I feel the same about SEO stuff. Stuff that's designed to attract peoples attention doesn't just not work on me, it often repels me. Some of it actively irritates me. Some of it I can't even stand to look at.

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[–] 16 points 1 day ago* (4 children)

I've immunized myself to ads as best I can by refusing to engage with any technology or service which I can't get an adblock into.

I use a speech to text LLM to remove them from podcasts, I don't watch TV, I don't have traditional social media, I wear headphones in shops with radio ads, haven't watched youtube or listened to music without an adblock. If adblocks ever stopped working I would just stop using a service outright.

I still understand they influence me because companies wouldn't use them otherwise. They are mental pollution and I've had to do a lot of work to get rid of a fraction of them.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago*

    Same! Except I don't listen to podcasts with ads. I hate ads so much because I know they work. It's even quantifiable: the damage in form of lost value to society in form of people spending more then they need on junk is at least twice the cost of producing and spreading all those ads: once because the firms wouldn't pay for them if they didn't get at least their investment back. They get it back from people working more then they'd need to make and buy useless (no added use value) or overpriced commodities. And a second time, because making the ads takes work too. So you have people working on pointless ads and people working to make pointless junk. All those work hours could have been spent on something with actual use value. And that's not even counting the psychological and societal damage of making people feel inadequate.

    1.6 trillion dollars annually because of ads alone. Without marketing and public relations.

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