To this day, I will never ever ever touch any Mazda products. All thanks to their dumb fucking zoom zoom advertising campaign about 20 years ago that involved their adverts playing twice during every ad break. Plus they were sponsoring shit, so it was everywhere. I feel like I still have PTSD from it. Fuck Mazda.
Smart thinking.
Magic spoon got me. I was looking for a protein cereal so I was excited for a podcast I listen to advertise one. All the flavors are the same gross base that cut up your mouth with different artificial powders put on top. Of course I start seeing a bunch ads more after
This is partly why I don't trust Ground News. They're putting way too much money into advertising for me to believe they're genuinely interested in providing an unbiased factual categorization of news sources.
I also simply don't believe it's possible to be unbiased, so anyone claiming to be is immediately suspect to me.
They also reinforce seeing liberal and conservative as opposites. The only good service they have is showing who sponsors which sources. However, the whole "blindspot" system seems designed as a both-sidesism
I was blindsided by the monitor getting thought bubbles.
If they have the budget to mass advertise then that means they're earning probably 100x that, most likely directly from users.
Or they're burning through their VC funds because they're out of ideas and have no customers.
This is the rule I live by when being forced fed ads. I will actively go out of my way to not use whatever product it is.
This was exactly how I felt about the Honey scam. xD
Very first thought was "how the fuck are they making money enough to advertise??"I heard about it, downloaded it, tried it. Then i googled for other coupons and found a better one. Deleted Honey right away for being shit.
Im surprised so many people would just trust the app immediately and not try to see if there were better coupons.
Maybe I’m just bad or slow at queries but I almost never found working coupons when I’m ready to purchase. When I used to have honey (when it somewhat worked), I got a few token percentage off compared to entering codes that were expired or otherwise no longer valid.
Granted, once Honey moved to a rewards based model I dipped out since something didn’t sit right with me about it.
Same thing here. I've been using "everything" for long enough to know not to trust.. anything.. an app is going to get the best discount available for me? Yeah, we'll just see about that. I just wasnt ever going to not search for coupons myself, so I removed it.
I tried it but never got coupons, so I made 10$ in honey gold, then I forgot about it until I saw the controversy
Most people are lazy, or don't even come up with the idea to do a web search. When they do, most non-techies don't know or struggle to write an effective search query
Only advertised product I've ever spent money on is NordVPN which is fine for my use case - avoiding geoblocking a couple of times a week. Probably switching to Mullvad soon though, because American companies can eat dirt.
But yeah, honey was always super sus. If something seems "too good to be true", maybe it is.
Funny to me because I can't recall the last time I ever saw a Mullvad ad but they had their little mole guy plastered over a bus in my (American) city. Thought it was cute and quirky because I doubt 80% of the people in my area even know what a VPN is. Better than the usual lame ads like for lawyers or health insurance.
NYC is covered with mullvad ads. pretty crazy actually
Huh, this company is spending a lot of money on marketing. Guess I'll buy from a company doing less marketing so I'll get it cheaper.
Or that is so good, they don't need anything more than word of mouth. And I mean real word of mouth, not the fake influencer shilling that relies on parasocial relationships "word of mouth"
I have a rule if they sponsor on multiple youtubers they are probably a scam and avoid. If i find the service interesting i search up alternatives that spend their money better
yeah, the only good sponsorships are the sponsors of small niche channels, like a lens sponsorship on a photography channel.
SponsorBlock FTW!
also also, firefox on android supports extensions. never go anywhere without ublock origin and sponsorblock.
I have noticed every YouTube sponsor, with no exception so far, is 1. A scam. 2. Overpriced.
The 3rd option, "product of the creator," can actually be ok sometimes. It just depends on if the creator is the type to scam people.
This is how I felt when Bambulab started giving all creators printers.
To be fair, the hardware is pretty phenominal. The whole trying to lock customers into their ecosystem after they felt enough people had purchased their products was a whole next level of scummy though. We must be vigilant as a community in not letting them creep in antifeatures now they've backtracked. I keep mine in LAN only mode and will be switching to Orcaslicer as soon as the flatpak hits Flathub which should be soon.
I'm concerned how they're now trying to normalize not having control over the things you own. Especially since their printers are popular with influencers
Nothing feels worse than seeing ads for shit you've already got, too. That's when you know you've fucked up
This is me when I see mullvad ads on the subway. Still think they are a great product but I'm starting to question their marketing.
Oh hell. I literally left Nord for Mull and was thinking of that specific example when I made this joke
yeah, the best time to advertise at me about a thing is while I'm researching thing to buy.
Advertising at me after I bought the thing is useless, I already bought it!
It does have a purpose. I found the name of it once, but it's basically choice confirmation. When you buy something and then shortly after see lots of ads of other people who bought the same thing and are really happy with it/it appears popular, it confirms to you that you made the right choice and should make it again if given the chance. This kind of "confirmation after the fact" advertising is especially used in larger purchases like a car. It reinforces the choice you made in your mind so you feel more satisfied with the brand itself.
Bought a gift for a babyshower, I was getting ads for baby stuff for the following 3 years
I assume if companies have a positive ROI for ads/sponsorships, they have very high profits (i.e. they're ripping people off).
can’t afford ads if you have an honest product
fuckin looking at YOU, OPERA GX.
NordVPN and ExpressVPN are trying to hide behind Opera
Express is, okay for what it is.
Nord though is hiding behind the word "Nord". It's not even a Nordic company. It's based in British virgin islands just like Surfshark
RAID SHADOW LE- JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP, BRAND!
I watched a review of raid shadow legends a while ago, and was unsurprising to see it was a very uninteresting game
The funniest thing was when Alec Steele (blacksmithing/metal working YouTuber) did a Raid add. Him following their standard script was ridiculous
His phone he played the game on had a cracked screen
It really showed me not to believe any of his ads in particular
This, but applied to all ads.
hmm enough profits to sponser all youtube. sus
Especially if it's a free to play game
That just tells me "you will definitely spend money to get what you're looking for in this game"
No fucking thanks
a free thing with suspicious amount of advertising requires a lot questioning at the least
I feel this way about Aura. They'll stop other companies from using your personal data but do they ever say they won't use it?
You can check the privacy statement.
But considering it’s an American company I can tell you that it will abuse your data
I think it's safe to presume they are trying to capture all of the value of your data.
They are certainly selling whatever data they collect, unless they're making their own advertising service
This is what I hate about that whole model. Are they just trying to insert themselves as a middle man?
Me with Sponsorblock: gremlin noises
This was me watching the Hims ad during the Superbowl lol.
I saw those YouTube ads for that milk protein based cereal years ago. Didn't buy it but kinda wanted to try. Haven't seen ads for them in a while, figured they'd gone out of business. Saw a box in grocery store for cheap, tried it. I like it. They still won didn't they?
I swear the prevalence of ADHD is because its a learned coping mechanism we adapted from having to constantly tune out commercials.
Bro does not know what ADHD is
ADHD is not a disease or fixed condition. Like with all mental medical descriptions, it's a term that outlines and defines a set of behavior patterns or symptoms. So while I doubt the user above is making this distinction, they're still correct in at least the fact that executive function and attention-spans can indeed be impacted negatively by constant distractions and self-training to tune out some kinds of information. Which can be (but not always) symptoms of ADHD. You don't "have" something like ADHD as much as you exhibit behavior consistent with the description.
VPN is a scam~ 🥰🥰🥰
they're misleadingly advertised, but still provide a useful service at a decent price
If you are fine with torrenting using your real IP, then yes. However, here this can easily lead to high legal bills as rightholders can demand pay for damages even if a tracker just returned your IP as a participant of a swarm. There is no first strike here where you just get a mean letter. It goes into the thousands straight away.
Personally, I wouldn't do that, especially here with law firms that specialize in that kind of behavior. I rather pay some bucks for that rare case where I want to get something from BitTorrent than risk all that hassle.
If you're only interested in torrenting don't use a VPN, just get a seedbox. You can get one with minimal stats (1TB storage, 2TB/mo upload on a 50Gb connection) for like $6/mo. You use it to run all of your torrents and handle seeding (handy for getting access to private trackers) and then just download everything via SFTP/rsync/whatever. Or, you can spend a bit more and have them host the *arr suite and Plex/Jellyfin so you have your own private streaming service. Split between a few family members, this is a very affordable alternative to commercial streaming services.
If you're looking for a VPN for privacy concerns, don't use a US-based provider. You have no guarantee of privacy, just a flimsy 'guarantee' from the company. Use a provider located in a place that has strong privacy and secrecy laws, like Switzerland.
some vpns are scams, yes, but that happens in every industry. Ignoring illegal shit, my Internet speeds are faster when I use a vpn vs not, and that's reason enough to have one.
I used mine for a similar case because my previous provider had shitty peering which caused YouTube etc to not work well, especially Saturday evening (search for Telekom peering of you want to know more). VPN circumvented this. However I have since switched to a better provider
It's a great general policy to have, but there are exceptions. NordVPN and ExpressVPN are both great VPN services, and Nebula has been absolutely fantastic.
Nebula is a creater owned abs controlled coop isn't it? Way different beast.
Yeah, more or less.
But that's sort of the point, isn't it? Just because something's being advertised in a lot of places, doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad deal.
Yeah, but the creators advertising Nebula also make the content, and there's definitely VPN providers I distrust less than those two.
and there’s definitely VPN providers I distrust less than those two
I find that a weird way to phrase it. Both Nord and Express are perfectly good. So is PIA, and probably more besides, but I didn't mention others because those are the two I've frequently seen advertised. Both Nord and Express have passed security audits with flying colours, and Express even had a case where their servers were seized but the seizure was unable to be of any value to the authorities, because their claims of not keeping logs were true.
When I was shopping for a VPN I skipped those two specifically because they advertised on most podcasts I listened to (I know they are good now but that made me skeptic back then)
I tried Nord VPN and realized three things: 1: The "limited time specials" they boast are completely misleading. You pay more per month than what they make it sound like in their sponsored messages. 2: They try to automatically renew your subscription and charge your credit card for a significantly higher price with the hope that you wouldn't notice. 3: Unsubscribing is made to be a frustrating pain in the ass. You have to talk to their sales representatives and they will make you argue for it. And then you'll have to do it all over again because even though they said they cancelled your subscription it won't be because " technical problems".
VPNs rely entirely on trust and Nord has proven to be completely untrustworthy.
I use Mullvad now and it uses none of those deceiving tactics to lock you into an expensive contact. It also goes long ways to keep you anonymous and has periodic audits to prove they don't collect your data.
