Ads Patres

I’m looking at technology trends and all I can see is that users get away from ads and commercials as much as they can while businesses rely more and more on this revenue.

How the hell is this going to end?

Some observations:

• Google Chrome browser just got its own addon system. Most rated and downloaded addons? AdSweep and AdBlock.
• Firefox has gained its huge traction with AdBlock Plus, which is the most popular addon with 695,623 downloads to date.
• Facebook won against MySpace not only on features, but because and foremost IMO for this nice and almost ad-free UI.
• Same for Twitter, ad-free for now.
• Same for Google Search and its clean UI.
• YouTube ads: Google is trying hard but people don’t click a lot. I stream less videos since I have to click a fucking cross button everytime.
• RSS: It’s MEANT to be only the content and the content only. Embedded rss ads are useless, less efficient that web ones which are already not that effective, except for a few giants or as an additional income.
• Main attract of downloading shows on P2P is that there’s no commercials. No 30-40 mn show cut with three commercial breaks.
• Tivo/DirectTV recording so you can skip them.
• etc

Why do we still push advertising so much? Yeah, it was working this way with papers and TV, now the technology is 100% customer-side. If the future is based on niche markets and specific audiences with no brand loyalty reached by word of mouth propagation only, I don’t see the advertising as a solution. Maybe a dying-almost dead one at best. So focusing on it like a lot of tech businesses do seems really silly. 

We finished The Fake Decade, and it’s not that it’s new but these past 10 years have been pretty full of faux everything from Reality TV to Weapons of Mass Destruction. It’s going to be a challenge to do something lamer than that. Please don’t encourage.

It would be good to slow down on the BS or maybe even stop it whenever you see it.