Ads are showing relevant items people want/need.
Who are you to tell others what they need?
There is no manipulation, that is such a weird POV. It is awareness, are you so easily convinced you buy everything from every ad you see?
I dont love ads but they pay for a lot of sites i love.
I don't want to be aware of which company has the biggest advertising budget.
If I want to be aware of products, it is because of their quality.
Anyway, I don't want to be distracted while working, so implement a different payment method for your website or accept that adblockers exist.
I have no problem with ad blockers.
Distracted while working? What work do you do that requires reading websites with ads?
Ads are basically everywhere.
I'm the guy who tells everyone about uBlock Origin. Seriously, they love the ad-free web.
But, if you want to support the websites you use you should think about what you are doing. What is frustrating here is the lack of respect for people who create a lot of the web you use, and then you don't pay them. Ads are a way to fund websites, not all of them, but a lot.
The problem with ads is that people don't want to pay with their attention and personal data.
Another problem with ads is that website owners can not directly set a price, and they cannot set the price above a certain threshold where ads simply don't work anymore. It doesn't scale.
Website owners def can set prices. It is super easy.
You gotta be kidding me.
My attention is mine. It is part of me, a part of my mind, my consciousness. There is not a single person on this earth that is entitled to it. It is not a currency they can pay their bills with. It is not something that they have any assumed right to.
So it's funny to see you talk about respect. Advertising's inherent property is its complete lack of respect for me, my choices and my attention. They don't ask if I want to see this crap, they just show it to me. They insert their noise into my mind without my consent. I block them and they double down on it by finding ways to get past my blocker. And to you this mind rape is okay just because it funds your site?
Attention is not something you actively control, its a very complex issue between your subconscious and conscious. That is a much bigger discussion.
I got nothing against you or anyone else getting paid. I'm complaining about the general lack of respect. People act as if they own my attention and can sell it off to the highest bidder. Blockers are merely self defense against these hostile websites.
> Attention is not something you actively control
It's still mine and nobody has any business selling it off for money. If they try, I'll stop them.
Fox news manipulates... ads sell.
Sell not manipulation
The dictionary says that to manipulate is to 'control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly, unfairly, or unscrupulously.' If you want to tack on 'when they're not selling products" for your personal use, be my guest, but then 'advertising isn't manipulation' is tautologous. And you really should have brought up that you have a special, secret definition when you told someone point blank that advertising wasn't it.