Seen in a SF Muni station
Edit to add: Jeez, relax. I was on my way home from a doctor’s appointment and saw that ad. It made me chuckle so I posted it here.
If seeing this post really upsets you, take some deep breaths and keep scrolling. With any luck, you’ll have fully healed in a couple of days.
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Mod here . I found this amusing, and op is good sport, so fuck y’all I’m leaving it up. 😁
Lol, people have post-reddit PTSD if they think you’re a shill. Maybe if/when Lemmy hits the mainstream but man, we’re so off the radar most marketers have no idea this place exists.
It’s a waste of money unless you’re advertising something for Linux and/or communism… which would be a bit of a paradox, lol
linux/communism is mostly a package deal these days
i’d just like to interject for a moment, what you’re calling linux/communism is actually gnu/linux/communism. or something. idk, i really don’t want to see walls of text by richard stallman here.
All I have to say to these commenters suggesting OP is a shill:
Chill out and drink a nice, refreshing Dr. Pepper to calm your nerves.
^this message brought to you by Carl’s Jr. and the Ad Council^
This also made me chuckle. 10/10 comment.
Speaking of Dr. Pepper, try the Strawberries & Cream Zero Sugar flavor, it’s bomb
i knew mullvad was an absolute banger when i made an account. biggest green flag ever, radioactive green.
This is the type of ad I absolutely don’t mind because they aren’t for absolutely soulless companies that will fuck your grandma and then sue you for emotional damages afterwards.
I love Mullvad. ❤️
I’m going back to Europe for a few months for a visit. I was looking at other VPNs and they were offering me cheap discounts but I’d have to sign up for 2 years or some shit. Mullvad was very straightforward in their pricing and I was able to generate the VPN config and I have it installed on my travel router really easily.
Over a hundred people up voting… an ad.
Here’s the thing. The reason ads are bad is because almost every single one is for a product that will exploit the user. Mullvad is a product that does the opposite. They ask for money, but don’t force it. They intend to give power of the user’s life back to the user. Thus, some ads are actually okay. Ads about VPNs, self hosted systems, anti-corporate anticapitalist services, software that is for you to use and only ever takes telemetry for software improvement, and then only if you consent first.
Hell, before this garbage, on TV the only ads were products and charities, and everybody grew really sick of the African child ads because its sole purpose was to exploit the viewer’s empathy and get their money. Same with now, except if it’s not money they want it’s data, and data is money to them.
Related note
I’m a Ublock Origin kinda guy, but not a SponsorBlock one
Because gestures at capitalism is the thing for now:
Sponsorships, when transparent and well-chosen and clearly labeled and clever, are less grating and don’t use anti-privacy targeting methods. That’s a path forward I’m pretty much OK with (remember capitalism is the thing, you & I have to eat like the YouTubers?).
My expectation is not “everyone should do everything for free” or “you’re only allowed to sell merch, without ever mentioning it” or “uploaders must have live shows and sell tickets if they ever want a dollar”. It’s “ewww, ads” and the malware that we’re exposed to alongside them.
Meant to make a post about this but your comment triggered it early :)
Surpressing sponsors is a perverse incentive too; all the more reason to not disclose who’s paying the creator.
And yeah, any ‘moral’ justification for web ads is dead like 100 times over. I hate how hard it makes life for ‘old web’ style sites with like one innocent banner ad, but still.
Wow great point!
btw I’d also thought to mention how I wish it could just be merch or live show tix b/c: did that creator I love REALLY like the new widget that was released or were they financially incentivized?
Which is why I mentioned transparency & labeling. Some will falter and some good people will subconsciously be incentivized, but some will choose sponsors so well they’ll be fine, too.
Its kinda like influencers (and their younger viewers) are relearning the history of journalism from scratch, heh.
You can allowlist certain channels and allow certain types of sponsors (self-promo for example) from what I remember
Not saying you have to get sponsorblock tho
I only use SponsorBlock because I do not use adblock. I pay for YT Premium, and YT Premium views are worth far more than ad-driven views. I don’t like paying for something and seeing ads so I skip sponsor spots
I’ve never had a problem with ads made in this way. My only complaint would be it looks like an actual post. Even though OP is just sharing it, a filterable tag, like we have for nsfw, would be nice.
This form of “passive marketing” (I’m making up terms), I.e a random picture in the feed that you can easily scroll past is fine (assuming its marked appropriately and there are not too many). If the post catches attention enough that people start sharing it because they liked it, the marketer has done a good job. I also consider banner ads “passive”. If they actually filter out the scams and malware, and if someone wants to sponsor Rod’s Radical Recipes with a banner ad, who cares.
I do take issue with I’ll call active marketing. This is an ad you’re forced to engage with, like an unmutable gas pumps that’s playing audio, a commercial break or a pre-roll add. If I’m getting something for free, then sure an add or two seems reasonable (well, 15 years ago it did), but I’m already paying for the gas, shut the fuck up and let me enjoy my 3 minutes of stress watching the numbers go up without some guy screaming about beef jerky.
Edit: reworded the second paragraph, definitely didn’t look at the background too quick and think it was a real poster somewhere and talk about random posters on a wall…nope defiantly not.
We’ve been getting ads from them in Seattle too
They were on Boston’s T stations as well a couple months ago. Maybe they target cities specifically, I haven’t seen any outside tech industry centers.
I was surprised to see Mullvad ads on the Link. Pleasantly surprised, at that!
Mullard VPN marketing dept has a Lemmy account?
Or just a San Francisco resident — these ads are everywhere on BART (+Muni I guess) right now. (As far as ads go, they’re pretty good I guess — and no, I don’t even use them, much less work for them.)
