I’ve definitely turned into the paranoid nutcase within my friend group in recent years, I hate that everything is “smart” nowadays requiring an app/internet connection & account, just to do basic things that didn’t require any of that before.
What’s some things currently making you ramble like an old man?
I use a pihole which is a small computer that checks every domain request and blocks them when they are on one of my blacklists. This works great for browsing the web because you just don’t see most ads anymore. I also use adblocks for, for example, YouTube because pihole can’t distinguish between ads or legitimate requests when they come from the same domain.
I also download all videos from YouTube to watch. And I also don’t have cable.
Basically, I see so few instances of ads anymore that any few ads are getting so annoying. The 1-2 ads in front of a YouTube video or in the middle, I just don’t watch that video anymore.
But when I really noticed that was when I was spending the day with my father and we were watching a TV show on some free provider, every 10 minutes there were 1.5 minutes ads. Which is by far better as normal TV in my country (Germany) but damn, this was really annoying after just a single episode and I’m glad I don’t have to see those at home. It just interrupts the flow.
If I’m watching youtube on someone else’s TV, I will hook up my premium account and let them pollute my search history before I put up with a single ad. It’s one thing for a creator to do a sponsor bit–I can skip past it, and leave a nasty comment if it’s something like established titles, but I’ll die before I watch another damn wendy’s ad. I worry that a pharmaceutical ad would radicalize me to CIA watch list levels if I were forced to watch one at this point