No, the problem of advertising is not the reader’s problem
Cartoon of 01/02/2017 in CTXT
All examples based on exaggeration are cheating, yet imagine if your television detected any action of your eyes, ears or hands aimed at not watching or listening to the advertising it broadcasts. Imagine if the device intervened by preventing your decision not to watch advertising. I would hammer the device.
Although it may seem like fiction, this is exactly what many websites already do, they try to alter what you configure on your computer to prevent advertising from being blocked.
Many media are still determined to transfer the traditional ad format to a medium they cannot control, they want to decide when, how and for how long we have to see advertising, but the one-way tube model with a passive viewer became extinct years ago.
The war of the blockers is no longer a novelty, it has been going on for years.
i said no!
No, what’s not working properly is your barrage of ads.
While companies continue to try to curb the use of blockers, even considering even more aggressive actions, anti-anti-adblockers continue to appear to bypass the blocking of certain pages for Adblock users, uBlock Origin has also created an add-on to block the blockers.
You rule your website. Not on my machine.
There are softer warnings, with a countdown that allows access to the content, more radical ones that prevent access if the blocker is not deactivated, and there are also balanced and friendly ones that inform you of the type of advertising that will be shown and ask you to deactivate the blocker.
The worst hell is to be found in the mobile version of certain websites, where browsing becomes a bloody fight against stickers and advertising banners that eat up content, patience and data tariffs.
This war can only end in one way, advertising will have to give in and relax its totalitarian and aggressive way of showing itself by punching the reader in the mug, because I think it is impossible for anyone to overcome the result of the selfless work of thousands of creators of tools to stop it.
Either advertising changes or we will change it
The crisis of 2007/2008 hit a lot of industries. And the media were not spared either, although journalism had already been dragging its particular crisis for a long time.
As I’m beginning to be older than a tobacconist’s shop, I can’t forget those days when I saw how I stopped receiving orders to paint posters by hand (among other things). They were starting to be designed and printed by computer, digital was taking over.
Instead of blaming someone, complaining about the technology or joining groups that tried to slow it down or stop it, I ran to get a gadget and learn what I needed to learn.
Producing information, or any quality content , is expensive and when something is free, someone is paying for it. Advertising is a “necessary evil”, some continue to argue. And that’s true, but it’s also true that too many sites still don’t consider softening the aggressive impact of banner ads, windows below and above the content and all kinds of intrusive crap to impose ads.
There are already many media outlets experimenting with mixed advertising models, which can be avoided with a small periodic subscription fee, micro-payments, extra content and various approaches to make their work profitable.
While something has to change in the reader’s mentality and should support, also financially, sites that offer what they like, the problem of advertising is not only the reader’s. It is still the media’s and advertisers’. It is still the problem of the media and the advertisers. And of the companies that design the campaigns, determined to set up a scenario closer to a crazy orgy of billboards.
Advertising
This text about advertising on the street and on TV, attributed to Banksy, fits quite well as a closing.
“There are people who are busting your balls on a daily basis. They barge into your life, assault you gratuitously and disappear. They lean out from the top of buildings and make you feel insignificant. They make nasty comments from the side of buses implying that you’re not sexy enough. Or that the fun is always somewhere else. They go on TV and make your girlfriend feel uncomfortable about her body. They have access to the most sophisticated technology ever invented and use it to abuse. They are the advertisers and they are making fun of you.
You, on the other hand, are forbidden to touch them. Trademark, copyright and intellectual property laws say that advertisers can say whatever they want wherever they want with impunity.
Fuck them. Any advertisement in a public space that gives you no choice to see it or not to see it belongs to you. It is yours. You have the right to take it, transform it and reuse it. You can do whatever you want with it. Asking permission to do so would be like asking permission to keep a stone you’ve just been hit on the head with.
You owe companies nothing. Less than nothing; and above all, you don’t owe them any kindness. They owe you. They have remade the world to get under your nose. They have never asked for your permission; don’t even think of starting to ask theirs”.
