IIt's one of those tragic game theory problems, like the prisonwr's dilemma, climate change or anything else where we all suffer because it's in no one's self interest to do the socially beneficial thing.
Back in the day, before ad blockers general unobtrusive ads generated more revenue per site visit. As ad blockers become popular, the value of those same ads were worth less.
So, to answer your question, they were able to pay the bills with discreet ads which we decided were too annoying, leading to the current spiral of decline.
Have you subscribed or paid for many? If so, thank you! But sadly, most of us don't.
I'm not talking big conglomerates, I'm talking about independent journalism or folks who are working to build something meaningful or beneficial to me, like webcomics or fantasy hockey.
Since people started getting news online for free, quality independent journalism has plummeted and we've been left with mostly corpo media with a few indies hanging on or getting absorbed into corpo. I think it's a tragedy which adblockers have accelerated.
Honestly, I don't use many random websites frequently, the ones I do tend to be pretty non intrusive in terms of ads (cbc, dobberhockey etc) so it might just be lucky on my part.
I dunno, I just think it's a race to the bottom. If everyone ad blocks then sites either don't exist, have to get more intrusive for the small sliver who doesn't ad block or sketchy partnerships.
If it's a site I use regularly, I'll disable ad blocker, especially news. It'd be childish demand people provide me their time, labour and effort for free, especially when the ads cost me nothing.
Okay, if you're not American odds are much better there's helpful services! If you give me a province/region/country, I'll happily look into what mental health services are available.
To be clear, you imagine the Chinese government, which has a large group dedicated to censoring all internet communication/social media behind the Great Firewall, has decided that it would be rude to tweak algorithms to push similar narratives to what the Party would push?
Or what, China's very public efforts to shape global narratives only goes as far as public and global policy but they respect the sanctity of your social media feed?
It'd be much more surprising to see the Awmerican government manipulating the algorithms etc to push propoganda narratives whereas it's a pretty safe assumption that's the case on tiktok.
Edit: Sorry, do downvoters think the American government is adjusting social media algorithms? Or do folks not believe China would do so?
Last time you asked for help, folks suggested therapy. Have you looked into any of the local free options? My offer of looking for you is still on the table, just let me know what state/province etc!
I think a lot of the responses you're getting (and their upvotes) are pretty good reflections of the problem you're addressing.
I imagine the user base is a bit more diverse than the comments etc let on. It is just exhausting to even try to explain a conservative perspective viewpoint t here so I think a lot of folks just keep their heads down on anything political.
While a lot of folks have zero interest in venturing outside of their ideological comfort zones, I wonder if there sre enough of us that we could make some /community work. There were a few on reddit that were private or super tightly moderated that were pretty interesting for stuff like that...
Oh yeah the first ones were pretty bad for that. But once they figured "anti shock" iirc they were good enough to play from my jacket pocket while walking around.
Mp3s were absolutely a game changer. I bizzarely had a cd player that could handle regular cds and cds with MP3s and spent a couple days copying over a few cds worth of mp3s before I spent a year abroad.
And for all that, I bet you also appreciate the shit out of having all music all the time in all the places.
Maybe fully appreciate isn't quite the right phrase but there is something to having been forced to do things a worse way that helps you remain constantly grateful for the improvement.
Eg...I went from walkmen to cds. Holy God that was so much better, even if the first few players were pretty bad. I still chuckle when I think about my effectively unlimited access to almost all the music I can imagine vs fast forwarding to get to the song I wanted, if I was lucky enough to have the right tape on hand.
Oddly, off the top of my head, I'm not sure the most recent generation of younger adults (say, 18-25ish, whatever the "basically grew up w smartphones" generation is) have had any similar groundbreaking changes beyond AI which uhhh, isn't super popular here. Some stuff has improved (graphics etc) but off the top of my head I can't think of something that's really solved a constant annoyance. (I imagine fully autonomous vehicles would be another similar tech leap.
Ehhhhhh, I think it's a little of column A and a little of column B.
I think the biggest tik tok contributor is people now hear about ADHD and decide because they get bored in schoo sometimes they must have it etc. (As someone who struggles not to chew through their own gums as a form of fidgeting, I find this really irritating.) But let's put that aside because I don't think that's what you're asking about. I'll also ignore the fact that more people are walking into therapists having read all the symptoms and knowing essentially what to say to receive a "diagnosis."
To the actual question, I do think TikTok/smartphones/internet are definitely rewiring our brains in ways that mirror a lot of symptoms of ADD/ADHD. There's a depressingly good book about it called the Shallows but the basic thesis is that the financial incentives of the internet are geared to keep you clicking and moving through things (so you see more new ads) which habituated people to very short term impulses/reward structures. In other words, impulse control and trouble focusing long term.
Yeah, it makes sense and I don't blame you.
IIt's one of those tragic game theory problems, like the prisonwr's dilemma, climate change or anything else where we all suffer because it's in no one's self interest to do the socially beneficial thing.