This is one of those American absurdities that thankfully hasn't made its way over to Europe yet, at least to my knowledge. I hope I have an electric car by the point they start introducing these here.
In Finland our equivalence to Wal-Mart also sells cheap gas and they have ads on their pumps advertising their own products but it's just on the display and there's no sound with it.
That is how it started here. Then they got loud.
And now when I get gas I gotta listen to them hawk some shitty podcast from a washed up morning host. No! I don't want to know about Hoda Kotb, I just want gas!
Would be nice if the gas was less expensive at the stores with ads. At least that's not the case in my area. 5 min down the road the same company has pumps without ads for the same price.
Oh yes they tried. The damn thing scared me when that ad started playing. I haven't been back at that station again. Some other stations do have ads playing but those are silent, so I guess they do learn customers don't like the loud ads.
Anyone have any good ad blocking practices for this?
Don't buy gas from places that do this. Hasn't failed me yet and if more people did it maybe they'll stop.
They'd just blame millennials for ruining buying gas and double down on the ads.
"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs."
– Banksy
The ones here, you can't mute. Pisses me off so bad I will refuse to back to a gas station. I have even pulled up seen the ads on another pump and drove off. I'm not a fucking captive! Congrats on losing money greedy fucks!
Push and hold the left and right top buttons to put it in maintenance mode. You can do everything normally, but no sound.
Does this work universally or is there a particular station you frequent that it works at?
Are there any potential repercussions for sticking a utility knife into the speaker grill?
Mild electric shock and a vandalism charge if caught. Worth it? I don't know but I'm getting sick of the fucking ads
Edit: So stab then pump, instead of the other way around to avoid boom boom?
I avoid gas stations that have ads. There's a chain where I live that doesn't do them, so they get all my business.
I do this too. Speedway and Shell play video ads on their pumps with no obvious mute options. I don't buy gas there.
I wish advertisers would realize that forcing me to watch their ad against my will makes me actively hostile against their brand and/or product. If I remember their brand name from an intrusive ad I will not only not buy their products, I will go out of my way to give my money to their competitors.
Advertising is among the most studied psychological phenomenoms in the world. It's not so much about getting you to buy their product but more about you remembering the brand. Ads work. That why they're everywhere.
Sure I can name several brands that I'm not buying from either because of their ads.. ..but I remember the brands.
Whenever someone brings this up, someone also brings up the fact that ads are proven to work in general not on everyone. So I guess it's my turn today.
Second button down on the right side of the screen, press it (up to) 4 times and it mutes that shit
Since we are sharing...
Holding down 1-5-9 or 3-5-7 can drop a POS card reader into debug mode, but it's brand dependent. (I have had it also crash the host terminals in some cases as well.)
Most of them the second button down on the right is mute, though I've been running into some recently that disabled the mute.
Anyway, I sharpie a "mute" next to the button on stations where it isn't labeled for other people. It's one bit of graffiti that I'm not at all conflicted about.
Wow, in Europe we haven't reached that gas station modernization stage yet.
I avoid those stations i know have ads, and if surprised... i'm happy to know of the hidden mute button.
Late-stage capitalism means this bullshit will keep creeping into every facet of life. I hate it.
One of my most upvoted comments on here is saying I should be legally allowed to smash those screens if they play ads.
I don't need advertisements shoved in my face every second of every day.
just the US speedrunning a dystopic world
We need to start a movement to show people different ways to vandalize them without being caught, and print stickers to stick on them to show the reasoning behind the vandalosm
Come live in NJ. No ads!
Get an EV and you’ll never have to go to a gas station again. None of the chargers I’ve seen have ads on them.
Still early in the enshittification cycle. It'll happen eventually.
I have never seen any ads in gas pump over here. But at the equivalent of 8$ per gallon, there is no need.
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