it's such a hellscape in that every new piece of technology is littered with ads. i watched this video that details how new smart tvs and other smart home devices are either coming with essentially permanent ads that can't be turned off or existing smart devices are continually adding more ambient advertisements. both of these often have options to be turned off if extra fees are paid, but, for example, a smart fridge may not come with a constant ad display but after a year or two, a software update might implement such a feature. robert tolppi, the video creator, mentioned how a smart TV he purchased had said in its use instructions that turning off the tv would disconnect it from the remote, which of course was false--it connected just fine to the remote after being turned off and turned on again. he also detailed how, for many of these products, the terms and conditions for these devices disallow turning off ads and threaten to cut service or force the consumer to return the item (how??) if they remove the permanent ads.

it's safe to say that everyone is bogged down by constant targeted ads wherever we look. every social media we use, our web browsers, even text mailing list ads we get, are constantly showing us that We Use All Of Your Data We Can So You Will Buy Product(TM). it seems like even thinking about how you might need to get trash bags from the store will cause every website you go on to advertise trash bags to you. throughout this year, more and more research and journalism has come out about how grocery stores track your purchase habits to match every swipe of your card with your face and will adjust product prices to the highest they think you might pay for an item. corporations continually "innovate" to squeeze every last dollar out of every last consumer so that even through boycotts and the average american having less spending money and pay not keeping up with inflation, the billionaires in the executive chairs can further line their pockets. covid allowed corporations to be bolder and bolder in their methods of fucking over working class people and consumers, and things are never going to go back to how they were.

i think our only hope is going to be jailbreaking products, which is at this point still legal. "Degoogling" and switching to dumbphones have both gained traction over the past year or two and i predict will continue to do so. i think more and more people will be purchasing used technology products and modifying them, using open-source software, and continuing to return to old methods or come up with new ones to avoid subscription fees and the inability to own product. i mean, if you're on neocities, you're probably here to fulfill the itch of using the internet to be social, knowing that social media in 2025 only serves to isolate you from your peers, collect as much data as possible, and sell you as much Product as possible. the past 10+ years of technological innovations resulting in getting accustomed to paying for convenience, i.e. uber eats, instacart, amazon, etc. have proven to drain more and more money from their consumers (while paying their workers as little as possible and bending labor laws to be able to do so) while simultaneously having shittier and shittier products and service (much of this resulting from labor exploitation). many people, including myself, are rejecting hyperconvenience, and returning to How Things Were - picking up food ourselves, shopping in-person and being choosier with where we shop, buying secondhand, reusing what we already have, and generally consuming less - but this part of fighting capitalism will likely only get harder as corporations aim to bleed every last one of us dry. i don't really have a conclusion to this aside from don't give up on making your life more inconvenient. there's something so satisfying about spending time in places on the internet that aren't bombarded with ads, in using analog technology now and then, in refusing algorithims designed for you and manually creating your own. i think fighting against constant advertising is essential for mental well-being and contentness. i don't really know what more to say. thinking about constant advertising is emotionally exhausting but i thought that video was really interesting and robert tolppi included some tips at the end of the video to further avoid being stuck with billboards in your house.