Naivity. The ads will be hidden in the content and articles/videos will be paid for by advertisers to shill their products with subtle mentions. Everything will be a PR piece, and you can't block that without blocking the content.
You might block "27 Thoughtful Wedding Gifts" because it has product links, but there is chance some of those links would actually be useful to people looking for wedding gifts.
Such a blocker would have to block the entire Buzzfeed, for instance.
[1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/buzzoff/jhnikgaddd...
Unless Google is automatically deleting stuff it's really sure about straight away?
What I have noticed, however, is that I am now getting more and more telemarketing phone calls (robo calls) on my cell phone than I am spam hitting my inbox. It's reached the point where I keep my phone on silent all of the time because I get 5+ robo calls each day.
The free cobbled together ones where you maybe get pizza and some soda are the ones where I learned the most.
Also, I absolutely hate the current trend in tv shows to put a sticker over a logo on _every single_ computer. Real world does not look like this, it is ridiculous.
More recently I saw a show about clothing where they put some duct tape over Nike logos on shoes.
Are there laws that prohibit you from showing brands in videos shot in public places now? If Nike did not want to be recognised they would not put their giant logo on everything.
No, but that doesn't stop the companies from filing lawsuits or threatening too if they don't like the context their brand was shown in.
As a reader, I don't care that much if an article is paid or not. If it convinces me to buy something, it'll usually be something I can return.
As a citizen, it is terrifying that journalism and advertising may one day be indistinguishable.
I'm a lot more cynical of articles, though, and like you I generally treat any positive piece (even down to forum posts if they smell fishy) with a degree of suspicion.
Large actors should never have too much control over the media.
But once they do it better it becomes rather problematic ethically. What good is a "this contains PP" label if it's the standard and you can't identify it. I guess once we cross that bridge my only recourse is non consumption. I guess there might be a disruption opportunity there somewhere where you can pay for content without the PP which requires shooting TV/movies/sports broadcasts in two different modes. Doubt there would be many customers for that though...maybe the other way around, dynamic programming with custom tailored PP.
But this would suggest Google monitors what I do in my Chrome browser then suggests an affiliate embed a casual link in an e-mail based on the friend he is writing. That sounds kind of evil and improbable. Anyone ?