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by Worf 39 days ago
If we could get rid of useless stock photos, the world would be a better place. An article about headaches doesn't need a picture of someone with a headache. WE KNOW WHAT A HEADACHE IS. An article about someone arrested doesn't need a picture of a generic crime scene. An article about Facebook doesn't need a photo of a monitor at an angle showing Facebook.

But apparently it drives engagement because people can't sustain their focus on text-only media?
2 comments
asdefghyk 39 days ago
To get around this problem , I personally use a ON/Off extension and only load images if article "...is interesting enough ..." But yes, lots of images only have a very weak usefulness ....
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Worf 39 days ago
What's the extension, if you don't mind?

I'd love an extension that classifies images and somehow blocks stock photos or keeps anything that's not a photo like charts and graphs. For crime and police stories, not that I regularly stumble upon those, I want to see the real crime scene or the real perp, but not a stock photo of a police tape or a judge's gavel. If everything is "off", I wouldn't know what I'm missing.

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ssl-3 38 days ago
Just turn off Auto Load Images in Netscape.

Instructions here: https://www.ou.edu/class/webstudy/n4/old/N_Auto_Image_Loadin...

:)

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Worf 38 days ago
Help, I'm now stuck in the 90s. Or at least give me some stock tips or something.
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ssl-3 38 days ago
Buy Apple.

And that cheeky little online book store that Jeff Bezos dude is running from his parents' garage: Keep your day job, but also make time to go over there in person and figure out a way to give him all of your money for as long as he'll take it. He'll want to keep calling all of the shots and that's fine. Let him.

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horsh1 39 days ago
Instead of useless stock photos we now have useless AI generated photos.
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Worf 39 days ago
True, but some sites, especially the smaller ones, make fun artistic AI images in a certain style with some quirky elements thrown in. It's not drawn by a human, but the prompt for good images that I personally like (or tolerate, at least) is usually way more creative than the search query for the boring stock image ever was. If the stock image was a judge's gavel, the AI image would, for example, be a judge's gavel threatening the hidden accomplices of the accused that the article is trying to allude to. It may be in an 8-bit style if it's for cybercrime perpetrated by a nation state. Just a random example that I haven't seen, but it's much more fun than a shitty stock photo. Useless, of course, but gets a "hah" from me once in a while. And it makes stock photo companies die.
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