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What I find more annoying than ads, is all the self-righteous complaining about ads. Don't those mega billboards annoy you? Don't the auto playing audio/video

What I find more annoying than ads, is all the self-righteous complaining about ads. Don't those mega billboards annoy you? Don't the auto playing audio/video ads annoy you? You get on the subway, there are ads (and you've paid for the ticket, it is not even you are traveling free). You drive on the street, there are huge billboards everywhere. You switch on the TV, there are ads. You open a bank account, the bank sells your address and the very next week you get junk in the mail. How many of these are voluntary? How is it self-righteous to expect a quiet, clutter free life/atmosphere? Almost all ads are ugly, annoying and they are full of lies. There are actually times ads have helped me find a product I enjoy How often is this true? Maybe one ad in a thousand is useful, it isn't worth watching the other 999 junk

throwawaymath 8y ago
Not the person you responded to, but I'll take a stab: > Don't those mega billboards annoy you? No. They don't impact my life whatsoever. > Don't the auto playing audio/video ads annoy you? The auto-playing ones like what you get on a news page, yes. The ones that play before a video on YouTube, no. > You get on the subway, there are ads (and you've paid for the ticket, it is not even you are traveling free). Don't even notice them most of the time. Sometimes they're mildly funny. Can't remember ever being bothered by one. > You switch on the TV, there are ads. I don't really watch TV (I guess that's a pretentious response), but when I do I just ignore the ads I'm not interested in. They don't annoy me. > You open a bank account, the bank sells your address and the very next week you get junk in the mail. Are you sure it's the bank doing this, and not the post office? In any case it's moving the goal posts a bit, because this is not advertising per se. It's data collection in service to advertising. I find it annoying, but not because I get junk mail. I don't find junk mail annoying, I throw it out without reading it. In fact I don't really read any physical mail. > How is it self-righteous to expect a quiet, clutter free life/atmosphere? Yeah but that's not the claim, is it? The person is saying it's self-righteous to constantly complain about advertising because it feels like a soapbox. In point of fact, I consider my life to be plenty quiet and clutter-free and I live in the same advertising-filled world you do. There are legitimate reasons to dislike advertising. Sometimes ads are a vector for spreading malware, and the peripheral incentive structures are arguably unethical (particularly concerning the use and collection of consumer data). But quite a lot of complaining about advertising doesn't treat the subject with that level of intellectual engagement or nuance. Instead it's just impassioned yelling into a void about how unfair advertising is, or how unaesthetic the world is because of it. I can see how that would become grating after a while, because on sites like HN and reddit you don't find nearly as many people e.g. crusading against climate change, disease, destitute poverty or hunger. It's actually a downvotable offense for someone to say, "Hey, I'm actually pretty okay with ads though!" This is why the person you're responding to reacted that way. It's hard to take seriously the idea that the world is "disgusting" because of billboards. That's kind of a hyperbolic way of saying the world isn't the way you want it to be, isn't it?
manigandham 8y ago
I think you are massively underestimating just how much ads pay for, and how much economic activity they drive. If you remove ads, the prices for everything would increase massively (even after accounting for the lack of advertising costs) and even fewer people could afford it. Sure there are definitely places that have too much, and the overall implementation and UX of ads online is poor, but advertising itself has enabled a lot of people to have access to many things they otherwise would never have.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  “If you remove ads, the prices for everything would increase massively (even after accounting for the lack of advertising costs) and even fewer people could afford it.” This doesn’t really make sense. Why would prices go up? The only reason i could see is that without ads people would buy less stuff
  - spunker540 8y ago
    I’m not at all confident these economics are true, but I imagine the argument is this: products like music, news, tv, Facebook, google search, YouTube (any ad-supported media) will now have to cost money. Their prices clearly have to go up without ads. Next are all the businesses that will have a harder time attracting as many customers as they used to with ads- with fewer customers one can imagine they will have to raise prices as well to sustain their business. Last, without advertising it will be much harder to start a new business. If you don’t have a highly visible store front it will be tough to gain traction no matter what sort of business you’re in. This leads to lower competition overall which also means higher prices.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
crazygringo 8y ago
So... I used to hate ads, and especially (real-life) billboards. I was convinced a world without public advertising would be better. Then I spent a long weekend in São Paulo (Brazil), a mega-city which had banned all outdoor advertising a couple of years prior. It was... a profoundly boring urban environment. Until then, I'd never imagined just how much advertising adds color, faces, humanity, and dynamism to a city. I dunno. I still feel like I dislike ads in principle... but then in practice the world feels empty without them. Think of when you open a magazine from 80 years ago, the ads can be the most interesting part. They're part of our cultural fabric. I still don't what to think, but I know it's more complicated than "ads are bad".
- darkerside 8y ago
  This just blew my mind a bit. It made me think of how corporations are like giant organisms, and their ads are like mating calls that drive their thriving and reproduction.
  - FridgeSeal 8y ago
    Don't mistake advertising for culture. You can have vibrant, colourful environments without advertising.
    - crazygringo 8y ago
      That's a great point. The Bushwick neighborhood in NYC is a prime example. Although even some of those murals are being co-opted by brands! :S
    - darkerside 8y ago
      Is advertising not an enormous part of modern culture? It's certainly not the only kind, but it's where we've allocated tons of resources to provoke and stimulate.
      - FridgeSeal 8y ago
        Advertisers is a parasite on culture in that it can be a part of it, but for the most part it leeches and re-appropriates culture for its own ends. Advertising would very much like you to think it’s a big part of modern culture, because that would be vindicating and validating it’s existence.
solidasparagus 8y ago
I like a good billboard. Commutes are boring, but some billboards make me smile. I'll always enjoy the 'If you lived here, you'd be home by now' billboards or Snowflake's awful data-based one-liners.

throwawaymath 8y ago

Not the person you responded to, but I'll take a stab: > Don't those mega billboards annoy you? No. They don't impact my life whatsoever. > Don't the auto playing audio/video ads annoy you? The auto-playing ones like what you get on a news page, yes. The ones that play before a video on YouTube, no. > You get on the subway, there are ads (and you've paid for the ticket, it is not even you are traveling free). Don't even notice them most of the time. Sometimes they're mildly funny. Can't remember ever being bothered by one. > You switch on the TV, there are ads. I don't really watch TV (I guess that's a pretentious response), but when I do I just ignore the ads I'm not interested in. They don't annoy me. > You open a bank account, the bank sells your address and the very next week you get junk in the mail. Are you sure it's the bank doing this, and not the post office? In any case it's moving the goal posts a bit, because this is not advertising per se. It's data collection in service to advertising. I find it annoying, but not because I get junk mail. I don't find junk mail annoying, I throw it out without reading it. In fact I don't really read any physical mail. > How is it self-righteous to expect a quiet, clutter free life/atmosphere? Yeah but that's not the claim, is it? The person is saying it's self-righteous to constantly complain about advertising because it feels like a soapbox. In point of fact, I consider my life to be plenty quiet and clutter-free and I live in the same advertising-filled world you do. There are legitimate reasons to dislike advertising. Sometimes ads are a vector for spreading malware, and the peripheral incentive structures are arguably unethical (particularly concerning the use and collection of consumer data). But quite a lot of complaining about advertising doesn't treat the subject with that level of intellectual engagement or nuance. Instead it's just impassioned yelling into a void about how unfair advertising is, or how unaesthetic the world is because of it. I can see how that would become grating after a while, because on sites like HN and reddit you don't find nearly as many people e.g. crusading against climate change, disease, destitute poverty or hunger. It's actually a downvotable offense for someone to say, "Hey, I'm actually pretty okay with ads though!" This is why the person you're responding to reacted that way. It's hard to take seriously the idea that the world is "disgusting" because of billboards. That's kind of a hyperbolic way of saying the world isn't the way you want it to be, isn't it?

manigandham 8y ago

I think you are massively underestimating just how much ads pay for, and how much economic activity they drive. If you remove ads, the prices for everything would increase massively (even after accounting for the lack of advertising costs) and even fewer people could afford it. Sure there are definitely places that have too much, and the overall implementation and UX of ads online is poor, but advertising itself has enabled a lot of people to have access to many things they otherwise would never have.

maxxxxx 8y ago
“If you remove ads, the prices for everything would increase massively (even after accounting for the lack of advertising costs) and even fewer people could afford it.” This doesn’t really make sense. Why would prices go up? The only reason i could see is that without ads people would buy less stuff
- spunker540 8y ago
  I’m not at all confident these economics are true, but I imagine the argument is this: products like music, news, tv, Facebook, google search, YouTube (any ad-supported media) will now have to cost money. Their prices clearly have to go up without ads. Next are all the businesses that will have a harder time attracting as many customers as they used to with ads- with fewer customers one can imagine they will have to raise prices as well to sustain their business. Last, without advertising it will be much harder to start a new business. If you don’t have a highly visible store front it will be tough to gain traction no matter what sort of business you’re in. This leads to lower competition overall which also means higher prices.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

crazygringo 8y ago

So... I used to hate ads, and especially (real-life) billboards. I was convinced a world without public advertising would be better. Then I spent a long weekend in São Paulo (Brazil), a mega-city which had banned all outdoor advertising a couple of years prior. It was... a profoundly boring urban environment. Until then, I'd never imagined just how much advertising adds color, faces, humanity, and dynamism to a city. I dunno. I still feel like I dislike ads in principle... but then in practice the world feels empty without them. Think of when you open a magazine from 80 years ago, the ads can be the most interesting part. They're part of our cultural fabric. I still don't what to think, but I know it's more complicated than "ads are bad".

darkerside 8y ago
This just blew my mind a bit. It made me think of how corporations are like giant organisms, and their ads are like mating calls that drive their thriving and reproduction.
- FridgeSeal 8y ago
  Don't mistake advertising for culture. You can have vibrant, colourful environments without advertising.
  - crazygringo 8y ago
    That's a great point. The Bushwick neighborhood in NYC is a prime example. Although even some of those murals are being co-opted by brands! :S
  - darkerside 8y ago
    Is advertising not an enormous part of modern culture? It's certainly not the only kind, but it's where we've allocated tons of resources to provoke and stimulate.
    - FridgeSeal 8y ago
      Advertisers is a parasite on culture in that it can be a part of it, but for the most part it leeches and re-appropriates culture for its own ends. Advertising would very much like you to think it’s a big part of modern culture, because that would be vindicating and validating it’s existence.

solidasparagus 8y ago

I like a good billboard. Commutes are boring, but some billboards make me smile. I'll always enjoy the 'If you lived here, you'd be home by now' billboards or Snowflake's awful data-based one-liners.