I would love to know from the rest here - isn’t a solution to the ad creep just… not buying things? Like going for second hand / refurbished, avoiding big brands for food and drink, and just not shopping online (ffs)? Or am I being naive? Enlighten me!
Of course working under the assumption that the government cannot (yet) admit to tracking us for more sinister purposes. That’s a problem for another day.
Not exactly. Don’t get me wrong. It helps. But the solution to someone breaking into every house on your block can’t stop at just locking your own front door. The marketing industry must end.
I use neutral DNS, a variant of ad block on my router, waterfox ad block, ublock origin, and noscript. So I’m doing my part.
But yes the ultimate fuck you is just not buy stuff. I mean these days, if I do see an advert, maybe I will think about it, if when rarely it gets my attention, and then I’ll forget and go on to do other stuff. I think the only thing I bought this year was a video game, and that was because I could get it for $4 since I sold all my CSGO skins. A lot of these companies shot themselves in the foot by making online shopping the major outlet. Personally, I can’t be bothered to make an account nor do I really trust anything I don’t see in person. Avoiding big brands is more difficult now since they rebrand the same stuff; think of Trader Joes.
I fix as much stuff as I can to avoid buying stuff, partially to take advantage of my skills and partially out of spite. Like my mouse, switches went bad, I upgraded them for a few bucks. Or the tea kettle stopped working, ripped off the panel where the switch is, turns out the plastic bit wasn’t making good contact to trigger it; modified it to work.
There is substantial tracking when shopping offline too. Retailers use cameras with facial recognition, sentiment analysis, and reportedly some are even beginning to use dynamic pricing.
Buying second hand is only working up to a point is not sustainable if larger parts of the population did it. It also doesn’t magically solve issues with the items themselves, like smart TVs or cars (ffs?!?!) tracking you. I’m not sure how easy it is to find working, second hand dumb TVs nowadays.
There are two issues with ads: ad display (manipulation) and tracking (privacy invasion). You can easily get rid of the first problem, for the most part. The second one is to some degree also handled by ad blockers, but is to some degree very hard to completely escape. Not buying things new won’t automatically stop of tracking.
You don’t have to buy damp tvs. You just have to not connect smart tvs to the internet
It’s also examining one’s own personal consumption patterns. The more one engages with it, the more exposure he or she has.
Yes it is, at least an important part. I’m buying very little in general, and it’s either second hand or local most of the time - when I have to order things for repairs, farm or household, there’s enough smaller online shops in my country or at least another European country. I despise big brands, big retail, big anything and try to stay away.
I’m blocking ads - and when I happen to see one on a friend’s screen I’m confused - this is what people are putting up with between trying to read an article or listening to their music?
That sounds pretty impressive! Do you also buy your tech the same way?
I have very little tech. Last I bought was over a year ago, a refurbished Laptop because I needed Windows 11 for work. There’s two more laptops, one bought used, the other new over 10 years ago. Both run Linux now. I’m waiting for my ancient phone battery to inflate enough to bed my little head on it and sleep and never read another notification!
I used to fly drones, back when it was done for fun, not war. I bought so much stuff, not a week without some shit from China (drone racing causes a lot of damage and there was always new, better gear to have!). Gave it up because I considered it unsustainable - so much trash, so much shipping, disturbs birds, bad fire risk … and these days it seems wiser to not be associated with drones. Since then I have gradually turned into quite the Luddite. I am very careful about the tech I permit in my life because it adds what I call a layer of bullshit between me and my direct experience of the world around me.
Can I be wierd and say I love you? haha my god. I love a smart, accountable human.
It’s Lemmy, I think we’re permitted to be weird around here!
Support local. Get a pihole. Guard your privacy. Avoid the algorithm apps. Switch to grapheneos. Vote.
The most important one: Organize. In groups.
Not shopping on line will most often cause consumers to spend more time to find what they are looking for locally and will cost them more money. Whichever way we go (on line or off line), it is going to cost us in some way.
This really depends what youre buying. People buy everyday things online often.
This makes me think of when my partner was trying to tell me walmart is always cheapest, and I proved him wrong and dont shop there, for anything. Yes the wet cat food is 2 cents more. I dont care, two cents is worth not walking into walmart.
Ive changed my habits, I go without, others could too. Like the lady I mentioned a number of comments ago, she was on disability and poor, yet, her house was overflowing with temu garbage. She didnt need any of it, it just made her happy she could participate in online capitalism, I think. Which to me, seems backwards.
Covenience isnt always best imo, some things we should have to work for. That said, there are some things are harder to find, and online helps a lot, however reduction is better than nothing. The amount of fuel to get that lady her one dollar press on nails, or my neighbor thier paper towells is just, goofy. “I order my 25 pound cat litter online so I dont have to carry it!” ugh.
