Do I hate the internet, or do I just hate capitalism?
Well, hate is a strong word, but my grievances with the general internet is turning that way.
I was watching a documentary on You Tube recently with a family member and an advert for the channels membership played in the middle of the video. I was taken aback, as we were watching on a paid account of YT.
I immediately asked if they still had the paid version, which they did and went onto to tell me about the ads that popped up in videos. Jammed in, right when you are not expecting any. Turns out, even when you pay for the premium version - which is only used to turn off ads, annoyance marketing at its best - you still get ads for that channels....paid...membership!?
I was so annoyed, hence wanting to hate the internet.
But the more I thought about it, it is just capitalism with a good dose of enshitification on top.
You must make profit, at any means necessary. Extract, exploit and annoy the shit out of people until they hand over money. Ugh.
When you examine the root of capitalism, when landlords and rich European elites wanted their peasants to work for them, you realise how inhumane the system is. They fenced off resources (like water) and charged the peasants a fee to use the water. But they peasants say...we don't have any money? And the landlord is only delighted to say that they have work available for them.
Extract the resource, exploit the people and 300 years later, show them a crap tonne of ads to push them to pay.
Can we develop the Star Trek Federation system already so we can be done with this petty stuff??
-GG