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Yes, Apple is annoying. But so are all the other big cloud companies. It was only a matter of time until they noticed that if you have 1 billion customers and y

Yes, Apple is annoying. But so are all the other big cloud companies. It was only a matter of time until they noticed that if you have 1 billion customers and your competition is similarly evil, you truly don't need to care about your customers. Sure, take their money, but apart from that, who cares if their experience is horrible? Apple TV spams you with ads. Apple iOS Settings spam you with ads. In general most iOS apps will abuse notifications to send you ads. Android is filled with ads. Android TVs spam you with ads, even the $2000+ ones. Google Chromecast refuses to work if you block 8.8.8.8, or else it'll use it to spam you with ads. Even Netflix will spam you with ads when you're idle for a few seconds. Edge? Ads. Windows start menu? Ads. Lock-screen? Ads. But guess what, you only get treated like sh*t if you're a paying customer. Torrents for Netflix rips are the same great quality and great content and you can even watch them from USB on a fully offline (read: ad-free) TV. It's only once you start paying Apple or Netflix for their shows that they start abusing you ... And then the same executives that created these perverse incentives get interviewed on TV and whine about people not paying for their content ^_^

jefftk 5y ago
I'm not sure I would consider the Netflix ones ads? They're not trying to convince you to buy additional things or otherwise give them money; they're telling you about shows you've already paid for that they think you might enjoy watching.
- pengaru 5y ago
  > I'm not sure I would consider the Netflix ones ads? They're not trying to convince you to buy additional things or otherwise give them money; they're telling you about shows you've already paid for that they think you might enjoy watching. Encouraging me to consume more of what you're peddling is advertising, regardless of if I'm a customer of yours or not, or if I've consumed similar items before or not.
  - cgriswald 5y ago
    Sure, there's a reasonable argument to be made at a high level that it's all advertising. However, I think the GP is getting at something important. With enough granularity you can see a qualitative difference. Some of this advertising is only self-serving and some of it is in service to the customer. When JetBrains gives me helpful tips on how to consume PyCharm, they aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They want me to keep using PyCharm. However, it also serves me because it makes me more productive when I use PyCharm. When Netflix advertises to me that a new season of my favorite show is on Netflix, likewise: they want me to keep subscribing. But it also serves to help me get more value out of the subscription I've already purchased. These activities contrast with the game developer using psychological tricks to get me to purchase in-game currencies at unreasonable rates that I otherwise wouldn't purchase. There's a spectrum with fraud on one end, and, I don't know, something like genuinely helpful information on the other end. Likely different people will place any individual advertisement on a different place on the spectrum.
- aimor 5y ago
  What I hate on Hulu is clicking to watch an epiode, getting a short network splash animation with sound, then getting a short promo for the show I'm about to watch, and THEN the show starts playing. These are not skippable and this is the paid ad-free subscription.
tomxor 5y ago
> Torrents for Netflix rips are the same great quality and great content and you can even watch them from USB on a fully offline I end up paying for content and torrenting it anyway in order to get the full HD, no ads, no buffering, no BS experience. Torrenting feels like the 1990s for music (but faster obviously): You bought a tape or CD, you went home and played it, it played, THE END.
andrei_says_ 5y ago
Where are the ads in appletv and iOS? Could you provide some examples? I use both and am not sure I’m seeing ads. The appletv is behind a pi-hole so that may be a reason - but don’t think I see ads even at a friend’s house.
- Josteniok 5y ago
  I wondered the same thing and opened settings on my iPhone and up at the top was an “Apple Arcade Free for 3 Months” right underneath my name, which made me sad.
  - dwaltrip 5y ago
    Huh, me too. Not ideal. I’m not defending them, but I at least was able to make it go away by opening it and then clicking “decline”.

jefftk 5y ago

I'm not sure I would consider the Netflix ones ads? They're not trying to convince you to buy additional things or otherwise give them money; they're telling you about shows you've already paid for that they think you might enjoy watching.

pengaru 5y ago
> I'm not sure I would consider the Netflix ones ads? They're not trying to convince you to buy additional things or otherwise give them money; they're telling you about shows you've already paid for that they think you might enjoy watching. Encouraging me to consume more of what you're peddling is advertising, regardless of if I'm a customer of yours or not, or if I've consumed similar items before or not.
- cgriswald 5y ago
  Sure, there's a reasonable argument to be made at a high level that it's all advertising. However, I think the GP is getting at something important. With enough granularity you can see a qualitative difference. Some of this advertising is only self-serving and some of it is in service to the customer. When JetBrains gives me helpful tips on how to consume PyCharm, they aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They want me to keep using PyCharm. However, it also serves me because it makes me more productive when I use PyCharm. When Netflix advertises to me that a new season of my favorite show is on Netflix, likewise: they want me to keep subscribing. But it also serves to help me get more value out of the subscription I've already purchased. These activities contrast with the game developer using psychological tricks to get me to purchase in-game currencies at unreasonable rates that I otherwise wouldn't purchase. There's a spectrum with fraud on one end, and, I don't know, something like genuinely helpful information on the other end. Likely different people will place any individual advertisement on a different place on the spectrum.
aimor 5y ago
What I hate on Hulu is clicking to watch an epiode, getting a short network splash animation with sound, then getting a short promo for the show I'm about to watch, and THEN the show starts playing. These are not skippable and this is the paid ad-free subscription.

tomxor 5y ago

> Torrents for Netflix rips are the same great quality and great content and you can even watch them from USB on a fully offline I end up paying for content and torrenting it anyway in order to get the full HD, no ads, no buffering, no BS experience. Torrenting feels like the 1990s for music (but faster obviously): You bought a tape or CD, you went home and played it, it played, THE END.

andrei_says_ 5y ago

Where are the ads in appletv and iOS? Could you provide some examples? I use both and am not sure I’m seeing ads. The appletv is behind a pi-hole so that may be a reason - but don’t think I see ads even at a friend’s house.

Josteniok 5y ago
I wondered the same thing and opened settings on my iPhone and up at the top was an “Apple Arcade Free for 3 Months” right underneath my name, which made me sad.
- dwaltrip 5y ago
  Huh, me too. Not ideal. I’m not defending them, but I at least was able to make it go away by opening it and then clicking “decline”.