advertising.md (4398B)
1 # Advertising 2 3 I have always been detrimentally contrarian. This likely stems from a desire to feel in control of my choices, and by rejecting the propositions of others, it feels like I have control of my choices. Perhaps this may be incorrect, and I may be over-analyzing the root cause, but in any case, I have always been excessively contrarian, even now. 4 5 ## The Benefits of Advertising 6 7 "If you build it, he will come" is an appealing notion, but likely not applicable to most endeavors. To some extent, gaining adoption of things requires telling others about them, not simply building it. Advertising is a common way to tell people about things. Advertising things that will help others is a win-win. 8 9 ## The Failures of Advertising 10 11 I do agree it is a win-win if the builder and consumer both benefit from advertising, but this is so infrequently the case that I generally don't agree with it in practice. I used to see many advertisements, and they frequently felt like the following: 12 13 > You _need_ to buy this thing because xyz. 14 15 > We are the only people who can give this to you 16 17 > You are incapable of doing this yourself 18 19 This comes from reading between the lines, but no one advertises things that can be easily done by individuals. This is to say, advertisements sell solutions to your helplessness by first showing how helpless you are, and then telling you about their potion to solve it. 20 21 Advertisements are not frequently this forward, but notionally this is what they are doing. Being excessively contrarian, having others tell me I am helpless and need them to do something for me is irritating. Sometimes my initial reaction is to do what they are selling without their help, but when so many advertisements are thrown my way, I would get stretched too thin. 22 23 ## Saying No 24 25 I have stopped doing most things that will result in me being advertised to. There are certain things I believe are unavoidable advertisements, but in these cases I generally do two things: 26 27 1. Be exceptionally rude about the advertisement 28 2. Ensure I never support the advertiser in any way in the future 29 30 The first is difficult because culturally advertising is acceptable, and confrontations are hard, but I so vehemently disagree with advertisements that I will express my discontentment face to face. 31 32 The second is rather simple; any time you see an advertisement that you didn't implicitly agree to see by using an ad supported service or something akin, make a note of the company and ensure you never support them again. I was in San Francisco and saw Mullvad VPN advertisements on buses. At the time, I used their VPN because I perceived it as the best, and perhaps on merit it is still, but after seeing the advertisement I made sure to never use their services again, or recommend their services. If you want to use a VPN, use IVPN, Proton has similarly problematic advertising, or setup your own as I have taken to doing. 33 34 ## Acceptable and Unacceptable Advertisements 35 36 Acceptable: 37 38 - TV 39 - Subscriptions that state they are ad supported 40 - Services that are free with ads 41 42 Unacceptable: 43 44 - Advertisements visible to individuals who aren't partaking in a service supported by ads 45 - Billboards are not supporting roadways and by using the public roadways, I haven't consented to being advertised to 46 - Public services 47 - Busses in SF are covered in advertisements, and simply walking on sidewalks forces them into my view 48 - SFO airport has lots of advertisements; that's a public place that has no business having random advertisements. If I see ads on a plane that's one thing (presumably my ticket was cheaper to facilitate that), but not in the airport itself 49 - Random events 50 - This is slightly different, but if I'm at something like defcon I'd expect not to be gratuitiously advertised to during talks. Stations are par for the course, but talks should be devoid of ulterior motationvs; be a human. 51 52 A form of advertisement that bothers me is self-advertisement. People whoring theselves out to find a job at so-called "networking events" are one thing (simply don't attend), but if I'm at dinner with a group, I expect everyone to live in the moment, not try to get a job out of me or get me to work with / for them. It's annoying. I noticed this is especially bad in San Francisco, mostly because of how little I've noticed these annoyances in the midwest.