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The article probably could just have been that statement, but I agree. Every experience now just seems like people (companies) fighting over who can most obnox
by andy99 1y ago
The article probably could just have been that statement, but I agree.
Every experience now just seems like people (companies) fighting over who can most obnoxiously distract you.
I bought a new phone recently for the first time in 8 years, and (a) had to set everything up all at once (ad blocking, no notifications, etc) which left me briefly exposed to how bad things are but (b) had to experience all the annoyingness of a modern phone trying to suggest things and sync things and bother me with stuff I don’t want.
No product is even remotely for the consumer anymore, they’re all just minimal pretenses to try and advertise you and extract more of your attention and money.
So yeah, outside some sheltered life of luxury, it’s a constant fight to preserve focus against people wanting to steal it.
- nxor 1y agoCompletely agree, and it's sad that people put their machines over relationships with other people / coworkers / focusing on those relationships.
- MichaelZuo 1y agoIt’s always been like that, misanthropes, psychos, regular scoundrels, etc. have always existed. Of course in the past there were less opportunities to hide or excuse that kind of behavior.
- fn-mote 1y ago> misanthropes You're underestimating the impact, in my opinion. Almost EVERYONE puts their devices over relationships. Not as bad, but even when the relationship gets priority, it can be mediated by the device. E.g., texting close family members. It's another chance to be a victim of attention-stealing because you start the device session for a good reason.
- MichaelZuo 1y agoIt seems clearly possible nearly everyone you know could be a closet misanthrope/psycho/scoundrel/etc. ? And all they needed were convenient excuses and opportunities to indulge in that behavior. i.e. it could genuinely be their true self, unattractive as it may be.
- infinitezest 1y agoThat's uh... Quite a take
- MichaelZuo 1y agoDid you accidentally submit a draft comment? There’s nothing after “take” from what I can see.
- BuyMyBitcoins 1y agoI can’t watch YouTube without an adblocker. On a surface level, I hate the ads. But, the main reason is the fact that I can’t stand how YouTube is fixated on trying to make you watch something else at all times. I need something to hide all the little cards and interstitials that pop up when pausing the video, the badges, all the obnoxious thumbnails, etc.. I also hide all of the videos on the sidebar except for the one that would be recommended next, just so I can know what might play if I leave autoplay on. It is insane to me that the product got to this place. I get Google is all about advertising, but my goodness, YouTube is just designed to make you not pay attention for more than a few seconds.
- nxor 1y agoFor meaningful focus our brains need uninterrupted periods. I use Brave, though I know its reputation could be better.
- noir_lord 1y agoUblock Origin and Unhook[1] Lets you remove as much or as little of the "UI/UX" as you want - don't want to see shorts, recommended vids, end cards etc - live comments (who even asked for that) you don't have to. It collapses YT back to been an intentional thing - I'm looking for a video to watch, I watch it, it suggests nothing and I go on with my day instead of getting distracted by the skinner box. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/youtube-recommended-videos/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/youtube-recom...
- Forgeties79 1y agoThis is also why I love Freetube. No nonsense, just what I want in front of me the rare instances I’m on YT these days. Only annoying thing is having to update it every few weeks
- ryandrake 1y agoAt this point this functionality should just be built into browsers. It's 2025. We shouldn't still need extensions to provide table stakes functionality like content blocking.
- Forgeties79 1y agoIt’s all a battle for your second screen
- seba_dos1 1y agoHaving used GNU/Linux on all my PCs and smartphones for nearly two decades now, I feel the joy of missing out on this. It's bad enough on the Web already, I can't imagine my own devices adding their own layers on top.
- Seattle3503 1y agoWhat set-up do you have on your phone?
- fsflover 1y agoNot the parent, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5 (A cheaper alternative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone)
- seba_dos1 1y agoPureOS 11 with Phosh. Calls and SMS generate (rare) real-time notifications, XMPP notifies as soon as I wake the phone up; pretty much everything else is pull-only (by my choice, I could set it up differently if I wanted, but I didn't have to go out of my way to have it like that either). E-mail with Geary, Matrix with Hydrogen, Mastodon with Tuba. I have various things set up as Epiphany's webapps, such as banking, public transit planner, ride-hailing, RSS reader (CommaFeed), package delivery status, Messenger and some other social media. I spend time in each of them only when I actually want to, there's no fighting for my attention with notifications or unread counters. If I need to use some Android app, I boot up Waydroid and close the container as soon as I'm done, so nothing stays running in the background (unless I want it to).
- UncleOxidant 1y agoMy wife got a new android phone recently and she was showing me that her picture gallery now has ads. My Android phone from 5 years ago lets you look at the pictures in the camera app, but hers does not and makes you see ads to look at the pictures you've taken. This is evil.
- Awesomedonut 1y agoAds on the picture gallery is insane. How is this even allowed?
- ryandrake 1y agoAnything is allowed if customers allow it and keep buying the products.
- alextingle 1y agoFossify Gallery (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fossify.gallery/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fossify.gallery/)
- fao_ 1y agowell, it'll work until late 2026 at least :/
- cpursley 1y agoName and shame: which phone and provider?
- rubyfan 1y agoI bought a new treadmill with a 24” screen on it. The screen should have been the red flag I guess. They want $40 a month to use the screen if I want to watch Netflix while I run, or sync my running data to Apple Health. There is no way to change this as far as I can tell and if they went out of business I’m sure my equipment would become a brick.
- ileonichwiesz 1y agoI guess it’s time to pop it open and do one of those classic “how I rewired this thing to work how I want” HN posts.
- rubyfan 1y agoI was thinking about that, and then figured just paying the $40 for the next 5 years is probably cheaper.
- apparent 1y agoWas the subscription pricing mentioned during the purchase flow, even if you didn't happen to see it at the time? At $500/yr, seems like it'd be cheaper to just buy a tablet and use that instead of the built-in screen.
- rubyfan 1y agoThe subscription is described as optional and in a way which is unclear. The name of the product implies there is a free version and Pro subscription. In actuality you need the Pro subscription to use some of the features.
- cpursley 1y agoPerhaps I’m reaching, but why not just run outside? Cold? What’s a gym cost where you are? $40 just seems like a lot in addition to the amortized cost of the basement clothes rack, I meant exercise machine.
- 1y ago
- LaFolle 1y agoI think that is where the power of current AI chat interfaces like chatgpt beats other digital interfaces. You ask a question. Get just an answer back in more or less same format or grammer. And no ads. No distractions. Clean. Though it is tough for ai chat providers to keep it that way for long if revenue from subscriptions / apis does not offset the exorbitant compute costs.
- sothatsit 1y agoYeah, I don't expect this to last too much longer, unfortunately...
- layla5alive 1y agoAbsolutely AI ads enshitification is on the timeline :(
- great_wubwub 1y ago> No product is even remotely for the consumer anymore, they’re all just minimal pretenses to try and advertise you and extract more of your attention and money. This is a beautiful sentence. I would add that under modern-day aggressive hyper-capitalism all attention can be translated to money, so it's all just products whose job is to get you to buy more products.
- nicbou 1y agoMy iPad is completely silenced, but also has no ad blockers. It’s meant to stay a reading device for the bedroom, and to not become a browsing device. The unfiltered internet is downright unbearable. Ads, notifications, modals. Reading a paragraph of text without looking at ads or surrendering your privacy is a challenge. Now the devices themselves are getting so needy! Consoles are the most obvious example. I got a Switch as a gift, and it shows ads every time I turn it on. Operating systems embed feeds wherever they please. It feels like we are not the customers of the products we but, but a resource to be mined.