FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
And every gimmick hungry yob
Digging gold from rock n roll
Grabs the mic to tell us
he'll die before he's sold
But I believe in this
And it's been tested by research
He who fucks nuns
Will later join the church
User ID: 195
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
16hr ago
Actually, the two are more related than you think. A lot of Youtube's censorship decisions come from advertiser pressure. They don't want to see their brand next to a "brand risk", so Youtube decides to ban the content rather than risk losing advertisers.
That's actually a pretty good point.
If the water company in your area suddenly became private and had the legal right to refuse service to anyone, and they started forcing you to use certain sinks of theirs that had advertisements, would you really say that they're not polluting the commons, because it's not the commons, it's their party and you have to play by their rules?
I have a well.
And the analogy here would be something like, the water company allows people to get free water service in exchange for watching ads, or you can just pay for the water service. If the water company introduced a brand new service where poor people got service for free in exchange for watching advertisements, I don't know how that can possibly be considered a bad thing for the consumer? Is the argument that by offering a free-to-use service they are polluting the commons? People have to pay for their water service because otherwise the consumer is choosing to pollute...themselves?
If you want to argue that Youtube should be a subscriber only platform, with no free access to anything, argue that. Hell, if you want to argue that youtube should be nationalized, that's insane, but argue it. But arguing that a private actor should be obligated to host and provide free content is asinine snailbrained socialism.
It's like if you had a big lawn that could host a billion people, and you let anyone hang out there for free, and there were certain people who were giving speeches drawing crowds of millions on your lawn, and them moving their speeches elsewhere was just prohibitively expensive for some reason such that basically no one ever did it and we laugh at the ones who tried because they all failed miserably.
I would still own the fucking lawn. It doesn't matter if my lawn is cool, or if I invite some people and not others, or if I used to let anybody on for free but now I require you to take a copy of Watchtower if you want to hang out here, it's still my lawn. If you want to come to my party, you have to agree to my terms, because it's my party.
I think it's clear that Youtube has quite the monopoly on online video distribution.
Leaving aside whether this is a true statement or not, what does this have to do with advertising? Is the argument that because they have a monopoly, it cannot provide the service ad-supported and must rely on a subscription model?
If we want to rehash the political free speech moderation argument great, but that's a totally different "digital commons" argument than the one being made in OP, that advertising must be banned so we don't have to see it.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
21hr ago
For other countries defending themselves or acting in defense of others it seems like a just war though.
It's a whole bucket of pickles once you get into just conduct of the war (Stalin was justified in fighting Hitler, probably not in mass rape), and in the leadup to the war (Stalin equipped Hitler and partnered in the invasion of Poland; the West supported Fascism over communism; etc.)
This isn't a simple question.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Personally, I just wish they would let me pick ad categories. I would never bitch about ads again if they just let me pick ads that were A) pleasant and B) relevant to me. I don't have chrohn's disease or eczema, I'm not buying tampons, and I hate that asshole in the state farm ads (the one race flip in casting that ever truly offended me).
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I'm curious if, in this insane scenario, it would become possible for global brands to advertise on streams based in foreign countries, for the purpose of targeting American consumers of those same goods located in America. The NFL becomes PPV in the USA, but it streams free live on TikTok, and Coca Cola and Apple (through their Chinese subsidiaries, of course!) run advertisements during the game.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I don't really get this attitude. It sounds unfortunate I don't like facebook/instagram etc so I don't use them. I didn't like Twitter pre-Elon, so I didn't use it. I don't like TikTok, so I don't use it. I'm sure I miss out on a lot of content, but such is life. If you want free content on the internet to be limited to hobbies and charities, then by all means ban advertising.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
AOC and Zohran are the current guys getting the Terrible Photograph treatment in my parents mailboxes.
Which kinda proves your point. A Housemember and a Mayor from NYC.
But it's not so much the old guard transition as that Trump is just really good at politics. Whether he is really good at policy is a separate point, he is a world-historically talented politician. Look at all his knockouts on the way to belt, he's the Ali of POTUSes: ended the Bush dynasty, knocked out Rubio, Christie, Cruz, Kasich to get the nomination, then Clinton to get the belt, a close loss to Biden with weird circumstances around it (COVID), then wins the R nom so easily in 2024 that it never really got off the ground, DeSanctimonious was bodychecked and Rubio never even started his engines, and murders Biden and Kamala on his way to another title.
At this point Dems don't want to play his game. If they respond on Greenland, then they are letting Trump set the terms and pick the battle.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Dude... Chill... This is just a random internet forum. No need to get worked up about it.
Dude...Chill...This just a random internet forum. No need to get worked up about it. We argue, we hang out. Stick around, somebody will accuse you of much worse.
But I don't think we disagree that much really. When you say:
Yes, removing ads would be a sea change in how our information systems have to operate and people are going to have to get used to paying explicitly for a lot more stuff. It's going to require new business models and interfaces.
Would a subscription basis be so bad?
Then I can't philosophically argue with it. If you think the internet as it exists today is bad and should be burned to the ground and salted, great, I can jive with that. The vast majority of content would not exist or be accessible without ad supported models, if that is your goal than this is a good policy to reach it. If you are willing to bite the bullet and say Twitter Delenda Est, and youtube and facebook and instagram and every other social media service with it, then we can get to a logical position. But that is what you are arguing for here, and it's much bigger than advertising, there's not going to be social media or open content platforms that are subscription based. I'm actually curious to see someone try to make one, but I'm not sure I would subscribe if they did anyway. Even this place I wouldn't want to subscribe, a one time payment maybe, but the hassle isn't worth it.
My first counter-argument is that e.g. paying for youtube premium would only get rid of a small fraction of ads that I experience every day.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Youtube exists you can choose: a) not to consume youtube, b) to pay for youtube, c) pay for premium. The same choices exist for every content outlet. If ads offended you and you wanted to minimize consumption of ads, it would make sense to avoid advertising based content and stick to a few outlets that you can make ad free. Premium would give you an ad-free outlet, and if ads were as distasteful to the average consumer as believed, then one would consume only ad-free outlets. There's clearly a free market for ad-based and ad-free content operating right now, and most people consistently choose ad-based content over ad-free content.
After all, does Amazon (or their marketing clients) really expect people to buy twenty dollars worth of stuff off the ads on a Kindle? I'm an order of magnitude away from that for my entire life for all ads I've ever seen anywhere! No, I suspect it is companies trying not to get drowned out.
This gets into a much bigger discussion, but I strongly suspect this isn't true, even if you think it is. You've almost definitely had >$20 of marginal spend for all the ads you've ever seen in your life, across every category of good. TLP's favorite scene from The Devil Wears Prada fits in here. Another example: when I was a kid the Greyhound Rescue had a booth at the fair every year. Fifteen years later, at 26, my wife wanted a dog, and I thought a greyhound would be a good pick, based on that awareness that formed long ago. I just wasn't in the market until then, but if they hadn't done that "advertising" I would never have gotten one.
Consider also with the Kindle example: I owned and used my first kindle for over a decade. Ten years of advertising is worth something.
But I'm not sure what the difference is to you between "Buying $20 worth of stuff" vs "not getting drowned out" anyway.
After all, how much does it really cost to host a bunch of simple mostly-text-and-images websites in 2026?
Clearly it costs more than Substack is making! I exclude Substack not because I dislike it, but because it is not profitable. Virtually every place we complain about ads today, didn't have ads at one point, and then they were introduced later to try to make the company profitable. Netflix, Amazon, Youtube, Twitter. All used to be ad free. The Millenial Lifestyle Subsidy is the generational trauma of our time. Elon briefly mooted making Twitter subscription only and eliminating advertisements, but quickly abandoned that plan because it had no hope of success.
My other problem with substack as a neutral source of information is that subscriber based content inevitably tends towards siloed bubbles and extremes as writers cater to their subscribers. You're never going to subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson, and she is never going to subscribe to Kulak. Advertising on its own does not fix this, but it offers at least one path to success that doesn't rely on catering to the whims of your hardcore supporters. I'm glad Substack exists, there's value in allowing marginal and extreme voices to exist, but I don't find it a good source for neutral fact based reporting. Substack isn't going to tell me what went on at my local township meetings, or even in Harrisburg or Philadelphia. It's good for news in the sense of current events-commentary-opinion, it's not yet good for the kind of fundamentally uninteresting hard news that one historically got from a newspaper. And newspapers themselves have gotten worse at that job because of their reliance on subscriptions, leading to spiraling left-wing bias, leading to a shrinking and more left wing subscriber base, leading to spiraling left wing bias.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
On the opposition side, I think the big problem is that they've realized Trump is a much better politician than anyone on their team. And much as when I roll in BJJ with an upper belt and he starts to do something I don't understand, my first instinct is to stop him from doing it because I'm sure it will be bad for me, the Democrats don't want to fight Trump on ground that Trump has chosen. They don't want to fight over Greenland because they can't even tell if he is serious about Greenland, and he might have abandoned the idea this morning and then where are they? A lot of anti-Trumpers think it's a distraction, though with Trump it is impossible to figure out what the distraction is and what we are being distracted from exactly.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I don't know what would happen. I might be convinced by the evidence. I might learn something different altogether!
A friend once asked me to write a profile to catfish a boyfriend who she thought was tomcatting around on an r4r subreddit. I wrote a quick post, and I was HORRIFIED by the quality of the responses. These men poured their hearts out about how unique and special and smart I sounded with the most tossed-off intellectual references. It's genuinely nuts.
Then they need a pass button for questions that aren't true or false.
Just the Jus in Bello and Jus Ad Bellum question is essentially unsolvable.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Neat, but I sat there for too long debating if the statement "WWII was a Just War" is true or false, because there are like twenty ways I can frame that question and I'm not even sure which one I land on any given day like I'm spinning the philosophical equivalent of a wheel in twister.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
In what way is it a dodge? It is a fact that youtube is a private platform, created by private individuals using private capital. That a bunch of people decided to hang out on it doesn't mean it becomes public property, some kind of digital squatter's rights, like if enough people hang out on my lawn it becomes a park.
To be clear, "I don't think youtube should exist" is a fine position philosophically, and not even really one I want to argue against. I use youtube pretty rarely, and the recommended videos look existentially horrifying, we should abolish youtube and twitter and reddit and whatever else is just a-ok with me. But the position being forwarded here: "Youtube should exist without ads and also I'm never going to pay for a subscription" is the kind of retard socialism that I associate much more with Bobos whose parents cut them off than with Mottizens, and I'm disappointed to find it here.
"American Higher Education as we know it should be abolished" is a strong philosophical argument, "College should be exactly the way it is now, but someone else should pay for it" is retarded. It's shoplifter ethics. Right down to the way that both sets of retard socialists use random ideological and ethical slights ("It's a big corporation!" "They discriminated against my ideology!") to justify it.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
- And while the social penalty is much less than for men make no mistake a modern secular western woman who remains a virgin to long does receive a social penalty from both women and men. Furthermore a young woman who has abstained from sex and relationships into her mid-twenties likely has a low libido or hang ups about sex, otherwise why would she be ok waiting? Men online who want this are just setting themselves up for disappointment.
My wife and I were gossiping the other night about friends of ours from college, and a pattern emerged that women who "waited" for non-religious reasons often wound up missing the window when they could have locked down a good husband.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I'm not going to read the article, but just in the URL I can see my wife's two favorite books she made me read.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Men on online dating websites: notorious for respecting women's stated boundaries, infamous for their Kantian commitment to telling the truth, legendary for their long term commitment.
I mean if you want to work on the experiment together, I'll agree to your rules and see what happens. But I don't really think it's the glidepath to marriage to just show up online and say I WANT A HUSBAND.
The glidepath to marriage remains church.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
She'd get a lot of interest. How much of it would be serious is a different problem, and one that is impossible for even the men messaging her to assess neutrally.
Besides the basic problem of a man stringing her along, one of the great tragedies of human life is that your hypothetical desperate tech bro is lonely and has zero success with women, but the moment this girl starts dating him he will not be lonely and he will not have had zero success with women.
Human relationships are so difficult because the deal is changing in real time as it is being executed. We say to the hot girl, go date the lonely techbro niceguy, he'll worship you because he can't get anyone else. But sometimes, by showing interest in the lonely tech bro niceguy, the hot girl improves his status so much, that he isn't lonely and he isn't a niceguy anymore, and he takes his new found confidence on the road.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Sudden emphasis? Shapiro's entire campaign for governor was built around ads of him eating shabbat dinner with his family, wearing a yarmulke, going to synagogue.
It was so weirdly prominent I was convinced he was just trying to bait his opponent, who was insane, into calling him Jew Boy and ending the race right there.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Sailors did it on long whaling sailing. But, you know, also the other thing.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Content produced and hosted on private platforms isn't the commons.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Yes yes, it's very fun being a free rider. Convenient that there are still enough rubes that we can get away with it for a while.
But you object to advertising and you object to paying for youtube, but you like watching youtube. How do you think youtube should be funded?
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I don't think anyone has the juice to replace Trump. Love him or hate him, he is world historically talented.
Jared could probably handle the job, though he doesn't exactly have the popularity. At first Ivanka seemed like the pick, but I haven't heard anything about that in a long time.
At the very least, Trumpworld will always dangle a third term or a run by Don Jr to keep Rubio and Vance in line.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
However, I like to watch YouTube on my TV, which means I get ads.
I despise these ads, and wish I could make them go away; however, I have a fundamental dislike of paying for people to unshittify their services.
How would you like for Youtube to pay for the infrastructure around getting those videos to you? Who do you think should be paying to host, manage, and operate the service?
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I would assume that guys insecure about their cock list it as inches, while those insecure about their fitness list it as pack.
I think this is one of those cases where the things people complain about in romantic partners (problematic beliefs in men, women being "crazy" or demanding) are actually more like revealed preference in favor of associated attributes than they are negative judgments.
People complain about downsides belonging to partners they made love to, they aren't even aware of the downsides of those they don't.
More options
Context Copy link