Hacker News Reader

Comment by KMnO4 | Hacker News Reader

I’ve spent some time thinking about this. A lot of things in life can be avoided if you have more money. Waiting in long lines, having uncomfortable seats, doing regular chores, etc.

But it seems advertising can’t be completely avoided (as much as I’d like it to). I’ll go out of my way to spend money wherever it removes ads (eg YouTube, podcasts, etc), but no amount of money will remove the billboards I have to drive by on the way to work. I’ll never be able to go to a sports event without advertisers bidding for my attention.

You would think at least some of those issues could be avoided by living somewhere “more expensive”, but it seems like affluent areas actually have more ads.

What measures can we possibly take?

Nb: I recently took a trip to the USA and was appalled that they play full volume video advertisements while you’re filling up with gas. At least that’s not a practice that’s caught on elsewhere.

View on HN

> no amount of money will remove the billboards

São Paulo got rid of billboards in 2006: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa>

Yeah. I love it. I want to see similar laws in my own city.

https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret...

> What measures can we possibly take?

We build technology.

The number one example is of course uBlock Origin. It shows people a better world with no strings attached. So good it should be built into browsers. It can't block ads in videos... Yet. How long until someone makes an AI video filterer that deletes ads from video streams though? Have the AI watch ads so we don't have to. Given this technology, how long until augmented reality glasses with adblocking builtin start showing up?

> You would think at least some of those issues could be avoided by living somewhere “more expensive”, but it seems like affluent areas actually have more ads.

For whatever reason there are no (or very few) billboards in Northern Virginia, so that's one option. I wish there were more places like that, it's so refreshing driving through and not being bombarded with ads fighting for my attention (which is supposed to be on the road...).

But in general I think you're right it's extremely hard to get away from. I think the main reason it's hard to "buy out" of advertising it that the very fact that you can afford to "buy out" makes you that much more valuable to advertisers.

> Nb: I recently took a trip to the USA and was appalled that they play full volume video advertisements while you’re filling up with gas. At least that’s not a practice that’s caught on elsewhere.

In case you visit again or it comes up for others, you should be able to push the second button from the top on the left to mute the video.

> no amount of money will remove the billboards I have to drive by on the way to work. I’ll never be able to go to a sports event without advertisers bidding for my attention

I don't want to be too pedantic, but it's worth noting that having a substantial amount of money can indeed resolve this issue.

For instance, being chauffeured means you don't have to pay any attention to the road unless you choose to do so.

Moreover, ad-free services like NFL Red Zone are available, or to your point about attending a sporting event with sufficient wealth having a private box can insulate you from 99% of sports event advertising.

On most of these pumps you can push the second to top button on the right side of the screen to mute the ad.

According to the guy that owns the gas station down the street from me, this gets tracked and if the owner/advertisers see that enough people are muting the ads and they're not profitable, they'll stop paying to have them play at the pumps.

If I go to a gas station and there’s video at the pump, I do not go to that gas station again.

> it seems like affluent areas actually have more ads

Are you talking about cities? Most affluent people in the US live in quiet suburbs

> I recently took a trip to the USA and was appalled that they play full volume video advertisements while you’re filling up with gas

I've lived in the US for most of my life and I've never seen anything like that. You gotta specify what part of the US you're talking about because that's a very weird thing for you to assume is common

> At least that’s not a practice that’s caught on elsewhere.

Including elsewhere in the USA.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com