[ultramegachurch]

Tangentially related - there’s a certain sublimity to watching cable tv commercials in 2022. I’m completely converted to streaming, so the only time I see tv commercials is at my parents house. And in that context, I find myself enjoying them? Perhaps it’s nostalgia - they remind me of media when I was growing up. There’s also an element of escapism. Everybody in commercials is beautiful and happy. And then there’s the hyper capitalism Alice-in-wonderland spectacle of it all. Commercials are strange and ridiculous. I enjoy the absurdity of it.

I don’t miss cable television commercials. But they provide a unique lens into how strange it is to be a person at all.

[eru]

Might be similar to what many people experience when they browse through old magazines and newspapers?

[ncpa-cpl]

With so many ads and modal boxes in newspaper websites, I've recently find the paper newspaper a better experience recently.

[eru]

Ads in print have always been a better experience than ads in most other media.

Newspapers typically get / got most of their revenue from ads, more than from subscription or selling papers.

An example I heard a few years ago (don't quote me on the actual numbers): the Economist makes about 10 dollars on ads for every issue they sell. Almost no one would opt to buy a version of the print Economist that costs 10 dollars more to avoid the ads.

In contrast, broadcast TV makes about 20 cents on one viewer watching for an hour. Quite a few people would be willing to pay 20 cents to skip ads for an hour.

In that sense of (hypothetical) willingness to pay, ads in print are more economically efficient than ads in broadcast TV.