Jokes and Humor

Oh yeah I definitely agree with you about how it's downright myopic to be against all forms of ads, considering the economic system we find ourselves in. Especially silly are people who both complain about ads on news sites and how news is often very clickbait-y due to having to chase those as views, but who also refuse to pay for news. Same goes for any ad-funded service, really; you're not getting it for free, you're "paying with your attention", ie. ad impressions. The idea that we're entitled to free content is ridiculously selfish. Sure, I think it sort of sucks that ads are so pervasive and can affect business models negatively, but them's the breaks when content creators and service providers need to eat too. Ads just happen to be a much easier source of income than subscriptions or let alone voluntary donations (and it's not like everybody can afford to eg pay for news or whatever.) Doesn't mean it's not possible to fund things without ads, but it's obviously more dependable in many cases than other options, or it wouldn't be so popular. In previous conversations I've had smart-asses say how saying that is supposedly ironic considering I'm on a platform supported by voluntary donations, like the existence of eg. Beehaw means that ads are completely unnecessary in all situations for all services, and everything could just run on voluntary donations or subscriptions. Sure worked out well for news media, didn't it (the answer to that has been "hur dur mainstream media sucks so why would I pay for it", totally oblivious to the fact that some of it sucks exactly because nobody wanted to pay for it anymore.)

So yeah I definitely share your irritation at how frankly stupid some people's attitude towards ads is, and how incredibly entitled it is to think that we're somehow owed free content and services. Ads may be irritating but as I said, with this economic system this is how it is and we're just going to have to suck it up. Refusing to expose your delicate sensibilities to any ads out of principle isn't going to make them go away as a concept, and it definitely isn't going to pay for goods or services that you now see for free.

However, what – at least to me – feels different about TVs or other such doodads showing you ads is that you already paid for the product and you're still getting ads. I guess it can be a way to lower the price of the product, but considering how they're often not all that much cheaper it honestly feels more like just squeezing more money out of the users at the expense of user experience. Ads in otherwise free services do make sense, but this feels more, I dunno, predatory?