I don't know what to do about ad spam either. I started using an adblocker at least a decade ago, because of one particular game. This was before block lists were available by subscription; I had to build my own.
The result is that haven't had the full advertising experience in long enough that I've forgotten what it was like - and gotten disconnected from a lot of popular culture, in ways that probably make me saner. And when ads do get through, I resent them, and regard the advertisers negatively.
I see advertisers as a type of spammer, whether it's having 50% of my paper mail containing spamverts, 50%+ of my at home voicemail ditto, or even visual clutter in public places. I can't be sympathetic with web page advertisers, or their hosts, in spite of the economics - because ads are so very aversive. When I do get exposed to ads, the mechanisms now shine through clearly - and it's almost never "let me show you the good points of our product". It's "buy this product and you'll be a real man/woman, get the girl/boy, attain higher social status, etc etc." AFAICT 90% of all advertising is false and/or misleading, and doubly so if you count the semi-conscious connections being made by images etc.
What I want is to be able to search for products meeting my requirements, and buy them based on honest evaluations. I can't have that; it's apparantly not in the interests of (m)any of the vendors. Because they all figure it's a better business model to produce junk, or the minimum they can get away with, or things that are in fact of no use whatsoever to any rational person. And then advertise people into a crazy trance of "brand loyalty" where they buy either useless rubbish, or products minimally suitable to their purpose. (E.g. the best slacks I was able to find this last time I needed to replace them - Sears having pretty much killed Lands End.)
I find it hard to believe that the most effective business model is to waste potential customers' time with heaps of mostly content free advertising, while selling products no one rational would buy if given a true alternative. Moreover, this seems to be most effective for everyone - there's no niche for companies that actually satisfy their customers, let alone delight them.
*sigh*
I do see that "content providers" are between a rock and a hard place. Even paper publications have been full of advertising for as long as I've been aware (and a lot longer besides), and there's always been a tendency to e.g. disguise paid advertisements as articles. (I understand this has become common again online, as US laws against doing this in print don't automatically transfer to cyberspace. and of course the average MBA has the ethics of either a swindler or an outright thief, AFAICT.)
Apparantly even when print was king, customers couldn't or wouldn't pay enough in subscription fees to support magazines and newspapers. Of course they had the added cost of producing and shipping physical media, but even purely online efforts require servers and internet pipes, along with people to manage them. And the costs of research and writing remain the same regardless of the media.
So it's hard to imagine an ad-free model, short of special cases like the BBC. What little hope I have lies in legislation, to suppress the worst abuses - like the spam calls to my cellphone that _used to be illegal_ in this jurisdiction. Or the ad distribution technology that crashes people's computers, or otherwise functions as an effective denial of service attack. Or the fake editorials and similar, which are actually paid for by advertisors. That ought to include the worst of the distractions, too, but I don't really think most people care enough. and advertisers collectively make more political contributions, and hire more lobbyists.
no subject
The result is that haven't had the full advertising experience in long enough that I've forgotten what it was like - and gotten disconnected from a lot of popular culture, in ways that probably make me saner. And when ads do get through, I resent them, and regard the advertisers negatively.
I see advertisers as a type of spammer, whether it's having 50% of my paper mail containing spamverts, 50%+ of my at home voicemail ditto, or even visual clutter in public places. I can't be sympathetic with web page advertisers, or their hosts, in spite of the economics - because ads are so very aversive. When I do get exposed to ads, the mechanisms now shine through clearly - and it's almost never "let me show you the good points of our product". It's "buy this product and you'll be a real man/woman, get the girl/boy, attain higher social status, etc etc." AFAICT 90% of all advertising is false and/or misleading, and doubly so if you count the semi-conscious connections being made by images etc.
What I want is to be able to search for products meeting my requirements, and buy them based on honest evaluations. I can't have that; it's apparantly not in the interests of (m)any of the vendors. Because they all figure it's a better business model to produce junk, or the minimum they can get away with, or things that are in fact of no use whatsoever to any rational person. And then advertise people into a crazy trance of "brand loyalty" where they buy either useless rubbish, or products minimally suitable to their purpose. (E.g. the best slacks I was able to find this last time I needed to replace them - Sears having pretty much killed Lands End.)
I find it hard to believe that the most effective business model is to waste potential customers' time with heaps of mostly content free advertising, while selling products no one rational would buy if given a true alternative. Moreover, this seems to be most effective for everyone - there's no niche for companies that actually satisfy their customers, let alone delight them.
*sigh*
I do see that "content providers" are between a rock and a hard place. Even paper publications have been full of advertising for as long as I've been aware (and a lot longer besides), and there's always been a tendency to e.g. disguise paid advertisements as articles. (I understand this has become common again online, as US laws against doing this in print don't automatically transfer to cyberspace. and of course the average MBA has the ethics of either a swindler or an outright thief, AFAICT.)
Apparantly even when print was king, customers couldn't or wouldn't pay enough in subscription fees to support magazines and newspapers. Of course they had the added cost of producing and shipping physical media, but even purely online efforts require servers and internet pipes, along with people to manage them. And the costs of research and writing remain the same regardless of the media.
So it's hard to imagine an ad-free model, short of special cases like the BBC. What little hope I have lies in legislation, to suppress the worst abuses - like the spam calls to my cellphone that _used to be illegal_ in this jurisdiction. Or the ad distribution technology that crashes people's computers, or otherwise functions as an effective denial of service attack. Or the fake editorials and similar, which are actually paid for by advertisors. That ought to include the worst of the distractions, too, but I don't really think most people care enough. and advertisers collectively make more political contributions, and hire more lobbyists.