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I remember life without adblockers. Back when they were not needed, because web sited did not have ads.
did you use the internet in '92 or something? because even in mid to late 90s the ads were so cancerous that pop-up blocking eventually became a standard feature of browsers before ad blockers were even a thing.
Seriously. Someone never clicked on the “you are an idiot” popup that auto-played music, moved around the screen, prevented task manager from opening and cloned itself if it was closed.
The installers for every major software company riddled every single computer with adware. And you needed a compsci degree to get rid of it. Weren’t there lawsuits over that shit, that led to regulations? I remember that happening. It’s not like they were going to stop doing that of their own accord.
oh yeah there was all that bs too. oh the toolbars!
My first contact with the web (I had been in the internet for some time already) was when a collegue at university told me about the Arena browser, and this new system, “like Gopher, but with Hypertext and pictures”. And yes, I’ve seen the CERN website, served from Tim Barners-Lee’s NeXT cube, too.
So yes, I knew the web before there were ads, the internet when services were normally open to all sides, and when people on the internet that were actually much smarter than average.
Up to early 00’ most webs didn’t really have many ads. Some may have abusive advertisement but it wasn’t everywhere like now.
I, too, have a sore back when I awake.
Those were one of the later plagues, too.
After going nuclear against ad blockers, at some point google is going to introduce a new “feature” where YouTube uses AI with your phone’s camera to automatically pause videos when you look away from your phone.
Then they’ll make it so you have to buy a subscription to turn it off during ads.
Please open verification can
writers of black mirror’s 15 million merits laughing crying maniacally in the distance
Me if that happens:
jk, i barely use YT as it is. I’m waiting for the YT ToS update that causes a mass migration to peertube
Yea, that mass migration is not something I see happening…
I would say there’s been a mass migration from Twitter to Mastodon and from Reddit to Lemmy. The current numbers are still a small fraction of the original services, but the federated services have reached a critical mass where they now offer comparable value. YouTube hasn’t been ubiquitous for that long and it’s already pretty enshittified. I see a lot of people who are fed up with it and looking for an alternative. The peertube platform is there, I think with more people and content and it’ll join the ranks.
I remembered a scene of a black mirror episode: if the person looked away the ads will stop until the person watch it again and it’s unavoidable … I wonder if this will be a reality one day
Please drink a verification can
Does it have alcohol in it?
Yes, the technology to do this is here, and they’re just waiting for the consumer to be able to put up with it.
This is why I just set up a media server at home.
It’s mine, you can’t pump it full of ads. All the media is mine and those companies can go fuck themselves.
Sail those seas folks
Oh I have had a plex and then jellyfin server for almost 15 years. Yarr mateys
Don’t worry your TV will just hijack the HDMI signal to inject its own ads
Not if isn’t connected to a network. 😈
Reading your reply made me think … it’s possible that implying such technology might help rising Free & Open Source culture more … given that FOSS apps are usually ad-free and with no tracking
Honestly the best thing about FOSS is that money isn’t driving all the decisions. Most open-source projects are built because the dev just wants to build something cool or useful, or they’re trying to solve specific problems. Most individual devs don’t really care if their user count goes up every quarter.
Personally I’ve been maintaining a chrome extension for about 10 years, and it’s sat happily with about 7000 users that entire time. I built it because I wanted to use it, and I’ve declined several offers to buy the extension and monetize it.What’s the extension? Advertise to me dammit, I’m intrigued
It’s an extension that makes GitHub pages full width: https://github.com/xthexder/wide-github/
Admittedly the usefulness has gone down a little bit in the last couple years now that GitHub themselves have made code diffs and some other things full width by default.
When I first wrote this I had just gotten a giant 4K display at work and was really annoyed I still had to scroll left and right with the page only covering 1/3 of the screen.
I use an add blocker to such an extent im horrified every time I’m on an unfamiliar device and have to deal with copious adds.
I can’t even imagine raw-dogging the internet like that…
Basically me every time I open a website on my work laptop, where I cannot add browser extensions because of IT policies.
I honestly cannot fathom why large companies don’t include at least simple adblockers in their browser configurations. I don’t even need to block youtube ads, the banners on stackoverflow are bass enough). Would probably save fairly significant amounts of bandwidth, too.
because then things would just shut down… The poor suckers that don’t use adblockers are what pay the bandwidth and hosting costs for those of us that do. If it becomes the default, things would either shutdown or go paywall.
I’m to the point that if whatever I’m watching/doing pops an ad at me, I reflexively make a snap judgement on whether I want to continue watching/doing whatever it is. Often the answer is ‘no’ and I’ll just bail entirely.
Camara zooms out revealing a third guy looking down into his face youtube requiring a Webcam so they can track your eyes
I’m convinced Mark Zuckerberg had a wet dream about pupil tracking when he bought Oculus.
He saw that Black Mirror episode and found it to be aspirational.
Most of the tech billionare’s ideas comes from watching a dystopian 80s scifi and saying “let’s do this but where I’m the bad guy.”
Show me one thing Elon ever came up with that isn’t in Total Recall.
Show me one thing Elon ever came up with that isn’t in Total Recall.
Musk is trash, but to be fair, Philip K. Dick pretty much invented like 90% of popular, modern sci-fi tropes.
