TechTakes

For real though, we must have reached Peak Ad at some point, or at least we're deep into the realm of diminishing returns. This can't go on forever, right? I mean there's a finite number of things that need to be advertised and a finite number of people with a finite amount of time and patience to look at ads. How long until it all collapses?

Also: get over it. Most of the internet works, because people learn of products and then buy them.

holy fuck I’m so sorry you think this is it, that this broke-ass business model is all that ever existed for the internet, that you’ve never experienced the good bits that used to be relatively plentiful but are now rare

…it’s also kind of fucking stupid to post an opinion like this on the fediverse of all places

Third parties no longer need to know who you are. As i understand it, chrome can directly deliver only the necessary information just when it is needed. No external saving of data required.

This isn't better at all. Sure, there are fewer parties that collect the data, but that just means only google can sell access to it, which gives google a near monopoly. This is only good if you think Google deserves more power and influence.

Also: get over it. Most of the internet works, because people learn of products and then buy them.

Nice. "The internet only works if you let them manipulate you with your private info" is quite the take, especially when you're on a website that works without it. Next you'll say, "ads might work on you, but i'm just built different".

1. they literally sell browsing data for pennies
2. nah, no thanks

solely this allows many websites you probably like to use, to exist in the first place.

I'm used to loss. Bring it on.

Also: get over it.

It's not like marketing has to be an essential part of the browsing experience, either.

How would the interest break without ads? I can't see that happening.

In the spirit of rationalism I’m going to invent terminology for something that probably already has better terminology, and spout a bunch of unsubstantiated stuff. Ads would be fine if advertising campaigns were zeroth order only, by which i mean, purely to publicise products with no effort to “sell” you on something. First order they try convince you to buy something, without lying. Second order is where they begin lying by omission, third order is when they begin outright lying. Higher orders are increasingly kafkaesque/dystopian. E.g.:

• any publicity stunt
• Influencing ideas about identity to sell a product, i.e. real men eat meat, dolls are for girls, etc.
• manipulating your personal ethics to launder the ethics of a company, e.g. an oil company urging an individual to go green so that the oil company doesn’t have to
• legal racketeering, i.e. lobbying for regulatory measures that force people to buy something
• any participation in a political campaign

The list goes on. As advertising has continued and the profession has been refined, the overton window of what was considered in good taste has shifted to include these increasingly perverse strategems.

Everything big tech has done with advertising just adds to the list. They’ve broken the window completely. To use a term from our old pal Yud, the “inscrutable matrices” that make up their personalisation algorithms might show you more relevant content alongside ads, but they will also trigger a positive feedback loop radicalising you into one ideology or another. See: facebook q-pilling middle america.