[grownseed]

My partner and I are the proud owners of a Toyota Corolla CE 2003. We often joke about how it has to be the most nondescript car ever made. It has no extra features (with the exception of the CD/radio stereo perhaps), it just drives, really well, it's very efficient, nobody would ever think to steal or break into it as long as there's pretty much any other car in sight, it requires very little maintenance, and when it does we can go pretty much anywhere and it's very cheap.

There'll come a day when we have to replace it, and I'm dreading having to pay more for something that most likely won't be as reliable, but will attempt to squeeze yet more "value" out of me. The corporatization of everyday goods and services at the expense of consumers absolutely sickens me. I can't go to the movies without having to watch 15 minutes of ads, even though I already paid for my seat (and tickets are more expensive than ever). I fear giving my email/phone number/etc. to anybody because I have no idea how they'll be used. I have to regularly remind my ISP/phone provider to stop trying to push more crap and use me as some sort of advertizing platform for my friends. And so on.

People complain about Facebook, Google, etc. all the time for their underhanded tactics, but at the very least I haven't already paid for the product before being amalgamated into it... For all the people on HN who work for these companies and help them implement these things, I do have to ask, how do you sleep at night?

[stareatgoats]

I've come to the conclusion that ads will, if not countered, invade every space that has any potential of human attention. It's not hard to see the trajectory for one who's been around since the 1950's.

This is probably going to demand a new type of GMO human, one that can concentrate on main content while at the same time processing ad content.

Or, we can stand up as the humans we are and demand that ads be banned from being shoved down our throats at every juncture. In lieu of legislation (don't have much hope there): some sort of manifesto that specifies how ads be displayed (i.e. exclusively behind a 'show ads'-button), coupled with shaming of the corporations that violate such an advertising 'code of conduct'.

It should really be tried.

[username223]

We actually had a pretty decent truce with ads in the pre-commercial-web days of the 80s and early 90s. Newspapers had some black and white ads next to the articles, which didn't flash or move around. They also sometimes had a pure-ads color insert, which you could take out and throw away with hardly a glance. Magazines sold their subscriber lists to junk-mailers, but sorting junk mail was similarly painless, and delivering it helped fund the postal service. TV had commercials, but we had VCRs with a fast-forward button that couldn't be disabled.

In other words, the ads were easy to ignore if you weren't interested, everyone understood that, and they were priced accordingly. There was money in advertising, but not enough that the CEOs of ad companies were competing to see who could be the first to shoot some poor human sucker at Mars on a branded rocket. Then advertising turned toward all-out war, first with annoyances like animated GIFs and pop-ups, then with surveillance-based ads that started with DoubleClick (a.k.a. Google, a.k.a. Alphabet). Advertisers became some of the richest men on the planet, somehow convincing people that tracking every single mouse movement on every webpage made advertising unimaginably valuable.

What really scares me is what the surveillance companies turn to when slinging micro-targeted ads doesn't make enough money. Google+23andme health insurance, anyone?

[dvtrn]

Advertisers became some of the richest men on the planet, somehow convincing people that tracking every single mouse movement on every webpage made advertising unimaginably valuable.

Ad-men have been some of the richest men on the planet long before the word 'mouse' referred to something other than a small furry critter.

[username223]

Really? Honest question. The 19th century Robber Barons were bankers and industrialists -- Morgans, Carnegies, Stanfords, and Rockefellers. Before that it was slave-owners and more bankers and industrialists -- Rothschilds and what-have-you. Back in the Middle Ages it was extortionist thugs, a.k.a. the nobility -- Louis the nth, Henry the kth, etc. I guess the clergy were always fairly well-to-do, but most people wouldn't consider them ad-men.

EDIT: I see where you may be coming from. Newspaper barons like William Randolph Hearst? Sort of, but his papers offered both "creative" and "editorial."

[shostack]

Please look up agency salaries before making that sort of statement. There's decent executive comp at the top, but there's a reason for the industry stereotype of being underpaid and overworked. It is also why so many from the agency side flee to the brand side.

Ad agency pay sucks in general.

[dvtrn]

There's decent executive comp at the top

Sorry, I thought "ad-man" was a pretty unambiguous statement that referred directly to the executives of ad agencies?

[ergothus]

I attended a sports event (SkateAmerica) recently. I was shocked that they played commercials. At the arena. Not just before things started, but in between competitors while they totaled scores.

And they weren't even topical commercials. Just...commercials. I'm a cord-cutter so I've been fairly isolated and I found the whole thing jarring. It did not encourage me to spend more time or money to give people more chances to advertise to me. (Though the event itself was otherwise great)

[mymythisisthis]

Fellow cord cutter. Commercials are very strange. Like seriously bizarre. Once you've stepped away for awhile you can't re-acclimatize. Talking cars, dancing animations, crazy graphics...it's all just absurd nonsense. It's like the the worst of a Salvador Dali painting.

[cosmie]

My daughter grew up with Netflix (no commercials) and Hulu (no commercials specifically on kids programming, at least as of a year ago). She went to a sleepover when she was 6 and got incredibly confused when they were watching cable and the show stopped and a bunch of random toy videos showed up. She played it off in front of her friends, but asked me what was up with those videos first thing when she got home. She just couldn't understand why her movie would be interrupted like that.

... She also started pestering me for about a dozen different, explicitly named toys. Something she had never done before.

[bscphil]

People who are either older than me (TV and radio era) or younger than me (mobile apps) look at me like I'm crazy when I seriously suggest ending all advertising. It's a terrible blight on society and you don't really recognize it until you haven't seen an ad for a month or two. (I use Firefox on my phone with an adblocker, and I don't use apps that show ads. I don't watch cable. I really have not seen an ad in I don't know how long.)

[distances]

I can relate. YouTube has increased their ads lately, and I really can't imagine watching ads any more. I currently turn down the sound and avert my gaze for the duration of the ad. I guess it's a push towards the paid service.

[tomjen3]

The problem with that is, as other people said last time it was up for discussion, that if you are willing to pay to avoid ads, you are the demographic that is even more attractive to advertisers, meaning they will pay you even more to reach you.

The thing I don't get is, there has to be products out there that are actually useful, but I don't see advertising for those*

*exception: some sleeping headphones I saw in an app on Twitter, but they fail to meet my requirement: I want to put them on, go to sleep, and not hear a noise after that. I will pay 1k+ for this, iff they really work.

[JustSomeNobody]

Idiocracy foretold the coming of this. Frankly, it was inevitable. As wages have stagnated and the gap between haves and have nots has grown, people are more willing to give up privacy in exchange for goods and services.

[perl4ever]

"it's very efficient, nobody would ever think to steal or break into it as long as there's pretty much any other car in sight"

My impression is that the most stolen cars usually fit that description, surprisingly enough. Old, reliable, nondescript cars are exactly the ones that have a thriving market for parts and are relatively easy to steal. I remember for instance, late 90s Honda Accords being on the list of top most stolen models at one time.

The other reason I see not to keep an old car forever is that I don't trust old airbags, especially since the Takata fiasco. Nothing lasts forever, and originally I read that airbags were supposed to last 10 years, so how do you trust a 15 year old explosive device aimed at your face?

[WillPostForFood]

You are right, the most stolen cars list always includes the top sellers, Civic, Accord, Camry Corolla(#8).

https://www.nicb.org/news/news-releases/2017-hot-wheels-repo...

It might just be because those models sell the most, so there are more around to be stolen, or maybe there is more demand for stolen parts because they sell more.

[mygo]

> It might just be because those models sell the most, so there are more around to be stolen, or maybe there is more demand for stolen parts because they sell more.

Well, it’s both. They’re two sides of the same coin.

Hard to have a thriving car theft business if there isn’t good enough demand for the parts you need to sell.

Can’t have a high demand for parts unless a large amount of those cars are on the streets (or if the cars are absolute junk and need constant parts repair)

The cars that you see in the junk yard in large quantities are probably the ones that will be stolen from the streets.

[ams6110]

I just can't fathom a huge market in stolen car parts. I do a lot of my own work and always just go to NAPA or maybe rockauto.com and buy any new parts I need.

Maybe there is a sizable black market of major parts (engines, transmissions, body panels) etc. to unscrupulous repair shops?

[sean2]

I've always owned 10-20year old cars, and frequently replacement parts aren't available; I have to find them on ebay or craigslist and I've no way to know weather these were scavenged legally or stolen.

I've also used Craigslist because new parts can be 5 times more expensive than used parts. You may buy all your items new, but most of the working class people on my block, who are constantly upgrading their cars, probably can't afford it. So, I have no problem imagining a large black market.

[mdgrech23]

I suspect most stolen parts would either be sold through Craigslist of junkyards. The old timers still rely heavily on junkyards for parts. I've been to quite a few, they tend to be shady.

[enraged_camel]

>>I just can't fathom a huge market in stolen car parts.

There is a huge market for them. They are laundered through junk yards.

[WillPostForFood]

I suspect some repair shops may source parts from non-legit sources.

[refurb]

Honda Accords being on the list of top most stolen models at one time.

Yes, there is demand for those car parts, but most importantly, late-90’s Honda are incredibly easy to steal. They didn’t fix that until the 2000 model.

It’s so well known that you need something like a club to stop those cars from disappearing.

[Sgt_Apone]

Exactly, those things were ridiculously easy to snatch up. My friend in high school used to be able to start his 90s era Honda with a flathead screw driver.

[mdgrech23]

You're right on both points. Safety has seen major improvements since 2003. I would urge OP to upgrade for that reason alone.

[DanFeldman]

I've got a Toyota Camry 2006. It's such a functional car. mid-early 2000s was such a beautiful time for car user interfaces. No crazy screens, no touch UI to control radio volume with millions of menus, no painfully slow third party navigation systems that became deprecated by the time cell phones came out.

The only modification it has is a bluetooth receiver instead of the CD part of the radio. It's so wonderfully low-tech that the key fob doesn't even work anymore, only manual keys for me.

I bought it when I could have purchased a new vehicle for a similar price using a GM employee discount. Never regretted the decision, and now seeing all this coming out, I feel even better about my camry. I'll drive it until it dies and then hopefully never own another vehicle.

[ridgeguy]

I'm with you. I hate being monetized, and there's increasingly no escape.

A suggestion. When it comes time to replace your Corolla, buy an older used car and use the price differential between your "new" oldie and the newer car you might have bought to return your oldie to zero time. New engine, trannie, new hoses & tubing, wheel bearings, retrofit LED lighting...etc. Or you could do this with the Corolla you have now.

You'll sacrifice newer bells & whistles and some safety features, to be sure. But you won't have to listen to ads unless you voluntarily tune them in on that FM/AM radio.

Edit to add: And your car won't be reporting on you to whoever put up a few pennies for your life data.

[chocolatebunny]

In Canada, Nissan sells a car called the Micra. The 2018 base model comes with manual transmission, rollup windows and no AC. But next year they have to add a backup camera. To me this car seems like the last vestige of a bygone era in North America.

[Sgt_Apone]

I actually own the SV model of this with the backup camera already.

It's an incredibly simple point A to B type car, but I love that about it. I can change the oil and filter without even having to jack it up, it's fuel efficient, and no touch screens. It kinda blew my mind when I was perusing new cars and there is nothing even remotely close to the Micra in terms of cost/value.

[ip26]

You can still get a Tacoma like that, I believe.

[bigiain]

As I read the article I thought smugly about the three motorcycles in my garage with no more sophisticated electronics that the ignition modules - all run carburettors, one doesn't even have a tachometer... They aren't collecting _any_ marketable data on me (well, I guess the odo readings from the yearly inspections...)

But then I ride them around with a smartphone in my pocket snitching me out to the cell providers (and any nearby stingrays), slurping up gps signals and wallowing in wifi and bluetooth bands... (And with a license plate being snapped and OCRed probably hundreds of times a week...)

[pard68]

I feel the same way. I have an '01 Subaru Legacy. One day it will die, and it will be because of rust, not because of poor craftsmanship or engineering. And when I have to replace it, I don't know what I will do. I'm tempted to buy another one while they still exist and garaging it until needed. Because I don't want to own a car that is doing things I don't know about, or talking to someone else about me.

[4d66ba06]

> I fear giving my email/phone number/etc. to anybody because I have no idea how they'll be used

I've subscribed to Abine Blur to be able to generate separate masked emails for sites I'm wary of, as well as have a masked phone number.

[fipple]

Wow, dramatic much? They probably sleep at night by realizing that the car they are selling you is far less likely to be its driver’s place of death than the 2003 car you’re driving.

[acct1771]

Unless it gets hacked.

Vehicle hacking is very real.

[slavak]

You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a regular old car accident than you are as a result of your car being hacked.

I'm as concerned about insecure computers in cars as the next tinfoil-wearing conspiracy theorist (that is to say- very, very much), but let's not overstate the actual numbers. A modern car getting hacked is a real risk that needs to be handled, but the actual occurrence of it in the wild is extremely low, and likely to remain that way for at least the next few decades.

[acct1771]

Averages are great until you're the one targeted.

[slavak]

Being targeted for hacking only adds to the risk of being involved in a regular old accident, not replaces it; and no matter who you are, your odds of eventually being involved in a non-hacking related crash are pretty high. The difference in severity of injuries and risk of death in a car accident between a 2018 model and a 2003 model is considerable.

So unless you're Snowden and someone is actively trying to kill you, citing the risk of hacking as a rational safety-based reason to drive a 15 year-old car just doesn't hold water.

And if you are Snowden, physically tampering with a car or just forcing you off the road is so easy, hacking probably doesn't increase the risk profile much either. Granted, it's slightly more convenient for your would-be murderers.

[acct1771]

Plausible deniability.

[jonknee]

> I'm dreading having to pay more for something that most likely won't be as reliable

Toyota's are still very reliable, even more efficient and a lot safer... You'll be fine.

[Spooky23]

I just replaced my 2003 Honda Pilot with a 2016. What a nightmare... touchscreen controls running some bastardized Android 4.1 platform.