source: https://tech.lgbt/@AzulCrescent
Lol sponsor block extension, faq all your native ads and interaction reminders
this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
570 points (98.3% liked)
Comic Strips
23775 readers
2063 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
Rules
-
π Be Nice!
- Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly.
-
ποΈ Community Standards
- Comics should be a full story, from start to finish, in one post.
- Posts should be safe and enjoyable by the majority of community members, both here on lemmy.world and other instances.
- Any comic that would qualify as raunchy, lewd, or otherwise draw unwanted attention by nosy coworkers, spouses, or family members should be tagged as NSFW.
- Moderators have final say on what and what does not qualify as appropriate. Use common sense, and if need be, err on the side of caution.
-
𧬠Keep it Real
- Comics should be made and posted by real human beans, not by automated means like bots or AI. This is not the community for that sort of thing.
-
π½οΈ Credit Where Credit is Due
- Comics should include the original attribution to the artist(s) involved, and be unmodified. Bonus points if you include a link back to their website. When in doubt, use a reverse image search to try to find the original version. Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanently banned from posting.
- Attributions include, but are not limited to, watermarks, links, or other text or imagery that artists add to their comics to use for identification purposes. If you find a comic without any such markings, it would be a good idea to see if you can find an original version. If one cannot be found, say so and ask the community for help!
-
π Post Formatting
- Post an image, gallery, or link to a specific comic hosted on another site; e.g., the author's website.
- Meta posts about the community should be tagged with [Meta] either at the beginning or the end of the post title.
- When linking to a comic hosted on another site, ensure the link is to the comic itself and not just to the website; e.g.,
β Correct: https://xkcd.com/386/
β Incorrect: https://xkcd.com/
-
π¬ Post Frequency/SPAM
- Each user (regardless of instance) may post up to five (5 π) comics a day. This can be any combination of personal comics you have written yourself, or other author's comics. Any comics exceeding five (5 π) will be removed.
-
π΄ββ οΈ Internationalization (i18n)
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
SΓ, por favor [Spanish/EspaΓ±ol]
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
-
πΏ Moderation
- We are human, just like most everybody else on Lemmy. If you feel a moderation decision was made in error, you are welcome to reach out to anybody on the moderation team for clarification. Keep in mind that moderation decisions may be final.
- When reporting posts and/or comments, quote which rule is being broken, and why you feel it broke the rules.
Banned Artists
The following artists are banned from the community.
- Jago
- Stonetoss
It should be noted that when you make reports, it is your responsibility to provide rational reasoning why something should be removed. Saying it simply breaks community rules is not always good enough.
Web Accessibility
Note: This is not a rule, but a helpful suggestion.
When posting images, you should strive to add alt-text for screen readers to use to describe the image you're posting:
Another helpful thing to do is to provide a transcription of the text in your images, as well as brief descriptions of what's going on. (example)
Web of Links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Don't forget the shitty preview hooks because apparently the average attention span is 5 seconds nowadays.
I find those so weird because when I encounter them the moment either within the first minute or well into the video and kinda its own isolated moment
They aren't buying the ads to convince you to buy it anytime soon. They are buying the ads to plant the seed of the link to their brand with whatever the thing is. That way in the future when you have long forgot about the ad and you are looking for bone broth you might buy theirs because it looks familiar even if you don't know why. This is a time tested process that absolutely works.
If you think you are immune to it then you are fooling yourself and are half way to being the perfect little consumer that they want.
Dragon Marrow is the hip new bone broth, but with added taurine, caffeine, and electrolytes for that perfect Energy Stew
Brought to you by GAmEr SOuPz!
Evidently, it's not enough when many people try to block or ignore ads.
What would stop them would be a sufficiently large minority that really takes note of the ads they see and actively avoids the products. Like, even when it is the best for a given situation, buy the second best instead.
Only that would take away from the people they still do reach.
In theory, even a minority (20%?) could make ads harmful for the advertiser.
They know you hate the brands that advertise everywhere. The thing is: ads aren't only for the brand that's being advertised. They're for the entire product category.
The advertised brand and 17 others are all subsidiaries of the same company.
Sick of Milwaukee drill ads, so you stick it to them and buy the cheaper Ryobi or Rigid? They're all the same company.
Eyewear? Luxoticca is a monopoly that owns almost every optometrist's office and just about every company making eyewear, so all the competing brands when you're buying glasses are an illusion. RayBan, Oakley, and all the others are all the same company wearing different nametags. Budget brands, premium brands - everything.
As someone that has experience in the eyewear business; Luxotica owns target optical, Pearle Vision, LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Oliver Peoples, Glasses.com, EyeBuyDirect, Rayban, and oakley. VSP, which is a vision insurance company, now owns visionworks and Eyemart Express. (Fun fact, HVHC used to own Davis Vision, a vision insurance company, and lauched visionworks to launder insurance payments back into company coffers at the expense of private providers in the Davis Vision network. HVHC sold Davis Vision, and then a few years later sold visionworks.)
If you want eyecare that isn't connected to a large conglomerate, find a small, private/local provider. Find out which ophthalmologists are in network with your medical insurance. The glaucoma screening and dilation/fundus photos can be billed to your medical insurance and you can pay out-of pocket for the refraction. The refraction is the part of the eye exam that gives you the eyeglass prescription. Everything else checks on the medical health of your eye, which is why it's billable to the medical coverage.
For anyone looking for cheap glasses, brick and mortar retailers like walmart, sams club, BJs, have the least mark up on frames. You can probably find cheap frames online too. If you find and buy your own frames, you can bring them to your retailer/eye DR to have them make the lenses for the frame. The least expensive types of lenses are standard plastic, followed by polycarbonate. If you have simple correction needs, and your DR is telling you that hi-index lenses, blue-blocker, anti-glare, or progressive lenses are medically necessary, your provider is straight up lying to you to sell you more shit.
My favorite weird one is Johnson Outdoors. If you do outdoor adventuring, they're probably part of your life.
Want to go scuba diving? They own ScubaPro, Sealife, Uwatec, and Subgear, and manufacture stuff for other brands like Cressi and Halcyon.
Fishing? They own Minn Kota, Hummingbird, Ocean Kayak, and Old Town Canoes, and Cannon.
Camping? They own Eureka (major tent manufacturer) and JetBoil.
I teach underwater photography for a local university through a dive shop and used to manage the camping, fishing, and marine departments at a major outdoors chain. One of their reps said I might have been the only person in the country who sold all their products.
I get the sentiment and I feel the same. But let's not pretend that ads won't work on us. For example what's the first VPN provider that comes to your mind? Even bad press is good press in a way
The first VPN provider that comes to mind (for an average Joe) is probably the one you should avoid though lol. Advertising works on many people, but the thought process that the more ads you see from a single company, the worse their products are holds true for many situations.
Best example is that shitty earbuds company that I'm sure you all remember seeing ads for in the past, still see them occasionally but not as much. Completely unrelated but I like cryptostorm for vpn provider, they are very against kyc and you can get access to their servers without a single piece of identifying information.
Mullvad
Great company, but no peer-to-peer, right? Automatic disqualification, imo for a general use vpn
NORD VPN!!!! But if Iβm looking for a product or service I usually do a quick search and find the best solution that fits my needs and in the case of a VPN is reasonably secure from state sponsored surveillance.
Which is why after millions spent on advertising by Nord VPN I picked Proton.
nooo format hurt my poor old eyes. turn it back to quadrant box plzzzzzzz.
I used really like ads. They were creative and sometimes I didn't know the products. Now it's just unnecessary.
9/11 blew up all our advertising talent
100% of the time. Nothing as big a turnoff as over saturation. The needinessβ¦yuck.
If you spend a lot of money on advertising there necessary less money to spend on product quality π€
Jokes on them, I stay away from all products that advertise to me unless I need said product and go searching for it.
And yet again, the never ending confusion over "why the fuck is everyone choosing to see ads?" question comes up.
When I came here to Lemmy I really thought I'd never se any posts about complaining about ads because all you need to never see one is having the tech literacy just slightly above grandma level.
Yet here we are, with weekly posts like this.
And to be clear, I absolutely agree with the comic but it's most if the comments here that's the issue. Why are you people not even firing a single brain cell to decrease the amount of ads you see? They're clearly an annoyance, but they're also INCREDIBLY easy to get rid of.
Itβs not just ads. Every video on YouTube is sponsored in the video itself. You can skip the sponsor spots usually but they mention it multiple times.
Youβre right though, everyone should block advertising and tracking at the router level.
I think people like to see marketing as an art when in reality it is more of a science. Ads are engineered to be cost effective, and the design simply follows from that incentive. By taking up any of your attention, even if it's in the background, even if it's a small patch on an athlete's uniform, it will help the product sell. If it didn't, advertisers wouldn't have put it there.
They have more data than you, they are smarter than you, and all they care about is selling their product. You are a tool to boost profit, even if you don't directly give them money, your attention is all they need.
Like, this comic is actually a good example of how an anti-consumption response to an ad can actually help sales. If she never knew about Dragon Marrow, she wouldn't be opposed to it, but you will inevitably just give Dragon Marrow free marketing every time you talk negatively about them. You may drive a majority of people that hear you complain away from it, but maybe one or two of your friends decide to try it anyways, people who would not have heard of it until you complained.
Attention is the goal, not a specific emotional response. You can't outsmart an ad by watching it.
A problem with uBlock, SponsorBlock, DeArrow, etc., is that it makes viewing sites and videos by greedy assholes bearable, instead of making us boycott the assholes.
I do use uBlock (and SponsorBlock built into a program, along with a site that let's me avoid YouTube's site); but I really should be boycotting some sites and video channels.
Imma be real calling content creators "greedy assholes" for taking sponsors that are the only way to make it financially viable other than patreon while expecting to consume their content for 0 just sounds like peak entitlement
Unless you do actually support creators directly in which case go ahead. And I do in fact recommend just not watching people that you judge to actually be greedy assholes, never once regretted that.
I'm torn there. Im from the old internet where we all just fucked about and had fun. I dont think any of the end-users asked them to quit their jobs and invest their money into editing equipment.
Obviously they need paid for their work, but why is it work? What happened here?
Consider that there are instances where it's not practical to remove ads. I could get a new podcasts app with Sponsorblock integrated, but I already have the app I like all set up and I'm fine with skipping them manually. Some may filter through but so what.
Same with YT videos with Sponsorblock where you're early and you're the one doing people the favor. You have to listen at least part of the ad to mark the time block.
Or sometimes Twitch breaks uBO and you don't realize until you're served an ad and you have to wait for the devs to fix it. There's no simple way of getting around it if you enjoy certain streamers.
It's not that we don't try, but not everyone is capable or interested in insulating their entertainment. There are many factors at play.
load more comments
(4 replies)
More Dragon Marrow for me fool
"Why is their product so bad that they need to advertise it so hard"
Or "Their product must be massively overpriced to pay for all this advertising"
Not just that, but if they're throwing sponsorships and ads all over, it means they have a huge advertising budget. That almost always means their profit margins are unusually high.
Meaning they're a ripoff even if the product isn't a scam.
Or it means they just got a bunch of VC money and are looking to chain you up before exploiting the shit out of you.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Gamer Sups. I only vaguely know what they are (some sort of food?), but the number of ads I see for it make me think I don't want to know any more about it.
Indeed. Put the shady gamer product in your body.
Its powdered energy drink powder and a few other related products.
I personally rather like it then again I am addicted ti caffeine
Same. I think all companies that sponsor channels are crap. No exceptions. Especially all VPNs and Proton.
load more comments
(3 replies)
view more: next βΊ