I definitely consume too much dystopian content to be a fair dystopian barometer, but the sheer amount of ads being pushed my way is starting to make me feel legitimately anxious. It feels like a techno-dystopia where all of the neat and artistic elements have been extracted and then ground into dust for our corporate overlords. Even the ‘regular’ people are just trying to sell themselves. The streamers, the funny videos, the pet videos, the porn, the reposts of all of those, so much of it is just monetizing my attention.
Do ads even influence people that much? Does anyone even eat Church’s Chicken?! Do people consider switching their car insurance? I though the postmoderns were jumping the gun a little with the pictures they painted of a future with corporate logos and other advertisements spread across every visible surface, but now I have to see 5 ads and a cookie consent pop up to look up a quick definition. Watching a friend’s youtube video? 30 seconds of rapidfire ads from 15 brands. It’s starting to feel absurd. Are we going to be okay?
This requires a ridiculous amount of work and expertise, the average person can’t do this. I also question how trustworthy these apps are and that they aren’t data harvesting or opening security holes.
News sites are the worst offenders for “lets cram as much shit on the screen as humanly possible”. The last 80% of the screen is click bait trash. Videos chase you constantly and pop ups begging for your email always harass you. I fill in the email with “admin@{their domain}”
The pihole is the only one requiring a level of tech above that of installing the add-ons I mentioned.
Sure, you could question the trustworthiness of the plugins. So what’s your choice? Suffer through known ads, tracking, and whatever else or judiciously install a few plugins that have tens or hundreds of thousands of users and no history of foul play?