On 2016-11-21, Jim GM4DHJ ... wrote:
Is it just me or were we able to tolerate a small amount of advertising in
the past but now the quantity is unacceptible .....I personaly turn the tv
and radio down when ads come on and use ad blockers on the internet......I
used to wonder why if I searched for a type of car on the internet adverts
on youtube etc were targeted to me....sick of it all thank god for the BBC.

Advertising is a cancer. Once it gets established it takes over and eventually
destroys the host. Television used to be to "Entertain, Inform and Educate",
now it's just an advertising platform with the programmes as a necessary but
irritating cost. The internet used to be about sharing information and
knowledge, now almost every website is trying to monetize its visitors with
increasingly obnoxious 3rd party adverts. Even sites that have solid revenue
streams have bought in to the scam, similar to how you still get (more and
more) adverts on subscription TV. Why wouldn't they though - it's free money!

Of course advertising pays for a lot of good things. Google earth/streetview
is amazing, and couldn't possibly exist without the $billions of ad revenue
they get. The problem is the greed and deception of the advertising agencies
They've got to have more and more, and it becomes a race to the bottom. The
losers are both the consumers and the generally honest companies paying for
advertising. Is some teenage prat on youtube really giving your company a
good return on your advertising budget? "Of course" say the brokers, Look
at the missions of subscribers they have. In reality, precisely 0.0% of those
subscribers are likely to do anything to give you a return on that investment,
but if the $million you paid only represents 1% of your advertising budget,
and that's only 1% of your profits, it makes sense to "embrace the new media".

One day the whole scam might finally fall apart and internet and TV content
will be decimated. Hopefully whatever's left will have more value than the
steaming pile of click-bait we have now.

Sorry for the babble. Bad cold and too many lemsips. Safer than trying
to write code.

--
Ian

"Tamahome!!!" - "Miaka!!!"