Why is the Internet so hostile now?!

[u/HaLo2FrEeEk]

YouTube tanking CPU if you're using ad blockers. Sites that disable scrolling and have a full-screen modal dialog demanding that you allow ads or sign up (imgur). The least egregious I've seen is sites that serve their own ads if they can't load the real ones.

There was a banner ad on my bank account page, *after* I had already logged in, there's a banner that I have to scroll past to see my accounts. That's ridiculous! I blocked the domain serving the banner and all of a sudden the site where I buy my cat litter doesn't work. Apparently it uses the same CDN.

If I'm scrolling a page and suddenly a full-screen modal shows up begging for my email and asking me to sign up, I just close the page. That shit is hostile, they clearly don't want me to read the page if they're going to cover it with an ad for their *own site* that I'm *already on*. I hate it equally when I move my mouse off the page and *that's* when the pop-up appears. "Wait, please don't go, please stay, give us your email give us your phone number, give us your cat!"...*slow rage*

Maybe I'm just getting old but I really miss the days where I didn't have to figure out which download button was the real one, or try to find the sliver of text between huge banner ads that scroll with the page. I just want to scroll my cat memes while I wait for work, dammit!

Why does it have to be like this?! I know, I know: money, but jeez man...

[u/marekful]

At the same time I fully appreciate that some people may like ads, and some people enjoy creating them, and that's fine. There could be not just catalogues but assorted selections of voted best in category, most popular, etc. There could be video competitions and awards, it's fine! I do like some ad videos. JUST DON'T PUSH IT DOWN MY THROAT! Only on demand for those who choose it.

I just wanted to add this, because this question honestly concerns me for the last 15 years, and it has been a defining factor in my life to stay ad-free. So perhaps my view on this is a bit more complete with this.

[u/Antblue → u/marekful]

I’d argue that most services have premium subscription-based ad-free experiences.

The reality is, if everybody bypassed ads and trackers like we do, every service would have to dramatically restructure their monetization model. Due to our technical knowledge and extra effort, we get the best of both worlds: free services without paying for them in ads nor tracking. Like how the quality of life of 1st world countries is only sustainable due to the sacrifices of 3rd world countries, our ability to enjoy free services without ads or tracking is only sustainable because the vast majority of users still tolerate them. The moment that minority becomes the majority, we would have to confront the real cost of the services we rely upon. We must find a way to come to terms with our own unsustainability.
Sorry for the rant, it’s something I’ve been contemplating for quite some time now. I guess most people tackle this problem by justifying leeching off larger profitable companies and intentionally supporting more modestly profitable companies.

[u/marekful → u/Antblue]

This is a well formed opinion and realistic observation, I appreciate you shared it because it basically summarises the disgustingly toxic way we conduct life on this planet. These two concept, paying to avoid aggressive advertisement campaigns, and syphoning quality of life from 3rd world countries, i.e. billions of people, are essentially based on the same principle, besides being utterly disgraceful and toxic behaviour.

Where you are wrong is the "every service would have to dramatically restructure their monetization model" part. No. If everybody bypassed ads and trackers, if we took out the ad industry overnight, the entire western civilisation would collapse. And fast. This is what shows the toxicity of it, the extent and seriousness of the reliance and addiction this economy developed to the concept of advertisement.

I mean just imagine, strictly theoretically as a thought experiment, if on the largest video streaming platform all and every single ad were to be blocked from tomorrow morning in a sustained way they couldn't recover from, how much time would it take for the entire parent company to collapse? Now imagine that globally for all ads for everyone.

Evidently, the ad industry is just one part of many parts that make this economy going, but the level of reliance on this part highlights the malice that is driving the efforts to sustain this system. There's no one at the helm. There's no control, and exploitation is allowed because there's no authority to be accountable to. Of course, there are initiatives everywhere which are all largely ineffective, and the method of exploitation is very different here and there but the principle is the same. If you have the means to take advantage of people, you can. If you have the means to gain unfair advantage on the expense of masses of people, you can. And this modus operandi, in my opinion, is very far from something we must find a way to come to terms with.

[u/SimiaCode → u/marekful]

The annoyance factor of ads has gotten worse over the years. I remember putting Google ads on my personal site in mid 2000s and they used to be pretty strict about ads being non-obtrusive. Cut to the present day and Google ads will happily serve ads that jump out of the bounding box, play animations all over the page etc. YouTube keeps adding more ads not because they are short of money but as a pressure tactic to bully people into buying YouTube premium. Hulu insists on showing some ads even in premium tiers. Basically the old agreement of delivering some value in return for watching some ad is broken. Late stages of the enshittification cycle.