4 ms·

> I never see ads anywhere (and not just on the web: I never watch regular TV (I don't even have a TV), never listen to ads-supported radio stations, etc.) Ads

by Vinnl 1y ago

> I never see ads anywhere (and not just on the web: I never watch regular TV (I don't even have a TV), never listen to ads-supported radio stations, etc.) Ads in public places, bus stops, etc. are kinda hard to avoid unfortunately.

rancidcrab 1y ago
But those are ok. They (usually) don't have sound, auto playing videos, shock content or cover something I want to look at.
- mauvehaus 1y ago
  Have you filled a car with gas any time in the last ~5 years? The pumps around here (New England, USA) start playing ads with sound once you start pumping fuel. It's an absolute delight when your pump and the pump on the other side of your island are playing different ads with different audio or the same ad with the audio just out of sync. Usually, one of the soft buttons on the left or right edge of the screen is a secret mute button. Occasionally, none of them are, and rarely does anyone else seem to even try to mute their pump.
  - grugagag 1y ago
    I wonder what happens if you take a sharp object such a screwdriver and poke all the speakers…
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      You probably get a visit from the police.
    - nancyminusone 1y ago
      There's no need to. If the unit is older than a few months, you'll find that the speakers have already been perforated. This usually doesn't stop them from working, because people don't break the voice coil at the center.
    - Aurornis 1y ago
      While being recorded from 6 different angles while standing next to your vehicle with a license plate on it? You get arrested. That’s what happens. Kiosk makers have already thought of all of these possibilities. There isn’t a nicely exposed speaker. It’s behind a metal plate with tiny holes in it.
      - marssaxman 1y ago
        > You get arrested. That’s what happens. For petty vandalism? That seems like an expensive overreaction. Perhaps it depends on your demography.
        immibis 1y ago
        People get arrested for petty vandalism all the time, even if they didn't petty vandalize. The police won't bother to track down who graffitied your fence, but money-making companies are a different matter. And it definitely depends on demography. I assume they're still using it, but maybe they just plug everyone's face into Palantir now.
        marssaxman 1y ago
        Maybe cops are different where you live, but here in Seattle, I cannot imagine a crime so trivial as "someone broke the speaker on a gas pump" ever rising high enough on the SPD priority list for anyone to lift a finger about it, no matter how well-documented it may have been. It would not surprise me to hear that someone had committed a crime of that scale while being watched by an SPD officer and still gotten away with it.
  - connicpu 1y ago
    Pumping gas became pretty infrequent for me once I got a plug in hybrid, but when the closest gas station near me first started playing an ad my immediate reaction was to spam all of the side buttons on the screen until I found the one that muted it. Sweet quiet...
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    I rarely see these any more (USA, not a small town). Could be the set of gas stations I visit doesn’t have them, but I do remember them being popular for a while. Now I haven’t seen one in a very long time.
  - sojournerc 1y ago
    Someone has put caulking in many of speakers at my usual gas station. Not all heros wear capes.
  - MisterTea 1y ago
    At one point I was so infuriated that I would feel for the speaker and punch the pump so hard it would knock the speaker out of place (many pumps flimsy plastic.) I did that as many times as I could until the service company started gluing them in better. So I upped and ante by ripping open the front of the pump and tear the speaker out with my bear hands and smash it. Did that a bunch of times until the volumes were turned down. > Usually, one of the soft buttons on the left or right edge of the screen is a secret mute button I found out that's the help button and sometimes a clerk will come out and ask what I need help with and I tell that it stops the annoying noise coming from the pump.
    - nahkoots 1y ago
      That's pretty unhinged, but I'm glad there's someone out there vandalizing annoying pumps. It's important work, I think.
    - Anthony-G 1y ago
      I’m reminded of the film Falling Down but I’ve given you an Internet point (upvote) for fighting the good fight. If good people do nothing, evil will triumph. In Ireland, we don’t (yet?) have such devilish instruments of torture but I imagine my cortisol levels would be through the roof if I had to deal with them.
  - hexis 1y ago
    This is one of the top things pushing me to an EV, so I can charge at home and be done with gas stations. As EVs get more market share, these intrusive ads will only get worse.
- skeeter2020 1y ago
  billboards are still pretty obnoxious, especially when they block the view on say, a highway through a relatively undeveloped natural environment
- account42 1y ago
  No, they are far from OK. You've just become used to that part of the dystopia like others have become used to online ads. All ads are designed to psychologically manipulate you into acting against your best interest.
Theodores 1y ago
Get a bicycle and learn the car free routes into town and to your work. Nobody puts up adverts on cycle paths. It isn't against the law, it just makes no commercial sense to do so. By making the bicycle however you get about, you cut down on seeing ads.
- skeeter2020 1y ago
  this feels like a ridiculous sub-optimization, and I ride my bike pretty much everywhere
  - Theodores 1y ago
    It depends on where you live, however, I noted my 'ad free life' whilst in London. I went from the usual commute on trains and tubes with the odd bus thrown in for good measure to just riding my bicycle along the Thames. I went from seeing everything with adverts to seeing everything with herons, gulls, squirrels, trees and flowers. Rather than being tuned in to the latest junk to buy, I became tuned in to the ever changing seasons and what was in blossom.
- Vinnl 1y ago
  Incidentally almost all my trips are already by bicycle, with on foot and with public transport numbers 2 and 3. Unfortunately, since almost everybody uses these modes of transportation here, there actually are ads everywhere still. (Besides the idea of me having to adjust my route to -for now- not see ads being somewhat offensive to me too.)
  - CHB0403085482 1y ago
    Do you live here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-TuGAHR78w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-TuGAHR78w
    - Vinnl 1y ago
      I do live in that country, and I have cycled (and walked and trained through) there yes :)
reify 1y ago
Hey Vinni Ditto I dont see any ads online. I dont have a TV either, I stopped watching that ad infested garbage in 2005. too old to walk to the bus stop, too much of an introvert to hang out near pulblic places with other people
lakkal 1y ago
Barber shops and doctors' waiting rooms are hellish for me, since I can't not-hear the radio/TV they usually have playing.
- bambax 1y ago
  In France I have yet to go to a waiting room with a TV with the sound on; I think people would get upset. I went once to a dentist with a TV above my head (sound off); I refused to sit in the chair until it was turned off. The assistant sighed and said "everybody asks the same thing, I wonder why we installed this".
creer 1y ago
> Ads in public places, bus stops, etc. are kinda hard to avoid unfortunately. These are very different - and largely interesting to me in their colorfulness and often whimsy. (The cities around here are otherwise NOT visually interesting). This is something that web sites have always had at their disposal: use static locally-hosted images as ads and respect my screen real-estate, don't try to track me with 20-200 trackers, and I WILL allow them (and do). I will even allow some animation if it respects my bandwidth. But no, very few web sites feel satisfied with this so multiple ad blockers they get. A few sites do small static image ads. I don't block these and even frequently follow their links.

by Vinnl 1y ago

rancidcrab 1y ago

But those are ok. They (usually) don't have sound, auto playing videos, shock content or cover something I want to look at.

mauvehaus 1y ago
Have you filled a car with gas any time in the last ~5 years? The pumps around here (New England, USA) start playing ads with sound once you start pumping fuel. It's an absolute delight when your pump and the pump on the other side of your island are playing different ads with different audio or the same ad with the audio just out of sync. Usually, one of the soft buttons on the left or right edge of the screen is a secret mute button. Occasionally, none of them are, and rarely does anyone else seem to even try to mute their pump.
- grugagag 1y ago
  I wonder what happens if you take a sharp object such a screwdriver and poke all the speakers…
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    You probably get a visit from the police.
  - nancyminusone 1y ago
    There's no need to. If the unit is older than a few months, you'll find that the speakers have already been perforated. This usually doesn't stop them from working, because people don't break the voice coil at the center.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    While being recorded from 6 different angles while standing next to your vehicle with a license plate on it? You get arrested. That’s what happens. Kiosk makers have already thought of all of these possibilities. There isn’t a nicely exposed speaker. It’s behind a metal plate with tiny holes in it.
    - marssaxman 1y ago
      > You get arrested. That’s what happens. For petty vandalism? That seems like an expensive overreaction. Perhaps it depends on your demography.
      - immibis 1y ago
        People get arrested for petty vandalism all the time, even if they didn't petty vandalize. The police won't bother to track down who graffitied your fence, but money-making companies are a different matter. And it definitely depends on demography. I assume they're still using it, but maybe they just plug everyone's face into Palantir now.
        marssaxman 1y ago
        Maybe cops are different where you live, but here in Seattle, I cannot imagine a crime so trivial as "someone broke the speaker on a gas pump" ever rising high enough on the SPD priority list for anyone to lift a finger about it, no matter how well-documented it may have been. It would not surprise me to hear that someone had committed a crime of that scale while being watched by an SPD officer and still gotten away with it.
- connicpu 1y ago
  Pumping gas became pretty infrequent for me once I got a plug in hybrid, but when the closest gas station near me first started playing an ad my immediate reaction was to spam all of the side buttons on the screen until I found the one that muted it. Sweet quiet...
- Aurornis 1y ago
  I rarely see these any more (USA, not a small town). Could be the set of gas stations I visit doesn’t have them, but I do remember them being popular for a while. Now I haven’t seen one in a very long time.
- sojournerc 1y ago
  Someone has put caulking in many of speakers at my usual gas station. Not all heros wear capes.
- MisterTea 1y ago
  At one point I was so infuriated that I would feel for the speaker and punch the pump so hard it would knock the speaker out of place (many pumps flimsy plastic.) I did that as many times as I could until the service company started gluing them in better. So I upped and ante by ripping open the front of the pump and tear the speaker out with my bear hands and smash it. Did that a bunch of times until the volumes were turned down. > Usually, one of the soft buttons on the left or right edge of the screen is a secret mute button I found out that's the help button and sometimes a clerk will come out and ask what I need help with and I tell that it stops the annoying noise coming from the pump.
  - nahkoots 1y ago
    That's pretty unhinged, but I'm glad there's someone out there vandalizing annoying pumps. It's important work, I think.
  - Anthony-G 1y ago
    I’m reminded of the film Falling Down but I’ve given you an Internet point (upvote) for fighting the good fight. If good people do nothing, evil will triumph. In Ireland, we don’t (yet?) have such devilish instruments of torture but I imagine my cortisol levels would be through the roof if I had to deal with them.
- hexis 1y ago
  This is one of the top things pushing me to an EV, so I can charge at home and be done with gas stations. As EVs get more market share, these intrusive ads will only get worse.
skeeter2020 1y ago
billboards are still pretty obnoxious, especially when they block the view on say, a highway through a relatively undeveloped natural environment
account42 1y ago
No, they are far from OK. You've just become used to that part of the dystopia like others have become used to online ads. All ads are designed to psychologically manipulate you into acting against your best interest.

Theodores 1y ago

Get a bicycle and learn the car free routes into town and to your work. Nobody puts up adverts on cycle paths. It isn't against the law, it just makes no commercial sense to do so. By making the bicycle however you get about, you cut down on seeing ads.

skeeter2020 1y ago
this feels like a ridiculous sub-optimization, and I ride my bike pretty much everywhere
- Theodores 1y ago
  It depends on where you live, however, I noted my 'ad free life' whilst in London. I went from the usual commute on trains and tubes with the odd bus thrown in for good measure to just riding my bicycle along the Thames. I went from seeing everything with adverts to seeing everything with herons, gulls, squirrels, trees and flowers. Rather than being tuned in to the latest junk to buy, I became tuned in to the ever changing seasons and what was in blossom.
Vinnl 1y ago
Incidentally almost all my trips are already by bicycle, with on foot and with public transport numbers 2 and 3. Unfortunately, since almost everybody uses these modes of transportation here, there actually are ads everywhere still. (Besides the idea of me having to adjust my route to -for now- not see ads being somewhat offensive to me too.)
- CHB0403085482 1y ago
  Do you live here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-TuGAHR78w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-TuGAHR78w
  - Vinnl 1y ago
    I do live in that country, and I have cycled (and walked and trained through) there yes :)

reify 1y ago

Hey Vinni Ditto I dont see any ads online. I dont have a TV either, I stopped watching that ad infested garbage in 2005. too old to walk to the bus stop, too much of an introvert to hang out near pulblic places with other people

lakkal 1y ago

Barber shops and doctors' waiting rooms are hellish for me, since I can't not-hear the radio/TV they usually have playing.

bambax 1y ago
In France I have yet to go to a waiting room with a TV with the sound on; I think people would get upset. I went once to a dentist with a TV above my head (sound off); I refused to sit in the chair until it was turned off. The assistant sighed and said "everybody asks the same thing, I wonder why we installed this".

creer 1y ago

> Ads in public places, bus stops, etc. are kinda hard to avoid unfortunately. These are very different - and largely interesting to me in their colorfulness and often whimsy. (The cities around here are otherwise NOT visually interesting). This is something that web sites have always had at their disposal: use static locally-hosted images as ads and respect my screen real-estate, don't try to track me with 20-200 trackers, and I WILL allow them (and do). I will even allow some animation if it respects my bandwidth. But no, very few web sites feel satisfied with this so multiple ad blockers they get. A few sites do small static image ads. I don't block these and even frequently follow their links.