The Repercussions of walmart buying Vizio

[Botch]

When I saw the news last week that wally-world bought out Vizio, I thought, "Great, soon those things will be displaying walmart-specific ads (perhaps a permanent scrolling ad banner at the bottom), with no way of disabling it", and was thinking about starting a thread about it. Caleb just sent this out, and this kinda thing has been creeping in for awhile now, on other platforms.

I hate, hate, HATE ads, and just when you get a decent workaround, the big guys find a way to disable it. I had been using "Wipr" for EweTube videos, it worked well, but a couple months ago YT was able to disable it, and now I see every fourth "video" is actually an ad (at least they're marking them with "Sponsored". For now.) I did find, in the App Store, "Swizztube" that allows me to watch anything from YT without ads, but it doesn't allow me to enlarge the video itself, so I'm still looking.

I see a lot more books in my future...

 

[Hot Monkey]

I see a lot more books in my future...

Funny you should mention this we hit Barnes & Noble last weekend and I bought seven books... all ad free. I (also) have a hard time watching anything with ads.

 

[Mr.6]

I wonder if physical media will make a come back. If not that then what about piracy?

 

[Hot Monkey]

This is a big part of why I hung on to my physical media collection. Monetizing my each and every viewing with forced ads is just not something I am interested in. Life is too short.

 

[Zing]

 

[PaulyT]

So much this.

 

[Haywood]

I was really annoyed when Amazon started playing ads with the option to pay extra to get rid of them. Aren't I already paying enough for Prime? Everyone has their bloody hand out. I pay for YouTube Premium because we watch a ton of YouTube, but the price has gone up to something like $23/mo. Netflix is also around that too, though Paramount is less. That's all we pay for these days. I find myself watching a lot less TV than I used to. As for movies, I mostly buy them on Vudu and most of those are part of Movies Anywhere and are also available to me on Amazon. I do sometimes wonder if I should have stuck with physical media, but I know how I got here and 1500+ movies later, I'm kind of invested.

 

[Hot Monkey]

I was really annoyed when Amazon started playing ads with the option to pay extra to get rid of them. Aren't I already paying enough for Prime? Everyone has their bloody hand out. I pay for YouTube Premium because we watch a ton of YouTube, but the price has gone up to something like $23/mo. Netflix is also around that too, though Paramount is less. That's all we pay for these days. I find myself watching a lot less TV than I used to. As for movies, I mostly buy them on Vudu and most of those are part of Movies Anywhere and are also available to me on Amazon. I do sometimes wonder if I should have stuck with physical media, but I know how I got here and 1500+ movies later, I'm kind of invested.

I have well over 5000 movies on disc (DVD & BluRay) honestly I have lost count. And that's not counting laser discs which (while nostalgic and a hefty investment back in the day) will probably never get watched again. So they just sit in storage maybe someday I will take them target shooting. Or I'll ship them all to Voldemort so he can watch them in tire slashing jail on some makeshift multi alarm clock 19.12 channel whole height circle surround rigged up insano system. Did I just say that out loud? But with a decent sized movie collection and occasional additions of new release favorites our movie watching entertainment options are pretty good without worrying about streaming and ads and premium charges. I subscribe to several, but like you said am growing weary of the up-charges... the recent Amazon thing was especially maddening... and just before my annual Prime membership auto renewed of course. It's like they are testing to see how much people will tolerate. I heard there was a class action lawsuit in the works for ad avoidance up-charges like this one... charging more for something we already pay for. Maybe that will lead to some improvements. I doubt it.

 

[Deacon]

Whatever you do Botch don't start buying books! With your luck they will find a way to start putting ads in them also and then we will all suffer!

 

[Botch]

....but like you said am growing weary of the up-charges... the recent Amazon thing was especially maddening... and just before my annual Prime membership auto renewed of course. It's like they are testing to see how much people will tolerate. I heard there was a class action lawsuit in the works for ad avoidance up-charges like this one... charging more for something we already pay for. Maybe that will lead to some improvements. I doubt it.

I voted with my feet, and dropped Prime. I still get free shipping, but there's nothing I need "within two days" (and they often missed that mark anyway). And really only order things from amazoid that I can't find locally anymore.

I'm also trying something with Ewetube's algorithm. If a quick commercial comes on at the beginning, fine. If it's a slow one, or they try to shove a second one down my throat, I close the window. Sometimes the ads are adjusted the next day, but not always. If everyone did that, the force-fed ads would cease in short order; ewetube had no problem making money and paying content creators in the early days; they just want moreMoreMORE and I'm tired of it.

 

[Hot Monkey]

I'm also trying something with Ewetube's algorithm.

I have been trying to find YouTube content that has no ads (rare but does exist)... so I have something... anything... to watch without ads on the treadmill in the morning. One thing I found by accident are the John Oliver HBO show segments which seem to have zero ads. And a few others I can't remember. So now I watch John Oliver regularly not because I particularly like/dislike/approve/disapprove of John Oliver... but because it's reasonably entertaining... ad free for around 20-30min depending on the length of the segment... and like you suggested I am hoping that I am maybe somehow triggering some algorithm that will learn that I prefer to watch ad free stuff. Probably not going to happen but figure it's worth a try.

 

[Botch]

I have been trying to find YouTube content that has no ads (rare but does exist)... so I have something... anything... to watch without ads on the treadmill in the morning. One thing I found by accident are the John Oliver HBO show segments which seem to have zero ads. And a few others I can't remember. So now I watch John Oliver regularly not because I particularly like/dislike/approve/disapprove of John Oliver... but because it's reasonably entertaining... ad free for around 20-30min depending on the length of the segment... and like you suggested I am hoping that I am maybe somehow triggering some algorithm that will learn that I prefer to watch ad free stuff. Probably not going to happen but figure it's worth a try.

Yup, they're out there. And I don't know if that's ewetube's decision, or the content creators. "The Late Show with Steven Colbert" also is ad-free (and I love John Oliver!) I also tried something this afternoon with a cooking channel I follow; I opened the video in a separate window (CMD-click) and when I saw the ad, I immediately closed the window; then immediately opened that video in a separate window again, and... no ads! I'll have to keep experimenting with that. Probably a bit fussy if you're on a treadmill.

I've also been playing with "SwizzTube", from Apple's App Store. It gives you links to DuckDuckGo and Google search engines, without ads, and also Ewetube and "Twitch" video players, also without ads. It works but has some quirks that I'm still trying to figure out, may post more in a couple days.

EDIT: Oh, and I figured out one other trick. Some of the ewetube "content creators" have their own website, with their own mini-forum, a page to sell "merch", and often a list of their ewetube videos. Often (but again, not always) if you click on one of their videos that way, no ewetube ads! I've used Safari's new "Profiles" feature to collect all the channels like that in a separate place, a few extra clicks required but I avoid ads.

Did I mention that I hate, Hate, HATE ads?

 

[mcad64]

Yup, they're out there. And I don't know if that's ewetube's decision, or the content creators. "The Late Show with Steven Colbert" also is ad-free (and I love John Oliver!) I also tried something this afternoon with a cooking channel I follow; I opened the video in a separate window (CMD-click) and when I saw the ad, I immediately closed the window; then immediately opened that video in a separate window again, and... no ads! I'll have to keep experimenting with that. Probably a bit fussy if you're on a treadmill.

I've also been playing with "SwizzTube", from Apple's App Store. It gives you links to DuckDuckGo and Google search engines, without ads, and also Ewetube and "Twitch" video players, also without ads. It works but has some quirks that I'm still trying to figure out, may post more in a couple days.

EDIT: Oh, and I figured out one other trick. Some of the ewetube "content creators" have their own website, with their own mini-forum, a page to sell "merch", and often a list of their ewetube videos. Often (but again, not always) if you click on one of their videos that way, no ewetube ads! I've used Safari's new "Profiles" feature to collect all the channels like that in a separate place, a few extra clicks required but I avoid ads.

Did I mention that I hate, Hate, HATE ads?

I'm exhausted just reading your post on HOW you avoid ads!!


I watch the skip button and when it says skip I click it. In the meantime I search my innermost thoughts and try to figure out the riddles of the universe while the ad plays.

 

[Botch]

A good followup from Caleb, with an interesting history on "how we got here" and his dystopian, "the Oligarchs win again" prediction for the near-future.

 

[Mr.6]

Streaming is pretty much as bad as cable tv now.