You're not alone. Not at all. I'm also tired of the mentality that we need advertising or the internet would cease to exist. In my opinion, if you need invasive advertising revenue to exist, you don't need to be on the internet.
Advertisements are slowing everything down. Tracking us. Serving us malware in some cases. We don't need them. Pi-hole/adguard could be standard. I'd rather pay $200 more for a TV set than have one with "analytics." I'm sick of the ads and block as many as I can - Google's "unobtrusive ads" included.
That's why I pirate; no reason to pay for these streaming companies, and have my personal info collected to be sold and receive ads. Just frak these companies, I'm tired of this.
Remember that old meme (I was not even called a meme at the time!) about the steps required to watch a genuine DVD compared with the ones required for a pirate file? We need an updated version.
I'm exhausted to the fact that we have no rights to our own data or bio-metrics.
Airline (TK and Delta do this) wants to roll out face recognition.. TAKE YOUR MASK OFF AND GIVE US YOUR FACE DATA. No explanation of opting out. (Turns out it's being used to implement exit controls at the US border)
It's worth considering a reduction in how much you watch. Let's be honest; you can just exist without being told to buy something every 15 minutes. Don't use services that force ads on paying customers, limit your passive screen time to no more than an hour per day, and find other things to do that advertising can't touch. Try being content not living vicariously through fictional characters or real people arguing with each other.
Does an adblocker not solve this problem for you? I see very few advertisements day to day, but I go out of my way to not watch TV live and turn up to the cinema late because I dislike ads as much as it seems you do.
Im exhausted about people complaining about. It's a fact that targeted ads pay a lot better. This enables better services that are free to the end user. Most people just don't want to pay for things. 99% of facebook users have never paid meta a dime, yet they have the audacity to complain about a free service. There are paid social media alternatives, or even self hosted ones, but by and large they fail because certain industries can't sustain off of a end user paid model.
Ads are also a great progressive tool. Indirectly the rich pay more than the poor for the same service.
> I'm so tired of good, useful tools and services requiring a forfeit of my privacy in order to use them
You forgot free [w/ good & useful]. If the market could support paying for the services and tools instead of ads, businesses would move that way.
it's even worse. I actively go out of my way to ensure I do not support these companies...and I petition all my friends to avoid them. I will offer them free training to get off the services. gladly would give a couple hours of my time to setup their own personal streaming services....just to see Disney cry a little...and Netflix and the rest of the moronic executive scum
If the kids is below 13, targeting would probably not be allowed.
"The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. jurisdiction about children under 13 years of age, including children outside the U.S. if the website or service is U.S.-based.[1] It details what a website operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent or guardian, and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children's privacy and safety online, including restrictions on the marketing of those under 13.[2]"
At the start Netflix was about getting rid of ads ridden cable TV so you now you can get competing Disney+ which is now just a cable TV with targeted ads based on your personal data. It is evolving, only backwards.
At first, cable TV had no ads because it was funded by subscriptions. Then most cable channels slowly started adding more and more ads and demanding higher and higher rates from cable operators to carry their channels. Then the local channels started demanding rates from cable operators to carry their channels that are otherwise available for free over the air. Then eventually they even started showing ads at the movie theater before the movie you paid to see.
What is happening with streaming services adding ads was entirely predictable because the financial incentives of a company that adopts a subscription model are to add ads to the subscription once they think they can get away with it. If they already have ads, the incentive is to add more and more of them until there's pushback (i.e. the NFL has been cutting down on commercial breaks because they got long enough and frequent enough to become a common source of fan complaints when ironically the 2 minute warning was originally added to the rulebook in the early 70s to guarantee TV broadcasters at least one commercial break each half that wasn't because the clock ran out on a quarter).
This is why all of the people who want a subscription based model for online services that are currently free are hopelessly naive. If they get their way, things will get better for a few years and then will eventually end up right back where they are but worse because you'll have to pay for the privilege of watching ads.
Market would be a hell of a lot healthier and better for customers if we'd prevent vertical integration of production and distribution, like we (in the US) did with movie theaters until very recently.
Age and gender are the two highest signals that targeted ads take into account. The Facebook growth team has always wanted to remove gathering age / gender from the sign-up flow (which reduces friction to sign up). But, ad targeting would take such a large hit, they could never do so.
It was a huge deal internally when "Custom" was added as a gender option in the sign-up flow, and even then, there's a nudge towards the binary to retain better ad targeting.
In addition to that, companies wants you to acknowledge that you're over 13 so they can be more loosey-goosey with data collection (thanks California!).
> It was a huge deal internally when "Custom" was added as a gender option in the sign-up flow, and even then, there's a nudge towards the binary to retain better ad targeting.
It's odd that advertisers would dislike that change for targeting -- surely the people who pick "custom" are sending a major signal that correlates with other preferences. It's a third grouping they can specifically target! If they split "male" into "HYPER-MASCULINE ALPHA MALE: CARS, GUNS, AND FOOTBALL FUCK YEAH!" and "I have a penis but I try not to let it make decisions for me", advertisers should presumably love that distinction too. Of course the reality is that their decades of research deciding what constitutes "male" and "female" has gotten them stuck in a shitty local minimum and they can no longer abandon this binary concept that they cling desperately to without admitting that they've never actually known what the fuck they're doing.
Does ANYBODY EVER provide an accurate response to a question like that (except when there's reason to believe they can detect it and do something to your detriment if you lie)?
If so, why?
Anybody who asks deserves to be chaffed into oblivion with garbage data.
Especially, who would be dumb enough to admit to being under 18, or, worse, under 13? An 8 year old should see the obvious reasons not to do that. A bright 6 year old.
I used to lie and say I was really old, but now I'm really old so I just lie at random.
Why does Disney really need this information for advertising purposes when they already know what shows somebody is watching? I realize that any age/gender can watch any show, and of course a lot of Disney's catalogue is pretty universal to age/gender, but there's going to be some kind of a signal in anybody's viewing history.
If some profile is routinely watching a show about makeup or horses or ballet dances, you have a pretty good guess about the age/gender. Likewise if some profile is watching a lot of shows about monster trucks, little league baseball, and RPG games, you likewise can make a pretty reasonable guess about who they are.
Tiktok asked for my birthday and I couldn't navigate away from the page. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app to try and circumvent entering a birthday. They banned my account.
This account was active for 2+ years and they out of the blue REQUIRED a birthday like wth.
Good for them, I "pirate" content legally since I pay huge fees in Czechia from each storage media (last time I bought 64GB flashdrive, the copyright fees were more than cost of the flash drive), so I can legally download copy of any movie, TV show or music for my own use.
Pahe in India, Philipines, PSA on PM, MKVking and plenty of other options to download legally content even without torrenting.
Ah, I guess I'll just lie and if they somehow lock me out or give me trouble, let's just say it's their loss more than mine. Streaming services should remember they keep customers by offering convenience and the feeling of doing the right thing at a reasonable cost, not because they managed to enforce exclusivity of their content. That's a battle they never won.
Just Pirate and store stuff using Jellyfin. It's an infinitely better experience, and everything just works. And you don't get advertised to, demographized, tracked, or anything. You download, copy, go!
I used to recommend Netflix back in the day, cause it just worked. Now, there's 30+ different streaming services, and many have switched to the "leak an episode once a week/month".
Just pirate. It's better, cheaper, AND not hostile to the end user!
I went from Exodus to Covenant and then eventually gave up on tweaking kodi and slowly went the path of least resistance to streaming services. But now it just feels like a repeat of cable tv with balcanized services.
What do you recommend in the high seas, and how do you manage the threat of malware?
I'll happily build them a model which estimates it.
Heck, it could be even better, since your "mental" age based on your interests in movies could be more suitable for delivering ads then your actual age.
I feel like this is rather superfluous on Disney's side. If my account has watched Frozen 172 times, you should be able to figure out which ad will be effective on it.
[+] [-] mikedelago|3 years ago|reply
I'm so tired of my information being sold off to third parties in order to deliver ads.
I'm so tired of good, useful tools and services requiring a forfeit of my privacy in order to use them.
Does anyone else wish that they could just exist without being told to buy something every 15 waking minutes?
[+] [-] jrnichols|3 years ago|reply
Advertisements are slowing everything down. Tracking us. Serving us malware in some cases. We don't need them. Pi-hole/adguard could be standard. I'd rather pay $200 more for a TV set than have one with "analytics." I'm sick of the ads and block as many as I can - Google's "unobtrusive ads" included.
[+] [-] gaius_baltar|3 years ago|reply
Remember that old meme (I was not even called a meme at the time!) about the steps required to watch a genuine DVD compared with the ones required for a pirate file? We need an updated version.
[+] [-] monksy|3 years ago|reply
Airline (TK and Delta do this) wants to roll out face recognition.. TAKE YOUR MASK OFF AND GIVE US YOUR FACE DATA. No explanation of opting out. (Turns out it's being used to implement exit controls at the US border)
[+] [-] fxtentacle|3 years ago|reply
1. my own SmartWatch
2. a tool to remove iTunes DRM so that my TV can stay offline
3. fully offline speech recognition
4. a beefy Linux workstation
5. set up a pi-hole
6. patched LineageOS to work on my phone
And now my life is pretty much ad-free :)
[+] [-] ravenstine|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blueboo|3 years ago|reply
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/01/28/my-flamboyant-...
[+] [-] cinericius|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goosedragons|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] km3r|3 years ago|reply
Ads are also a great progressive tool. Indirectly the rich pay more than the poor for the same service.
> I'm so tired of good, useful tools and services requiring a forfeit of my privacy in order to use them
You forgot free [w/ good & useful]. If the market could support paying for the services and tools instead of ads, businesses would move that way.
[+] [-] amelius|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kderbyma|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] b3nji|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarface74|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hawthornio|3 years ago|reply
I don’t see this changing anytime soon because it is so profitable in our current system.
[+] [-] acd|3 years ago|reply
"Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule ("COPPA")"
If the kids is below 13, targeting would probably not be allowed.
"The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. jurisdiction about children under 13 years of age, including children outside the U.S. if the website or service is U.S.-based.[1] It details what a website operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent or guardian, and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children's privacy and safety online, including restrictions on the marketing of those under 13.[2]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_...
[+] [-] lancesells|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mankyd|3 years ago|reply
a) there are laws involved
b) you have a variety of content/products specifically aimed at different ages
I won't speak to gender, that's certainly a different concept, but age doesn't exact ring alarm bells for me here.
[+] [-] TheLoafOfBread|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdw5204|3 years ago|reply
What is happening with streaming services adding ads was entirely predictable because the financial incentives of a company that adopts a subscription model are to add ads to the subscription once they think they can get away with it. If they already have ads, the incentive is to add more and more of them until there's pushback (i.e. the NFL has been cutting down on commercial breaks because they got long enough and frequent enough to become a common source of fan complaints when ironically the 2 minute warning was originally added to the rulebook in the early 70s to guarantee TV broadcasters at least one commercial break each half that wasn't because the clock ran out on a quarter).
This is why all of the people who want a subscription based model for online services that are currently free are hopelessly naive. If they get their way, things will get better for a few years and then will eventually end up right back where they are but worse because you'll have to pay for the privilege of watching ads.
[+] [-] yamtaddle|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fullshark|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dymk|3 years ago|reply
It was a huge deal internally when "Custom" was added as a gender option in the sign-up flow, and even then, there's a nudge towards the binary to retain better ad targeting.
In addition to that, companies wants you to acknowledge that you're over 13 so they can be more loosey-goosey with data collection (thanks California!).
[+] [-] feoren|3 years ago|reply
It's odd that advertisers would dislike that change for targeting -- surely the people who pick "custom" are sending a major signal that correlates with other preferences. It's a third grouping they can specifically target! If they split "male" into "HYPER-MASCULINE ALPHA MALE: CARS, GUNS, AND FOOTBALL FUCK YEAH!" and "I have a penis but I try not to let it make decisions for me", advertisers should presumably love that distinction too. Of course the reality is that their decades of research deciding what constitutes "male" and "female" has gotten them stuck in a shitty local minimum and they can no longer abandon this binary concept that they cling desperately to without admitting that they've never actually known what the fuck they're doing.
[+] [-] Traubenfuchs|3 years ago|reply
Did a significant amount of users pick this though?
[+] [-] tomjen3|3 years ago|reply
Those are terrible signals and really should be replaced with something better.
[+] [-] potamic|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lazyeye|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hizonner|3 years ago|reply
If so, why?
Anybody who asks deserves to be chaffed into oblivion with garbage data.
Especially, who would be dumb enough to admit to being under 18, or, worse, under 13? An 8 year old should see the obvious reasons not to do that. A bright 6 year old.
I used to lie and say I was really old, but now I'm really old so I just lie at random.
[+] [-] logicalmonster|3 years ago|reply
If some profile is routinely watching a show about makeup or horses or ballet dances, you have a pretty good guess about the age/gender. Likewise if some profile is watching a lot of shows about monster trucks, little league baseball, and RPG games, you likewise can make a pretty reasonable guess about who they are.
[+] [-] yamazakiwi|3 years ago|reply
This account was active for 2+ years and they out of the blue REQUIRED a birthday like wth.
[+] [-] Markoff|3 years ago|reply
Pahe in India, Philipines, PSA on PM, MKVking and plenty of other options to download legally content even without torrenting.
[+] [-] nske|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noasaservice|3 years ago|reply
I used to recommend Netflix back in the day, cause it just worked. Now, there's 30+ different streaming services, and many have switched to the "leak an episode once a week/month".
Just pirate. It's better, cheaper, AND not hostile to the end user!
[+] [-] DoingIsLearning|3 years ago|reply
What do you recommend in the high seas, and how do you manage the threat of malware?
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 6yyyyyy|3 years ago|reply
- Doesn't show ads, or steal your personal information.
- Has all the content from every major streaming service.
- Is scalable and efficient without a centralized single point of failure.
- Can be used with 100% free and open source software.
- Lets you keep your favorite shows forever without being subject to the whims of corporate licensing.
[+] [-] dleslie|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsflover|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LAC-Tech|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devoutsalsa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jklinger410|3 years ago|reply
By the tone of every thread discussing advertising you would think the answer would be zero. But it is certainly not zero.
[+] [-] nashashmi|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vletal|3 years ago|reply
Heck, it could be even better, since your "mental" age based on your interests in movies could be more suitable for delivering ads then your actual age.
[+] [-] jabroni_salad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NickC25|3 years ago|reply
That's too bad, guess the high seas are calling.
[+] [-] ProAm|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|3 years ago|reply