So much advertising...

Taken from here…

To be fair […] either subscription-based or feature forced advertising very similar to YouTube’s.

It’s not the fact that there is advertising, I fully understand that there needs to be some degree of advertising to make money for the freebies (like adverts on Film4). It’s the amount of advertising that there is these days.

In a related but different thing, the amount of horribly intrusive adverts in mobile apps too. I am using an animé AI art generator to make some interesting images to use as backdrops. It’s the case, as expected, that you can either cough up real world money or you can “watch an ad” for each image generated. The ad in question is one of those playable game adverts. My phone is currently promoting “Total battle”, for like the twentieth time (you don’t think I actually watch those adverts do you? ;) ). It’s 45-60 seconds of “demonstration” followed by maybe 20-30 seconds of prompting you to play it yourself before a tiny “>>” icon appears so you can skip it. Then there’s a static promo screen with a big “GET” button, wait another five or so seconds for the ‘X’.

Well, now, recently, they’ve inserted an “About this game” dialogue that appears just after you tap the “>>” so it’s another thing to dismiss (it doesn’t always appear). And I’m pretty sure the tap point for the “>>” is smaller than the on-screen text, as there’s about a 50% chance you’ll get thrown into Google Play and, guess what, Play will record this as if you looked for the game yourself ¹.

Some times, it just seems as if content is created purely to push advertising. Either that or complete and utter greed. There’s just too damn much of it, and with modern technology being what it is, it is getting harder and harder to disregard it.

It’s like taxation. There’s an amount that most people are willing to accept. We understand what taxes are used for ² and accept that it is a part of a cohesive social system. But too much taxation and people will rebel. Unfair taxation, people will rebel. Can you really blame a trademan if he’s happy to be “paid in cash” when the government introduces yet another measure to lighten the tax burden of the rich? Or, indeed, why taxation (in the UK) jumps from 20% to 40% at a fixed limit, and then only from 40% to 45%… seems like it is designed to screw the middle class doesn’t it?

So to with advertising. But it is far far worse because these adverts aren’t just trying to promote some crappy game (can they not understand that I don’t give a [REDACTED] about Hero Wars or that Save-The-Annoying-King thing?), there’s a whole load of profiling going on in the background. Collecting way more information than simply “This person watched this advert”. Rather than being a necessary annoyance that pays the bills, advertising is mutating into something quite insidious.

¹ Settings → Google → Manage your Google account → Data and Privacy (tab) → Web & App Activity → Manage all Web & App Activity → Filter “Google Play Store” … and see all that crap that has accrued thanks to app dishonesty: “Visited GoMining” (no, I didn’t). “Visited Royal Match” (no, I didn’t). “EVA AI Chat Bot & Soulmate” (seriously? I don’t even remember this one). Expect, also, the list to keep jumping back to the top. As Google make most of their money from flinging adverts and profiling people, they are actively collusive here, they don’t want to make it easy. ³

² Even if the councils seemed determined to spaff away tens of millions of taxpayer cash on bestoke poorly defined and ill-conceived ERP systems…

³ Of course, you can turn your history off, which might cause other stuff to not work correctly – and won’t solve the root cause of the problem because we all know that this stuff is being recorded and analysed, because it can be. ⁴

⁴ But let’s not dump all of the hate onto Google. Let’s cast an eye at the Windows Start Menu that now includes “Suggested” programs. It’s the gateway drug. Once you’re used to seeing your list of apps polluted by recommendations (based upon what criteria, who pays them the most?) it’ll start turning up in other places. Give it a few years (and a lack of Windows sales thanks to changing habits and more mobile non-Microsoft devices) and it’ll be as bad as Android… where my Xiaomi File Manager will pop up a recommendation (another idiotic game) when I tap on the icon to let me view the underlying file system rather than the sorted-by-category list (that gives icons but often omits filenames).

What adverts? (Linux, AdBlockPlus, NoScript)

What adverts?

;)

FireFox, script blocking, content blocking, and NewPipe for YouTube. Doesn’t help with the junk in apps, but I’m too lazy to set up PiHole and, well, it wouldn’t surprise me if the advert didn’t feed back some sort of code to “unlock” whatever it was the advert was for. In some cases (like MXPlayer) you can ditch the adverts by simply turning off WiFi (when in airplane mode), but if the app needs connectivity, you get the crap as well.

Still, a sanitised web is a much better place.

“This person watched this advert”

Or more likely – if sufficiently unskippable, went to the loo, or made a brew.

I find some YT ads amusing in how badly targetted they are – assuming strange things about my lifestyle, well … I apparently need a commuter yacht (it’s a thing) to sail over from my island in the Gulf to my fleet of Maseratis to whisk me to my ThermoFisher biolab (2m30!).

What adverts? (Linux, AdBlockPlus, NoScript)

Same here some of the time, and (Windows, AdBlockPlus, NoScript) isn’t bad too for the moment.

PiHole also helps with some of the nonsense ‘smart’ devices get up to.

Adverts in Apps? If there is an ad free version, pay for it, otherwise scroll on by.

Just had an email from Netflix. My €10,99 plan is being discontinued and I’m being moved to a €5,99 plan “with a few short ads”. Or I can pay €13,49 for no adverts.
Don’t they understand that many of us subscribed to streaming services in order to watch stuff undisturbed? And, yes, billions signed up during Covid because lockdown. Not a lot else to do. It ought to have been obvious that as life returned to normal (and the economy tanked) people would make cutbacks. Their raising the prices (it was €6,99/month when I first signed up) meant that more people might decide to cut it to save money. It’s this thing that board members don’t grok. When the good times roll lots of cash flows in. But when the good times cease, they still think lots of cash ought to be coming in.

Here’s a thought. Maybe, just maybe, people would be more interested in the service if their infamous algorithm didn’t cancel anything and everything good that isn’t an instant hit, while somehow not cancelling some of the really awful junk. It’s come to the stage where if something isn’t a “limited series”, I’ll give it a few weeks before watching (unless it really interests me) just to see if it gets cancelled or not. I mean, why bother taking the time to watch something that you know will probably end on a cliffhanger and that the company behind it don’t even believe in? It’s like the commercial equivalent of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

I’ll give it a try, see what they mean by a few short ads, but if it’s interstitial during the content… eff that… effing parasites (advertisers in general).

Oh, and by the way, I just found a new(ish?) option about data sharing of “protected contact information with third parties” in Netflix. Turned on by default, is this GDPR compliant? Anyway, top right menu → Account → Privacy and Data Settings if you want to check on yours and/or opt out of all of that.

Oh, and, yes, I know Prime Video has included advertising for a while now. But between the dreadful interface, the lack of anything that resembled “coming soon” promos, a lot of films only in French dub with no original English audio, and stuff that isn’t particularly interesting (WTF? Didn’t Amazon recently buy MGM?), I only fire up the app from time to time, look at what’s listed on the “New exclusives” before thinking “Nah” and heading to Netflix…or something I recorded off the TV. So I think I’ve seen maybe three adverts on Prime. I mostly keep the subscription as I save more in postage than the subscription costs…for the moment. When that ceases to be true (like if they start charging postage like they legally have to for books) it’ll be unsubscribed.

As for Netflix, I’ll stick with them for now as, well, I’m a singleton with nothing that even remotely resembles a social life and once in a while some good stuff does turn up (even if my watch list is currently longer than my expected remaining lifespan…). But their habit of cancelling stuff really annoys.

Oh, something good I saw a while back on Prime. It’s a darkly satirical film about an infection at a high school that causes people to explode (it’s a metaphor).

Spontaneous, it’s on Film4 on Saturday at 11.25pm. Enjoy!

I am really tired of the smooth sugary doll-like, don’t-shock-the-kiddies, anodyne animations from Pixar and the like. Why cannot we have decadent graphics in the style of Aubrey Beardsley, for instance? OK, OK I know why. I am a bit tired of hyperrealism, hyperviolence and all the other hyperhypers. Why cannot we have something intelligent for a change? I suppose for the same reason that supermarkets don’t sell food that I like (they put garlic puree in every damn thing – even liver and bacon – gruesome).
— Peevish of Aldershot

smooth sugary doll-like, don’t-shock-the-kiddies, anodyne animations from

Yup. They just keep getting worse, don’t they?
I have a copy of Encanto (Disney), which I think mom would have liked for the various South American references that’ll probably go right over my head, but it’s so saccharin. I guess one needs to be in a Disney mood to not go “oh my god” at it all.

If you’re okay with subtitles, allow me to introduce you to Makoto Shinkai. He has seriously raised the bar in animation quality and other things with luxurious backgrounds are compared to him. Google “makoto shinkai wallpaper”, you’ll see what I mean.

have decadent graphics in the style of Aubrey Beardsley

Wow, a movie of drawn lines in stark monochrome. Has…that ever actually been done?

[the nerd in me doesn’t want to contemplate what sort of mess digital video compression would make with all that harsh contrast]

hyperrealism

That’s my life. I wish once in a while I could just turn it off. At least living in the middle of nowhere there isn’t a lot of noise other than that provided by nature (Hello my lovely Chaffinch!).

Why cannot we have something intelligent for a change?

Clever doesn’t sell. Look at the big event a new Mission Impossible film is, despite the fact that it is complete bollocks and people are only there to see Cruise defy the laws of physics in increasingly improbable ways.

Speaking of which, shall we even talk about what the Fast and Furious has turned into? I predict that in the next movie or two, Dom will race his muscle car from one 747 to the next, they will be flying conveniently in a row, gaining height all the time, until he’s high enough he can press a big red button which will fire a rocket which will push his car into orbit.
Those of you familiar with the series will understand that this is not improbable.

Intelligent movies work better as layers within a movie narrative, that it works perfectly well if one doesn’t join the dots. Think less like “Primer” and more like “Sucker Punch”. Or, for that matter, “Predestination” or “Inception”.

hyperviolence

While violence doesn’t bother me per se, I do expect it to be realistic. The average woman being punched should either be unconscious or on the floor screaming. The average man smacked across the head with a crowbar, ditto.
Some of the films I’ve seen have the most ridiculous fight sequences where guys whale on each other (complete with bass heavy “boosh” sound effects) and if it’s a really intense fight then somebody might get bloodied knuckles, when in reality the fight should have ended a lot sooner with both of them in the back of an ambulance.
Notable offenders: The John Wick series, any and all of the main cast of Rebel Moon, and anything ever made starring Dolph Lundgren.

and all the other hyperhypers

I’d like hyperaudio please, rather than needing the subtitles to follow mumbling over an overly loud soundtrack.

Hyperawareness can be useful. Think Sherlock Holmes or Monk. But only if it’s done correctly, otherwise the character just comes off as a smug arse. It’s better if we see the clues before the character enters the scene, so we can feel smug ourselves if we join the dots before having it explained to us.
One series… I don’t think it was the Mentalist… Numbers, maybe? Anyway, it was pretty good at tactfully feeding clues so the explanations weren’t a surprise, you would be like “dammit, I saw that!” when realising it’s significance.

Hyperactivity – it would be nice to have a main character who’s really good at starting things but gets bored pretty much as soon as it’s begun, somebody who needs a sidekick to keep them focussed on reality. Unfortunately things like ADHD and autism in films tend to be “that weirdo maths whizz” or “kid that sees dead people” or “Rain Man” or somebody that would outdo Ally McBeal in the never-shuts-up-run-on-sentences department, like that girl in “Real Genius”.

I think the most realistic portrayal of neurodivergent I’ve seen recently is the movie “Please Stand By”.

they put garlic puree in every damn thing

For me it is red/green peppers. I can’t stand how they feel in my mouth, plus the taste is pretty awful. But, yeah, all this weird stuff turns up in food to try to make it classier and bump up the price.
At work they have a tendency to chuck smashed up bits of pistachio onto things. Yuck. But, wait, green bits is très de mode, innit? <sigh>