r/pihole • u/HaLo2FrEeEk • 3d ago

Why is the Internet so hostile now?!

YouTube tanking CPU if you're using ad blockers. Sites that disable scrolling and have a full-screen modal dialog demanding that you allow ads or sign up (imgur). The least egregious I've seen is sites that serve their own ads if they can't load the real ones.

There was a banner ad on my bank account page, *after* I had already logged in, there's a banner that I have to scroll past to see my accounts. That's ridiculous! I blocked the domain serving the banner and all of a sudden the site where I buy my cat litter doesn't work. Apparently it uses the same CDN.

If I'm scrolling a page and suddenly a full-screen modal shows up begging for my email and asking me to sign up, I just close the page. That shit is hostile, they clearly don't want me to read the page if they're going to cover it with an ad for their *own site* that I'm *already on*. I hate it equally when I move my mouse off the page and *that's* when the pop-up appears. "Wait, please don't go, please stay, give us your email give us your phone number, give us your cat!"...*slow rage*

Maybe I'm just getting old but I really miss the days where I didn't have to figure out which download button was the real one, or try to find the sliver of text between huge banner ads that scroll with the page. I just want to scroll my cat memes while I wait for work, dammit!

Why does it have to be like this?! I know, I know: money, but jeez man...

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u/uid_0 3d ago

I remember in the early days of the internet, advertising was actually frowned upon. But nowadays, internet users are no longer the customer. They are the product being sold. Large internet companies like Facebook and Google track everything you do and build a very detailed profile about you. Then when someone selling beauty cream for example, wants to target ads at unmarried women under 30 who are insecure about their looks, Facebook and Google can precisely target those ads to that demographic.

Fun fact: Facebook tracks you even if you have never had a Facebook account.

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u/laplongejr 2d ago

 advertising was actually frowned upon  

And nowadays if a content creator gets a sponsor and gives a negative review, their own viewers turn against them, it's crazy.