I prioritize ethics over optics even if it means facing criticism.

Sharing my honest beliefs, welcoming constructive debates, and embracing the potential for evolving viewpoints. Independent thinker navigating through conversations without allegiance to any particular side.

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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: October 13th, 2023

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  • Where does the profit come from if someone who doesn’t deal with ads is forced to watch an ad?

    The creator gets paid for people watching the ads, not for buying the product. For the most part the point of ads is to increase brand recognition which in turn increases sales. Ads work wether you think they do or not. It’s among the most studied economic fields. There’s a good reason companies spend a ton of money on advertising. More people seeing ads = more sales. I too like to tell myself a story about how I’m immune to ads but I know I’m not.

    Data-invasive, targeted advertising is superfluous and needs to die.

    I agree. The alternative is paying for the service eg. subscribtion based business model.

    Targeted or not - I’m not going to watch ads. If it’s a bad service like Instagram I’m just going to stop using it but in the case of YouTube if they manage to make adblocking sufficiently difficult and inconvenient then I’m going to buy premium. I can’t blame them for wanting to get rid of freeriders. If I was them I would probably want to too. Blocking ads is like piracy; I participate in it but it cannot be morally justified. I’m effectively stealing.



  • Ad-revenue is literally how content creators get paid. If you’re using an adblocker (like me) then you’re freeriding. They’re not getting any money from us viewing their videos.

    Nobody is forcing anyone to watch ads. That’s the alternative available to people who don’t want to pay. The other alternative is premium membership. Which ever you choose makes money for the creators. Blocking ads doesn’t.

    I hate ads just as much as the next guy but this mentality of expecting to get content for free is ridiculous. That’s unbelieveably narrow sighted and self-centered thinking. If subscribtion based business model was the norm instead of ads-based then we’d have none of the issues that come with targeted advertising. On the other hand if one thinks google is evil company and don’t want to give them money then stop using their products. Damn hypocrites…






  • Yeah I’m there with you. My phone is the most boring device imaginable. It makes no sounds, gives no notifications and has no games or social media. I use it for whatsapp, phone calls, photography, listening to podcasts, tracking my finances, taking notes and browsing Lemmy while on the toilet and given how boring I’ve made my Lemmy feed as well I really struggle to spend more than 5 minutes here unless I’m having an ongoing debate.

    When I come home I leave my phone on the table by the door and when I grab it with me when I go to bed because it’s also my alarm clock. I never ever use my phone in the bed either. My screen-on-time averages around 1.5 hours a day.

    However, I also watch 8 hours of YouTube on my laptop each day so I’m no better than the rest of the people.




  • Just a heads up that this topic makes some people feel really uncomfortable to think about.

    It’s because I don’t think the “self” exists either. Without a self there’s nothing that even could make decisions to begin with. I don’t believe in some “entity” or a “soul” somewhere inside our heads, behind our faces, looking out into the world and making independent decisions. We’re not authoring our thoughts and actions. They’re just appearing. You don’t know what you’re going to think next, and you can’t think of a thought before you think it. You can even observe this happening in real time by just paying close enought attention.

    We’re biological beings that consist of matter, and matter obeys the laws of physics. “Free will” as in “I could’ve done otherwise” doesn’t make any logical sense to me. If we could go back in time we’d all do the same things all over again. That’s how deterministic universe works. The key factor here is consciousness. It feels like something to be. The sense of free will is probably useful belief for survival, but for the very least I’d argue that it’s not like most people think it is.