2003-you installs three browser toolbars to get paid for watching and clicking ad banners (spoiler: you’ll never reach the threshold for the payout)
Ad companies should just cut out the middle man and pay me to watch their ads
Submitted 7 hours ago by NowThatsWhatICallDadRock@slrpnk.net to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de 7 hours ago
Magister@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
oh I did, it was a banner maybe 100 pixels height. I had a small app to make window transparent by clicking on them, so I started the bar, started the app, click the bar, it dissapeared but still registered viewing. I got maybe 25$ after a couple of months
Feddinat0r@feddit.org 4 hours ago
This was the best time… And then they made afk checks every 10mins
jaybone@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
xdotool - write a little bash script. Also keeps you as showing online on slack.
the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Ad companies should just fuck off and die.
end_stage_ligma@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
If you make a product that you have to manipulate people into buying, maybe it’s a piece of shit and you’re and even bigger piece of shit. Your boss is probably a fetid old piece of shit which has dried and stuck to the side of the bowl for decades - the morbid husk of a once human thing that exists only to steal the fruits of Labor. Yet even the boss covets the power of the Great Rich Ones whom they serve in the hopes that they will be elevated to their number. The Great Rich Ones, possessed of insatiable greed and unfathomable indifference, travelling in relative silence behind the shadows cast by our world like great assteroids unlit by the sun, pulling smaller objects into their feculent and smothering embrace. At the center of this madness is Assathoth, the blind idiot God, whose benighted diarrhea-dipped tentacles guide the Market from angles beyond perception and weave the waking nightmare of our capitalist reality.
JoShmoe@ani.social 5 hours ago
And insurance companies
teft@piefed.social 4 hours ago
Insurance companies, yes. But we should replace them with some sort of social safety net so people quit being fucked over by random chance. Risk management spread out over a large population is a good thing.
morto@piefed.social 2 hours ago
My mom always said when she had to see unavoidable ads:
“The money they spent making those ads, they could have used to reduce the prices instead!”It’s funny to see her getting angry and reacting like that every time
gary@piefed.world 6 hours ago
Closest I ever came was trying brave browser for a couple months a few years ago and I made a cool $0.83 in digital Monopoly money 💅
meejle@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I think I made about $15, but admittedly it was over the course of like 2 years
petersr@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Well, ads are just a middle man for increasing desire to buy a product. So you could just cut out the ad middle man as well and just buy the products you want.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
This was the idea behind Basic Attention Token, the people who made the Brave Browser
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I think we should simply bring back Pogs. Every time you watch an ad, you get a Pog. You can collect them, trade them, and even redeem them for mystery prizes. This will become the foundation for a new American economy.
Aeao@lemmy.world 38 minutes ago
I was just talking about pogs the other day lol
Psythik@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
This, but instead of pogs, it’s five dollar bills.
bran_buckler@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I knew I was saving my pogs for a good reason!
jaybone@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
Like pog NFTs…
Corngood@lemmy.ml 7 hours ago
Counter-proposal: you get to opt-out of advertising by signing up to automatically buy all the products they advertise.
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Or you could condition yourself to have a negative reaction to all advertising, then charge the ad companies to block their ads.
Thatuserguy@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
No idea if they’re still around but that was the basis behind Swagbucks and AppTrailers back in the day. Bought a shitty $25 android phone that I just babysat at my desk running those all day long just hitting the next button when it showed up every couple of hours. Wasn’t a massive payout by any means nor fast, but I racked up multiple $25 payouts that way. Still free money for minimal work. As a broke college student, that was solid
vane@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
I’m waiting for free phones / tv with split screen 50% AD 50% your content but only AI generated.
BootLoop@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
There was a number of companies that did this in the late 90s/early 2000s. None survived the dot com bubble.
Mynameisallen@lemmy.zip 5 hours ago
But then who would collect all your data to eventually sell it to the government to bypass the 4th amendment???
Hope@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Why stop there? Just have the companies taking out ads send random people their products!
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Honestly, that’s probably cheaper than an ad campaign.
sittinonatoilet@sopuli.xyz 6 hours ago
Might be in the works
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Yeah idk why this model never took off, I’m guessing cause of greed.
Give me a wallet, I can fill it with watching ads and then use it for your service.
I think the reason why it doesn’t work is because it allows the user to minimize their ad exposure, not maximize.
Cort@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
I think the reason why it doesn’t work is because it allows the user to minimize their ad exposure, not maximize.
I’d think the opposite is also true. If you’re trying to maximize your exposure to ads and increase your income, you’re probably not the target audience for the advertised products. If you’re relying on fractions of a penny per ad viewed, you’re not likely to be able to afford the product they’re hocking
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
That makes sense, they want to show ads to people who don’t want to see ads and don’t have time to see many.
IMO it just means advertisement is self defeating in the long run.
ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.com 6 hours ago
And the Internet comes to a halt as every company around fights to develop an install base with the span of the current major players.
Not that I'm a fan of the mass surveillance system our current internet entails, but having a major influx of less technically competent companies creating their own networks and site plugins is just asking for an even more chaotic security landscape.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 30 minutes ago
You’d be surprised at how little they paid to annoy specifically you that one time. And each time.