I would love to know from the rest here - isn’t a solution to the ad creep just… not buying things? Like going for second hand / refurbished, avoiding big brands for food and drink, and just not shopping online (ffs)? Or am I being naive? Enlighten me!
Of course working under the assumption that the government cannot (yet) admit to tracking us for more sinister purposes. That’s a problem for another day.
Not shopping on line will most often cause consumers to spend more time to find what they are looking for locally and will cost them more money. Whichever way we go (on line or off line), it is going to cost us in some way.
It’s also examining one’s own personal consumption patterns. The more one engages with it, the more exposure he or she has.
Buying second hand is only working up to a point is not sustainable if larger parts of the population did it. It also doesn’t magically solve issues with the items themselves, like smart TVs or cars (ffs?!?!) tracking you. I’m not sure how easy it is to find working, second hand dumb TVs nowadays.
There are two issues with ads: ad display (manipulation) and tracking (privacy invasion). You can easily get rid of the first problem, for the most part. The second one is to some degree also handled by ad blockers, but is to some degree very hard to completely escape. Not buying things new won’t automatically stop of tracking.
Yes it is, at least an important part. I’m buying very little in general, and it’s either second hand or local most of the time - when I have to order things for repairs, farm or household, there’s enough smaller online shops in my country or at least another European country. I despise big brands, big retail, big anything and try to stay away.
I’m blocking ads - and when I happen to see one on a friend’s screen I’m confused - this is what people are putting up with between trying to read an article or listening to their music?
That sounds pretty impressive! Do you also buy your tech the same way?
I have very little tech. Last I bought was over a year ago, a refurbished Laptop because I needed Windows 11 for work. There’s two more laptops, one bought used, the other new over 10 years ago. Both run Linux now. I’m waiting for my ancient phone battery to inflate enough to bed my little head on it and sleep and never read another notification!
I used to fly drones, back when it was done for fun, not war. I bought so much stuff, not a week without some shit from China (drone racing causes a lot of damage and there was always new, better gear to have!). Gave it up because I considered it unsustainable - so much trash, so much shipping, disturbs birds, bad fire risk … and these days it seems wiser to not be associated with drones. Since then I have gradually turned into quite the Luddite. I am very careful about the tech I permit in my life because it adds what I call a layer of bullshit between me and my direct experience of the world around me.
Support local. Get a pihole. Guard your privacy. Avoid the algorithm apps. Switch to grapheneos. Vote.
The most important one: Organize. In groups.
