Eh…This is a little rose coloured glasses. Anyone else remember the pre-adblock era of umpteen pop-up ads?
A crummy history of ads on the internet:
Starts out mostly used in formal fields and universities. Very usable!
Businesses get on board and start the horrible ad infestation, leading to scammers and popup hell duw to misuse of a feature.
Ad blockers start to reign in that shit, and the better browsers kill the popup infestation at the source. Pretty darn usable at this point, except for internet explorer.
Google, an ad company, decides to make a browser so they can do all the malicious advertising and tracking on the backend.
uBlock Origin is too effective at blocking the browser based tracking and advertising so google decided to do the manifest 3 or whatever that bullshit is called to openly force ads onto users.
Based on history, I expect chrome to die a slow death due to the backlash from the manifest crap, but could be wrong since people are apparently fine with ads being forced into streaming services.
Businesses get on board and start the horrible ad infestation
There were a couple years where businesses were “entering cyberspace” and still trying to figure it out. Mostly this involved static webpages, since they saw the web as a kind of yellow pages. i.e. a business’ web page was their ad.
people are apparently fine with ads
It amazes me how accepting most people are of ads. I suspect Google’s going to win, and their ultimate contribution to humanity will be forcing ads into everything.
It amazes me how accepting most people are of ads. I suspect Google’s going to win, and their ultimate contribution to humanity will be forcing ads into everything.
People just eat up ‘personalized’ things so whoever coined ‘personalized ads’ was an evil genius.
pop-up ads? Ha… try pop-UNDER ads.
also can’t have ads when there is no javascript to begin with. Just static content.
Not to mention the internet wasn’t as secure as it is now. There was lots of malicious code everywhere. Oh, and if you write a typo in any website’s name there was a 50/50 chance you’ll be redirected to porn.
I think this entire response thread is too young. Back when you connected to the Internet with 14.4k and 28k modems (mid to late 90’s), websites were as OP described. Simply put, there was no bandwidth for too much extra crap.
I started using Internet in 2004 (as a school kid) so i didn’t actually experience modem Internet era, but still i miss it (i’m kind of nostalgia guy as well)
Especially in Poland, where for a long time there was only dial-up Internet connection with 3-minute impulse (where each one was kinda expensive at the time), so you wanted to open as many websites in this timeframe that interested you then disconnect
Came here to say this. They make a joke about how many adds are on the Internet in an episode of Futurama that aired in 2000.
I remember using internet in mid to late 90s and there were no ads, maybe OP means that period?
I remember hunting for the actual “Download” button. Got pretty good at it I would say.
You are the millionth visitor to this site!! Click here to claim your prize now!Let’s not fool ourselves, adverts were always there and intrusive, remember those hotbars that your parents would have 100 of installed somehow? Sure things are worse, but they were never perfect.
the biggest mistake of humanity was (and still is) javascript
Are Temu the ones who say “pretend you’re a billionaire” or something but their ads always have the most bizarre, undesirable-looking, nasty, cheap, plastic things in them?
Yep. That’s the ones. Or really pornographic or absurd. Cause buying more makes you feel like you have control of your life when you can buy a new shirt that dissolves when you wash it because you can’t afford to take a day off to walk around a park.
Reeeeeaalllllllyyyy putting on the rose tinted goggles, here…
Why aren’t you using ublock origin like a rational adult?
l use it
And politically biased content… fuck you Reddit
Algorithms
Algorithms? On my website? It’s more likely than you think!
But not needed.
Yeah but you get it all 1000 times faster and mum can still use the phone at the same time
Can we please not destroy the word algorithm? It’s such a nice word…
Or when the search results say “learn about [thing], [insert adjectives here]” or other bullshit instead of just giving you the answer.
“Inrelevant Information”? That’s unpossible english!
inrilevant
I think most websites have better UI now. Sure not all of them, but generally they are more appealing and easy to navigate from any device.
Man… Try saying that with a non standard size phone screen… Or the terrible UI to force you into downloading an app.
Can’t even check the balance on a Dave and busters card without a masters degree in computer science.
Ok boomer
