What is a technological advancement today that you wish never existed?

Technology@kbin.social – 25 points – 1 years ago

For me, I would choose computer viruses.

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Data mining / big data / ads

I think it depends on the context though. Data mining of environmental sensors might yield valuable insights. Mining anonymized medical data could improve chances of catching a disease early, etc.

Agree on ads though. Nothing like having pharmaceutical ads stuffed down my throat while trying to watch a speedrun or whatever.

Utopia time: we take away ads, now how is content funded? Subscriptions?

Yes. Ads don't pay that much anyway, Reddit makes something like $10 per user per year. That means that even with a $1 subscription per user they'd be ahead. It's the same for Youtube celebrities, they make their money from merchandise, Patreon and sponsorship deals, Youtube pays only a few dollars per thousand views even in ideal circumstances, even if a video has millions of views, you might only make a few thousand off it, and how many million view videos can a person realistically make?

We could probably replace the entire ad industry with something like $10 monthly divided among whichever sites we want to support.

Also, I get the argument that some people can't afford $10 because of where they are, but then the ads being served to those people aren't bringing any money in either, so you can adjust the cost downward.

And small businesses die because they aren't able to get the word that they exist out without advertising.

organic, word of mouth, grassroots, community building

My friends and I share cool places we find with each other all the time.

But wouldn't that be an advertisement?

I think when people say ads, they mean paid for or non optional (like giant billboards) not just people talking about it because they are interested in it.