Nothing angers me in precisely the same way as getting advertised to by something I have already paid money for. Like, ad-supported "free" products are nasty and exploitative, sure sure sure, but I get it. It's the only way to approximate a public commons in our capitalist hellscape. I can swallow that.

But when I have paid hundreds of my own dollars for a video game console or a television, and I boot up this new device that I personally own, which should now exist for the sole purpose of doing my bidding, and it has the audacity to show me advertisements, I am incensed. Was the money I paid not enough? Must this machine try to squeeze blood from my stone-hard heart?

I do not want your disney plus. I do not want your netflix. I do not want your apple teevee. I will pirate everything you make and even still I will look upon it with scorn for the circumstances of its polluted creation. I will pray every day for the collapse of your faceless empires of rot, and hope that one day I will awaken to a culture freed from the shackles you place upon it.


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in reply to @nex3's post:

It's shocking how many items have their prices subsidized by ads. Smart tvs are actually cheaper than dumb tvs! Because of "post-purchase monetizing."

Happens with cars too, but that's from selling location data rather than ads. That's the big-expensive item that I expect to be loyal to me and it's not.

The first time this got major attention was OnStar, all the way back in 2011.

It's not even a conspiracy theory or speculation. GM just fucking put out a press release saying, straight-up, that they were going to collect location data from OnStar and sell it to third parties. Even if you didn't have an OnStar subscription, if your car had the device they would sell your data.