How ad’s have slowly creeped further and further into your life
The other day I went to do something I often due once it’s time to start unwinding for the night. I grab my remote and go to start my tv, get all comfy in my blanket, and think to myself HMMM what to watch what to watch? A friend had recommended me a show to watch on Hulu so I figure meh worth a shot. I pull it up and press play only to be greeted with several long un-skippable ads. Part of me is frustrated but it’s a normal occurrence so I brush it off as one of the prices I have to pay to watch the shows I love.
While ads have been a thing for many many years now the amount of ads we see on a daily basis has sky rocketed. When I was younger watching the ads that appeared on my favorite YouTubers channel almost made me feel like at the very least by watching it I was contributing to them in some way or another but as an adult those one or two ads have now tripled if not more! But what’s worse is we have just learned to accept it, if you wanna watch a movie you gotta watch the ad. It doesn’t even matter what your status is or who you are, the ads will find you some way or another. So what’s a girl to do with so many ads?
An Era Before Ads
Since ads have been around for so incredibly long it can almost be hard to picture what is was like before the ad-pocolypse. While at one time it was an awesome feeling to watch your favorite content creators grow from just a small one person operation to having sponsors. I think I speak for many that many of us did not see just how much ads were going to be milked in the coming years.
We used to take many reviews at face value but as sponsorship opportunities grew with the boom of platforms such as YouTube or Tik Tok, it changed the way we view ads a lot. Nowadays it is easier than ever for influencers to sneak in fake reviews for easy money and while making money off of content creating is a goal many aspire to attain the rise in ads definitely has affected peoples honesty. Besides fake reviews other creators ramp up their ads to farm as much money off of their streams and videos. Again while I understand trying to make your bag some of the amount of ads people are running are genuinely making their videos almost impossible to watch.
Even though we have always had ads the internet used to be a place to escape all the ads that were being blasted constantly on tv. But as more and more sites began to build massive audiences business saw the great prospect that was upon them. At first the introduction of ads was but a small inconvenience. While it sucked to watch, most of the time the ads were short or at least skippable but many of these content creators were growing huge fan bases so as time has gone on these ads have just gotten more and more common and obnoxious. But it didn’t stop there, other platforms began following the money and so nowadays most streaming platforms make you pay for both the ability to use their service as well as an extra fee if you want to watch ad free.
Paying For Nothing
Now well it sucks to watch ads I could justify to myself ads on smaller content from actual people, so places like someone’s YouTube channel or stream but as ads creeped their way into streaming services oh boy was I pissed. So your telling me I have to 1. pay for the privilege of watching whatever shows are on there which often times these services are playing hot potato with one another when it comes to shows, and 2. than pay another fee if I wanted to enjoy my show add free something for the longest time was already the appeal of buying streaming services in the first place. Make it make sense lol, and maybe I wouldn’t be so peeved if the extra charge was say one or two dollars extra but often times it’s double if not triple the base price of the subscription.
What makes it worse is just how many subscriptions you need to even finish a show in the first place. Like I said these services are always playing hot potato. Shows get bounced around from one streaming platform to the next and sometimes you have to buy multiple subscriptions to finish a series in it’s entirety. My favorite thing services such as Hulu do are give me the privilege of picking my ad. While maybe it’s supposed to be a kind gesture I just find it funny that they give you the illusion of choice when both your choices are long ass boring ads.
Even if we go beyond what’s on the internet ads still plague us in everyday life. Buses, trains, even public playgrounds are littered with ads. But this influx of ads has just become another thing we sigh and watch anyways, me included. As much as I wanna be that outstanding citizen who says no to all this I still find myself renewing my subscriptions once the next month comes around.
Adjust Or Change Course?
So we clearly have a problem but how in the world do we even begin to solve it? Well the obvious choice would be for all us to cancel our subscriptions to really stick it to them but let’s be real the likely hood of that happening is probably less than 1%. Plus it’s one of those things that can be easy to justify, I mean what’s so wrong with wanting to just enjoy a show you like after working or being busy all day long? But they do add up fast, at one point me and my family were probably paying up to $100 if not more a month for all of our subscriptions. They seemed cheap when I was buying them, $12 bucks a month here for Hulu, $10 bucks a month here for Netflix, and so on. When I was younger and had less bills to pay I watched a lot of content so to me it was worth it and at the time I finally was having adult money so I wanted to enjoy it. Plus we shared some of the cost with other members in our family but even despite us sharing the cost things around us including the cost of subscriptions has only gone up. Now I have cut back on the amount subscriptions I have for several reasons.
The first would be money, as inflation has gotten worse I just don’t have the money to be wasting on things I don’t need and that leads me into my second reason, time. While I work your standard 9-5 I still have an hours worth of commuting, plenty of chores I need to do at home, and personal projects and hobbies. My third reason is that the quality of shows has also gone way down. I used to be able to binge watch good show after good show but now I often have a hard time finding something good to watch at all. Since I have really been trying to cut back on how much I spend I have begun to cut down a lot on my subscriptions. While you shouldn’t be overworking yourself I find that focusing on other interests and hobbies can help cut back on how much we depend on streaming services. Ever since I decided to take hobbies like content creating more seriously I don’t feel as bored when I am home. I also consume a lot more content off of YouTube nowadays as even with ads at least YouTube has an endless supply of content for anyone. At the end of the day there is nothing wrong with you wanting to just enjoy content but learning ways to become less dependent on it may make it easier for you to have less subscriptions putting more money in your pocket. I notice more and more people getting tired of always being advertised to each and everyday so time will tell if all our out cries will have anything to show for it. With all this being said let me know your opinions on the subject in the comments below and if you enjoyed today’s writing be sure to like, subscribe, and even share with someone else who may find it interesting!
With love, Veronica Fox
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