Personally, while I don’t mind being advertised to when I’m specifically looking for something, marketing materials aren’t particularly useful about informing me whether something will be a good purchase. Marketing is pretty much just a big conflict of interest, where unethical ones will sometimes just outright lie about their product, and even the ethical ones will usually try to avoid talking about the negatives.
Review sites can be ok, but marketers game those, too, so it’s hard to tell if a review is genuine or not (though the ones who aren’t as good at it don’t hide that their descriptions are basically just marketing copy).
Currently, I seek out negative customer reviews. Those can also be gamed, but attention mostly gets put towards the positive ones, so if the negative reviews are mostly about the delivery going badly, stuff that I don’t care about, or very over the top about how horrible the product is, they can often be dismissed.
I think that the market is primed for a store that curates their products and is willing to tell shitty manufacturers to fuck off instead of taking kickbacks or ignoring bad products because they get a cut either way. A store whose goal isn’t to just sell you something but to do everything they can to ensure you won’t buy something you won’t like.
redfox@infosec.pub 7 months ago
That is a good point, I can definitely understand.
I must agree.
A short version rant about advertising: In my opinion, it causes either mental exhaustion or prevents people from reflecting. It’s a constant and invasive distraction, robbing people of peace.
Why? Thinking of all the ways you can’t go ten minutes without seeing ads, unless you’re intentional. They started putting screens in gas pumps! Billboards on the roads, some that are giant LED screens (which I thought should be illegal), ads all over buildings, buses, in the subway, on the bench.
Back to websites: I personally think in their current form, they’re so distracting, they’re unreadable. I refuse to visit websites that require registration, and also leave if I can’t get the simple/reader mode/ on edge/chrome. At least that way, its forced darkmode, and eliminates all the ads, social media links, everything but words. I can deal with some of the pictures not being shown. I wish I could find a browser that only displays websites in that stripped down mode.