Well of course once something starts making you money you will stop looking down on it. This dude clearly demonstrated post-hoc rationalization in action.
This is what stood out to me though:
> In particular, attention is a form of micropayment with low friction.
It's anything BUT low friction. The attention-based economy is a race to the bottom where every vendor SCREAMS THEIR LUNGS OUT just for a few minutes of your time and even if you indulge only 20 of them you'll still emerge not very informed on the other side, with your time wasted, and with your brain's ability to focus gradually eroded.
That last part is -- and should be officially labeled as -- a criminal act.
I don't mind if this or that website has some unobtrusive ads (Troy Hunt's website is a very good example; StackExchange is also fine). The problem is that EVERYONE wants a piece of the sweet ad money so the users get bombarded with them from all directions.
No, it's not low friction at all. Not for the users / consumers anyway. To them it's a minefield.
---
I even want ads in some areas. But the line between being informative / optional and obnoxious / prevalent-and-mandatory has been crossed at least 15 years ago, both in TV and the Internet. Tone them down and even us the techies might start enabling them -- because every now and then they are in fact useful.
The reason I am disabling ads and I'm fighting them is because I know that by default they'll not give me anything I want, will take precious screen estate (25% of the screen ON A PHONE, REALLY?!), will get in the way and will do their absolute best to make me mis-click / mis-tap so they can get their $0.0001 because I "interacted with the ad". You ever tried to open an erotic video posted on Reddit without your content blockers? Good luck with that. Hint: moving elements on the screen. As if we're playing Asteroids and Brick Breaker at the same time.
Of course I'll block ads. Advertisers must become good citizens of the net and we can then re-negotiate. Until then they will be treated like scum -- because they act like such, all the time.
---
Sadly none of that even touches on the outright malware that comes attached with a lot of modern advertising, to the point that Samsung actually issued a warning to not utter certain words IN THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME because their TV is listening.
<facepalms>
Just let that sink in for a minute.
...So OK, the guy made some money and now his perception is warped. Nothing particularly illuminating about his article however.
This is what stood out to me though:
> In particular, attention is a form of micropayment with low friction.
It's anything BUT low friction. The attention-based economy is a race to the bottom where every vendor SCREAMS THEIR LUNGS OUT just for a few minutes of your time and even if you indulge only 20 of them you'll still emerge not very informed on the other side, with your time wasted, and with your brain's ability to focus gradually eroded.
That last part is -- and should be officially labeled as -- a criminal act.
I don't mind if this or that website has some unobtrusive ads (Troy Hunt's website is a very good example; StackExchange is also fine). The problem is that EVERYONE wants a piece of the sweet ad money so the users get bombarded with them from all directions.
No, it's not low friction at all. Not for the users / consumers anyway. To them it's a minefield.
---
I even want ads in some areas. But the line between being informative / optional and obnoxious / prevalent-and-mandatory has been crossed at least 15 years ago, both in TV and the Internet. Tone them down and even us the techies might start enabling them -- because every now and then they are in fact useful.
The reason I am disabling ads and I'm fighting them is because I know that by default they'll not give me anything I want, will take precious screen estate (25% of the screen ON A PHONE, REALLY?!), will get in the way and will do their absolute best to make me mis-click / mis-tap so they can get their $0.0001 because I "interacted with the ad". You ever tried to open an erotic video posted on Reddit without your content blockers? Good luck with that. Hint: moving elements on the screen. As if we're playing Asteroids and Brick Breaker at the same time.
Of course I'll block ads. Advertisers must become good citizens of the net and we can then re-negotiate. Until then they will be treated like scum -- because they act like such, all the time.
---
Sadly none of that even touches on the outright malware that comes attached with a lot of modern advertising, to the point that Samsung actually issued a warning to not utter certain words IN THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME because their TV is listening.
<facepalms>
Just let that sink in for a minute.
...So OK, the guy made some money and now his perception is warped. Nothing particularly illuminating about his article however.