Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.

Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?

  • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    219 months ago

    Fuck ALL advertisements. Yes, even “unobtrusive” ones, especially yours. If I want your shit, I will find you. If I appreciate your shit, I’ll pay you for your time. If you want to connect, I’m all ears. Otherwise, fuck off capitalists, fuck off advertisers, and fuck off useful idiots who want to waste my finite lifespan in this miserable universe showing me ads.

    • Granixo
      link
      fedilink
      89 months ago

      I literally just came from another post that was talking about this.

      • e_mc2
        link
        fedilink
        47 months ago

        Basically what happened to the Internet as a whole.

    • I’m pretty sure ads don’t work on me. People tell me ‘ackshually they do, you just don’t notice.’ Nah, mate. They don’t. They just annoy me.

    • @Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      09 months ago

      Unfortunately there’s a lot of products that most people don’t even know exist. Hell I keep finding new tools and wondering why I’ve been doing things the hard way for so long.

      OTOH, fuck all the advertisers who use shady tactics to make sales, and especially fuck all the people who pray on the naivety of others to steal their money. I was just showing a customer an email I got the other day stating her domain hosting was past due and required immediate payment, and she asked how I knew it was a scam. Uh, hello, because —I— am hosting your domain and website (and this is exactly why I share this kind of stuff with people, to make them think before they blindly write a check).

      • @Landrin201@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        19 months ago

        I would argue that if there’s a product that nobody knows exist that’s not necessarily because we need to allow constant intrusive ads, and more indicative that people don’t actually need the product.

        I want to say that in any given day, 60% of the ads I see are from big, well known companies who don’t need me to see them to know they exist. Shit like Liberty Mutual (I swear I see more of their ads than anyone else and THEY ARE ALREADY MY INSURANCE PROVIDER), Coke, Pepsi, etc. 39.9% of the remaining 40% are advertisements for shit that I just don’t care about. I don’t care about the newest tech toys. I don’t care about the newest car mods, or random shit I can put on my desk, or stupid extra kitchen gadgets. Fully 40% of the ads I see are trying to convince me that I should buy a product that I straight up don’t need because the ad looked cool. Why should those ads be allowed to exist? Why should I be constantly bombarded with ads for services that I either already know plenty about or for things that are trying to manufacture a reason for their existence?

        Only about 0.5% of the ads I see are actually for things I did know know about and that seem useful to me, or like something I would like. Probably even less than that, I’m drunk rn and estimating.

        • @Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          09 months ago

          I keep throwing away ads from Comcast trying to sell me on the virtues of their business internet packages. Guys, I left you because your lame-ass shit was expensive as hell, slow as hell, and you couldn’t even be counted on to meet a single appointment in 6 months to bury your damn line you left laying across my yard.

          I agree with you, there’s a lot of companies that just need to be silenced. You’re allowed to send me ONE ad, and you better make it good because I don’t ever want to hear from you again.

    • @Catsrules@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      09 months ago

      I hate ads as much as the next guy, but without ads get ready to start paying for things. You go to a news website, sorry you need to login and hand over your credit card to access anything. Youtube? Sorry you need to login and pay up to watch anything. You want to Google,Bing, Duckduckgo something sorry you better pay up can’t sell you data to advertisers anymore.

      Not saying this is necessarily a bad thing but it will fundamentally change how the internet works and it potentially could limit informational access to poor people.

      • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        1
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        I brought this up the last time I talked about this, but to be clear, if we must choose between advertisements and paywall, then we should choose advertisements as the lesser evil. However, we must never accept the fallacy that advertising or paywalls are the only possible choices! More generally, we must never accept the fallacy that a market is the only acceptable way to distribute goods, a corollary of which is the idea that any acceptable solution needs to compete on equal terms with existing products in a market.

        Not saying this is necessarily a bad thing but it will fundamentally change how the internet works and it potentially could limit informational access to poor people.

        Well the first part at least would be a welcome change. The issue in my view is the very fact that poor people are treated as second-class citizens in information access or any other field of endeavor.

        Youtube? Sorry you need to login and pay up to watch anything. You want to Google,Bing, Duckduckgo something sorry you better pay up can’t sell you data to advertisers anymore.

        I very genuinely want those sites to fucking die so I don’t have to coexist in a world where they dominate the internet. I would be literally thrilled to join a group of like-minded people who have to reimplement the conveniences of the modern web from scratch for free.

    • How do you reach people with a new product that didn’t exist before? Or a Service? Do you want monopolys that never change because smaller business cant advertise with their stuff.

      I don’t like 99% of advertising either, especially online, but there are some exceptions.

      • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        2
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        How do you reach people with a new product that didn’t exist before? Or a Service?

        What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.

        —Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, New International Version

        EDIT: I’m not a Christian and I’m not trying to convert anyone to my faith (or lack thereof), I just think it’s a neat quote.

        My point really is that you can generally talk about your products in some existing forum with reference to existing things. For example, if I wanted people to listen to my music, which I have deluded myself into thinking is a unique, previously unheard-of blend of genres, I would post links onto music forums and groups who are interested in recommendations of music adjacent to the type I produce. And that is how I actually spread my music on Reddit (although not as PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S) back when it was fresh. No ads, no wasting people’s time and internet. I only reached people who already expressed their interest to receive music like mine. I got a very small following, but I achieved my goal.

        Nothing is so unique that it belongs in no forum or is of interest to no existing community, yet simultaneously needs to be broadcast to the entire world. I have no problem with people sending me stuff they believe in to my email or other inbox, blow it up for all I care, but what I do take issue with is shoving that stuff into my web browsing experience or even sandwiched into the content I’m trying to watch.

        • @richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one
          link
          fedilink
          English
          -19 months ago

          —Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, New International Version

          You’re quoting the fantasy book of a group of Bronze Age goatherders as an argument? Really?

            • @richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one
              link
              fedilink
              English
              09 months ago

              It’s not really a very good quote. Advanced electronics, genetic engineering, quantum computing… there are a lot of things that are actually new.

              • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                29 months ago

                It’s not really a very good quote.

                I respect your opinion.

                Advanced electronics

                Clearly an advancement from simple electromagnetism, which was the unification of the previous studies of electricity and magnetism. Not fully original.

                Genetic engineering

                Based on prior analysis of genetics, which itself descended from simple breeding, and chemistry. Not fully original.

                Quantum computing

                Hybrid of computing with quantum principles. Not fully original.

                Like I get it, we do discover new stuff and create new techniques, but (1) these physics still existed before we discovered them and (2) (much more importantly) these things are not new in the sense that they’re not totally unique, that we can compare them to things that exist because they are inspired by things that already exist.

                I mulled over whether or not to quote the Bible directly once I figured out where that quote came from, and I ultimately decided to do so because of the Bible’s reputation for needing to be “read into”. I think that particular passage says something really interesting about how, in some sense, nothing really new happens, that what we’re doing can be seen as a version of something else. This is particularly interesting as a piece of a Christian document; Christianity generally doesn’t posit a cyclical view of the world. You live, you die, you go into the afterlife, judgement day happens, and God’s chosen few spend eternity in heaven; e.g., the plot is linear. Therefore, there clearly must be some deeper context to the text.

                Regardless, it was a minor part of my original argument. The rest should stand on its own.

                Also, I went to Catholic school. I’d like to use my religion classes for something; I’m most certainly not using them for praying 😂

                • @richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  -19 months ago

                  I’d like to use my religion classes for something

                  Why?

                  That’s like saying “I was poisoned for years, I should use this poison for something good”.

    • @zer0nix@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      0
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      I’m upvoting because this should actually be unpopular. Intrusive ads are bad but less intrusive ones let you know who the patrons are of the otherwise highly expensive services you enjoy. That all of this gets paid for with ad money is nothing less than a miracle.

      If you don’t want to see ads then don’t give them your notice! I like being informed when new products go to market.

      • @Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        09 months ago

        Yeah, I watch about fifty different people making videos and they make money from it and all I have up do is watch fifteen seconds of adverts? I love it, my genuinely unpopular opinion is there should be more things making use of them, I wish Ubuntu had an optional add bar or advert box that I could watch while working to generate money to fund development, even better if they mix in adverts for cool open source projects so I can lean they exist.