
We live in an age of excess consumerism. We are constantly bombarded with adverts 24 hours a day. They are everywhere; on every street corner, on every page, on every device. Our screens serve us “targeted, personalised” ads. The corporations pay for our attention, trying to sell to us things we do not really need. We are slaves.
Online advertising is especially frightening. They relentlessly monitor your every click and track you across the Internet. They can access your search history to find out your interests and then use that information to show you a “relevant” ad, made just for you. Sometimes, online ads even seem to know personal details like your name, age, gender, and location. This behaviour is eerily reminiscent of a stalker.
Why do we tolerate this? Why must we install ad blockers in our browsers? And why, in response, do ad blocker developers find themselves continually updating their software to combat the latest techniques advertisers employ to evade them? Furthermore, there are websites that insist you disable your ad blocker the moment you arrive on their site. It is all getting a bit tiresome.
There is no how-to that follows; there is no advice to dispense. This is a rant, an ode, a lamentation of how the Internet has becomes one big, giant, obscene shopping mall.
Any online presence reliant on advertising should really be forced to use a little more imagination on how they can grow, instead of plastering adverts on everything.