I definitely consume too much dystopian content to be a fair dystopian barometer, but the sheer amount of ads being pushed my way is starting to make me feel legitimately anxious. It feels like a techno-dystopia where all of the neat and artistic elements have been extracted and then ground into dust for our corporate overlords. Even the ‘regular’ people are just trying to sell themselves. The streamers, the funny videos, the pet videos, the porn, the reposts of all of those, so much of it is just monetizing my attention.
Do ads even influence people that much? Does anyone even eat Church’s Chicken?! Do people consider switching their car insurance? I though the postmoderns were jumping the gun a little with the pictures they painted of a future with corporate logos and other advertisements spread across every visible surface, but now I have to see 5 ads and a cookie consent pop up to look up a quick definition. Watching a friend’s youtube video? 30 seconds of rapidfire ads from 15 brands. It’s starting to feel absurd. Are we going to be okay?
I’ve felt this way for years now. Especially now that you can’t watch a Youtube video without first watching some ad for Jardiance or something. And then being interrupted every 60 seconds to watch more ads.
To be honest, I’ve never felt compelled to buy anything or switch to any other brand just because of an ad. I’m not about to go out and buy a Ford Bronco because I just saw an ad where a guy is tooling over the sanddunes and rocky cliffs in one.
I wish there was an option for clepping out of ads once you’ve already viewed them once. But there would just another million more behind it.
I watch way less YouTube now. I can’t stand the ads and they never change. For me it’s Hertz and some local politician. I have to watch the same ads dozens of times just to watch an hours worth of crap
Firefox +uBlock Origin = no youtube ads other than the ones that are part of the video itself, which can be skipped. Works for me on PC and android.
sponsorblock crowd sources skipping in video and dearrow crowdsources non clickbait thumbnails and titles.
Well the thing is I really only watch Youtube videos on my android TV. On the PC, no way because they’re just too slow on this old PC of mine. No way to block the ads but at least you can skip parts of them, sometimes.