• 0 Posts
  • 11 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 8th, 2023

help-circle


  • I think Qwant is as close as you’re going to get unless you can set up searchxng to do what you are asking.

    Now, you might be able to get better diversity in results if you use a vpn to move to more diverse or contrasting cities.

    I often find news sources external to the US to be very interesting insights to what we see rammed down our throats.








  • Even if there was a balance and the ads were non-intrusive? I mean, servers and bandwidth cost money. I’m in the same boat as you where I have run ad blockers, adblocker blockers, no script, privacy enhancers, and anti-fingerprinting since forever ago.

    I’d rather view a few reasonable ads than have a site try to mine and sell my data. If there was a balance, this is where I’d say it was reasonable. Since not reality, I’m with you, nuke them all, and just take the content.


  • It seems like we’ve all lost the plot. We’d probably be willing to view ads if the experience wasn’t literally jarring. Try browsing for a day on a plain-no-extension browser. If you use other web enhancement tools kill those too. Straight-up internet is cancer, especially on mobile.

    It’s impossible to read a 250-word article without being interrupted 5-7 times. Two of those interruptions are likely a full page overlay with give me your email, and are you sure you don’t want to subscribe, just give me your credit card number.

    Then there are auto-play videos on the side, some with audio on by default. I mean I came here to read something, so of course we have things flashing and moving and making noise, it’s the most conducive environment for thought, right?

    Ad blockers and script blocking are essentially a hazmat suit that allows us to withstand a hostile environment. Remember when we said myspace pages with audio and [marching-ants] borders was a bad UX? At least we didn’t have overlays back then.

    Go back to basics and consider what makes a good vs bad internet experience. The reality sounds like someone with a minor case of severe brain damage. I think we’ve just become unashamed of greed as a society. It’s clearly all just about money.

    Those annoying customers/users generate content and we have to put up with them so we can monetize it. *Sadly, It’s unclear if I’m talking about youtube, reddit, or nearly any other site.

    Le sigh.