[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.