically make money on the blockchain" and often they come with a small forward investment...

    As far as I'm concerned, We first need a working minimal service, an MvP if you will, of a decentralized video platform before we start even thinking about how to steal money from users...
  • 0
    @Nanos

    ---

    Can they be forgiven if version 1 has adverts so they can get enough wealth to retire on, and then release version 2 without ?

    ---

    I don't know... Maybe if the app said that the apps are temporary and once a goal is reached it would be removed, maybe even client-wise? so every person would say need to pay 5€ in ads before they disappear, as if it was sold normally to them, but the ad company pays for it (would be good to see a countdown on this)

    But realistically, why don't people get a job? No App idea (for me) can replace the feeling of security from getting monthly pay in a job that you're good at... Assuming you're already building web services and apps to make money, you're probably good at it to begin with... obviously rent and survival takes precedence, but making ad filled apps on an oversatured market like the play store or app store doesn't seem like the best way to tackle that
  • 0
    @Nanos

    ---

    I'm reminded there is part of the internet where adverts are only to be found in an advert section, there when you want something, otherwise, not to be seen !

    I wish all the internet was like that..

    ---

    This exactly ;_;... Honestly YouTube is on-par with television now. YouTubers even add sponsored ads into their videos, so even downloading videos to listen to in background offline isn't an option anymore... In the famous words of Obi-Wan: You(Tube) were supposed to surpass commercial television, not join it!
  • 2
    What does help on my phone is to run uBlock in Firefox mobile and watch YouTube through that. It does seem to block all adds, or at least I haven't seen any for months.
  • 0
    @Hazarth
    Legit full scale rant btw.
  • 1
    @Hazarth
    Try 'Tracker Control' on android devices.
    To be found in the F-Droid app store for open source software.
  • 2
    For Youtube just use newpipe with sponsorblock, also works on android TVs if I remember correctly.

    And ublockorigin works also on android firefox, so maybe also on an android tv.
  • 2
    Youtube vanced used to be a great option besides NewPipe, since it was based on the official app and SponsorBlock was baked in too. But Google forced them to discontinue after they tried to make money with it. Luckily, the app still works so I haven't yet looked into the successor that I read is in the works.

    But yeah, that's just a bandaid that doesn't solve the problem that youtube is shit. I hope too that a better alternative becomes popular.
  • 1
    @Hazarth you can try smart tube next for smart TVs, worked fine on my android TV so far.
  • 1
    I feel you, I have a pihole running in my home wi-fi that blocks, on average, 20% of all http requests in my entire home network. I live in a family of 4, each with a smartphone, and I have 3 computers myself. So yeah, a crackton of traffic is just junk trying to get in/out people's devices without them even knowing it.
    Pihole works well for browsing, but youtube's android app uses the same source for both ads and the video itself, so you can either allow or deny both. Vanced works great for me tho, you should be able to put its apk on android tvs too.

    This age of big data tho is really fucked up, one day I requested a copy of my data to google (my account dates back to 2009), two days later they sent me a 13GB (THIRTEEN GIGS!!) compressed file with all they had on me. Man and they even dare trying to sell me youtube premium for 12.99€/month with all my data already being sold to advertisers.
  • 1
    On video platforms, I tolerate at most one second of advertisement per 60 seconds of video, and no more than one advertisement break per five minutes. Also, no tolerance for loud ads that hurt my ears.

    In some countries, YouTube lets people watch full movies, but instead of paying, they see advertisements. That's quite fair, to be honest. The funding to maintain a site must come from somewhere.

    But yes, I am not likelier to purchase a product if it is shoved it into my face repeatedly. Actually, the opposite might happen: I might end up disdaining it. Websites harass users with intrusive advertisements like unskippable half-minute ads (+10 seconds for buffering time) on Dailymotion, and then whine when people arm themselves using ad-blockers.

    I turn off ad blockers on some sites out of sympathy, but if a site harasses me excessively, I am compelled to switch it on again. Don't be surprised.

    I don't mind repetitive advertisements so long as they don't have annoying sounds.
  • 0
    @Hazarth The reason there are ads is the existence of a competitive market. To get rid of ads, you need to get rid of competition. But monopolies are the one thing that has to strictly be avoided for a market economy to work. So you have to get rid of the market too. And then you basically end with private-owned monopolies or state-owned ones. The state-owned version might be sortof bearable - but it is also known as communism...
  • 0
    @Nanos The market did already bend to customers will. Will induced by ads! Contrary to popular belief, ads do work on a huge part of the population.

    What actually happens is that people who are genuinely annoyed by ads prevent the ads from reaching them by technical means while the majority doesn't care enough and keeps seeing the ads - a huge part of them also tends to buy more "familiar" brands more likely.

    The sad truth is, that advertising sortof works. As long as that is the case, it will not go away unless forced by regulation (like tobacco ads in a lot of countries).
  • 1
    @Oktokolo At least, advertising funds free online services.

    Vimeo, which has no advertisements, lets unpaid users upload just 500 MB per week (that's barely over a minute of 4K 2160p video) and 5 GB in total, which is a joke compared to YouTube and Dailymotion (both ad-funded), which have no fixed limits as far as I know.

    http://athomewithtech.com/2015/02/...

    While advertisements might be annoying, they might just be a necessity for web sites that could not get funding otherwise.
  • 1
    @exerceo Yes, but Wikipedia exists and prooves that you can not only fund a common good with donations - but that you can even do so while wasting 90% of the funds on circlejerking and other projects. They try real hard to maximize fund use inefficiency - but it still works.

    But Wikipedia uses the honest "all is free, but please donate or the project might just die" model. No premium accounts. No paid benefits.
  • 0
    @Nanos For the overwhelming majority of the population, Ads need to induce any sort of emotion to work. An ad that induces no feelings, doesn't work.

    Alcohol ads try hard to associate alcoholic beverages with having friends and being happy. And that works pretty good, because that are universally desired things. Anti-alcohol ads normally try to associate not doing something with not getting ill. That seems to work orders of magnitude less good.

    It is really hard to advertise for negative actions and self-control. But advertising for giving in to our huntergatherer instincts or easy solutions to ultra-compley problems is easy and works pretty good.

    And we don't need to hang towels over the screen anymore - the ad problem has been solved for the few that actually care and as long as we are a minority, the technical solution keeps working...
  • 0
    @Oktokolo Wikipedia is mostly text. Text is very lightweight compared multimedia. Granted, there is Wikimedia Commons, presumably the most expensive Wikimedia project.

    Wikipedia has roughly six and a half million articles as of writing and has strict requirements for submissions, but Wikimedia Commons is approaching ninety million multimedia files, and has rather lax requirements.
  • 0
    @Nanos It dioesn't have to be positive emotions. But yes, advertising isn't exactly the easiest field. Look at ads from thirty, sixty and ninety years ago. Look at propaganda from the world wars, the later wars, election campaigns... That field evolved a lot to better exploit the weaknesses of the human brains that where available at that time. It still isn't easy because there are just so fuckin many ads competing with you. But there where successfull campaigns and unsuccessfull ones at any time and there still are. So if you really want to become a master of the dark art of advertising, look at all the work that has been done before and is still done against humanity right now.

    Except when you try to monetize a mobile game: Just make it a slot machine. A huge part of the population seems to have universal gambling addiction.
  • 1
    @Oktokolo

    >any emotion

    Hey, they induce emotions in me, mostly annoyance, hatred, disgust and regret. Pretty sure I once went through all the stages of grief with one particular ad. :D
  • 0
    @Nanos I assume, that you either need at least a mediocre product or a shitton of hype and a very succeptible target group.

    Have a Coke for an example: Neither version of it is healthy. But it does taste "refreshing" (non-decaf versions only). And as it contains humongous amounts of sugar or other sweateners and/or caffeine, it even leads to a soft adiction after prolonged use. And while everyone knows other carbonated sweet softdrinks, Coca-Cola still is the brand that comes to mind first - in my case even after twenty years of rigorous adblocking.

    Advertising can't make something absurd as Juicero work. But some people did invest into that project after all. And the whole "web3" and NFT crypto bro stuff wouldn't work at all if there wouldn't be truckloads of "influencers" promoting it.
  • 0
    Brave browser

    I just wanted to tell you because it saved me from going insane. It’s the only thing that really worked for me on mobile devices.

    I don’t know about TV though.

    Fuck ads!
  • 0
    @Nanos Actual doctors or just people wearing lab coats?
  • 0
    It's so bad you have to watch fucking aids at the gas pump.

    And it pumps slower while it plays.
  • 1
    @Wisecrack Do they charge you the same amount if they show you advertisements?
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