(no subject)

[olivermoss]

I do not typically see ads. Youtube shows ads? People tell me that, but I don't see them.

I use a good ad blocker. I use sites like DW and Ao3 a lot. I have paid accounts other places. I see like 1/100th the amount of ads as the average American.

So, watching Leverage my ad viewing spiked. They kept showing me the ad about them magically replenishing dog food and your fridge and all that ... while in reality land I couldn't order from them last I checked because the companies they subcontract with to make deliveries now refuse to do business with them over driver safety concerns and other stuff.

Okay I just checked and my 'order now' button is no longer greyed out, but it was last night.

Still, it was funny to see the ad while they literally could not deliver me anything.

I decided to tweet about it and now I've got Amazon's customer service bot trying to talk to me on twitter. No bot, you cannot help. Not unless you can pay your damn employees more.

Anyway, ad targeting fail. Super fail.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

Ad targeting is such a frequently miserable fail. I loathe ads, so while I still see a lot (having ad-supported subscriptions to some things, tumblr on mobile, just getting into using firefox on my phone specifically for adblock...) But even as frequently as I still get stuck seeing ads, it's amazing to me how OFTEN they fail utterly at being relevant.
Stuff that's not available in my area, stuff of no interest, and ESPECIALLY stuff that I've already purchased and therefore do not need to purchase again. I get that the purchase is why I'm getting the ads, but lol, backwards.

[olivermoss]

If ads were useful to me and promised to stay quiet and never do flickering lights, I might allow them. But they are such fail and I do not need constant food images in my life.

From watching ... what was it? Oh it was my free-with-ads Leverage rewatch that made me walk 7 miles early in a pandemic for Chipolte Cauliflower Rice. Yeah, ads can go away.

[mistressofmuses]

Right? If they were relevant, weren't blinky, didn't play at 1.5x the volume of whatever I was actually watching, etc. then it wouldn't be so obnoxious.

Ugh, I HATE when food ads give me cravings for something. RUDE.

[olivermoss]

Some ads are meant to exploit like basic survival instincts and fray your attention. IDK how anyone puts up with that stuff. And blinky is bad for me and a lot of people.

[mistressofmuses]

I'm lucky that blinky for me doesn't = seizures or anything, but it can be a serious headache trigger. True migraines are pretty rare for me these days, but I don't need anything trying to bring them back.

I feel like I've grown increasingly intolerant of ads. I can't always afford the memberships that would get me ad-free experiences on a lot of services or apps. But things like... ads if I want to check the weather app on my phone. Ads if I want to look at the *photo gallery* on my phone. More ads and "sponsored posts" on FB than actual *posts from people I follow.*

It's definitely made me start choosing to spend my time online elsewhere. I stick to DW and AO3, and am trying to get back to using Firefox on my phone just for the adblock features. (And because yeah, fuck google and all.)