sponsor rule

Magic spoon got me. I was looking for a protein cereal so I was excited for a podcast I listen to advertise one. All the flavors are the same gross base that cut up your mouth with different artificial powders put on top. Of course I start seeing a bunch ads more after

I was blindsided by the monitor getting thought bubbles.

This is partly why I don't trust Ground News. They're putting way too much money into advertising for me to believe they're genuinely interested in providing an unbiased factual categorization of news sources.
I also simply don't believe it's possible to be unbiased, so anyone claiming to be is immediately suspect to me.
- They also reinforce seeing liberal and conservative as opposites. The only good service they have is showing who sponsors which sources. However, the whole "blindspot" system seems designed as a both-sidesism
  
  Exactly! It's really disheartening to me to see so many youtubers who are otherwise insightful be so uncritically supportive of Ground News because they "like what they're trying to do."

If they have the budget to mass advertise then that means they're earning probably 100x that, most likely directly from users.

This is the rule I live by when being forced fed ads. I will actively go out of my way to not use whatever product it is.

This was exactly how I felt about the Honey scam. xD
Very first thought was "how the fuck are they making money enough to advertise??"
- I heard about it, downloaded it, tried it. Then i googled for other coupons and found a better one. Deleted Honey right away for being shit.
  Im surprised so many people would just trust the app immediately and not try to see if there were better coupons.

Only advertised product I've ever spent money on is NordVPN which is fine for my use case - avoiding geoblocking a couple of times a week. Probably switching to Mullvad soon though, because American companies can eat dirt.
But yeah, honey was always super sus. If something seems "too good to be true", maybe it is.
- Funny to me because I can't recall the last time I ever saw a Mullvad ad but they had their little mole guy plastered over a bus in my (American) city. Thought it was cute and quirky because I doubt 80% of the people in my area even know what a VPN is. Better than the usual lame ads like for lawyers or health insurance.

Huh, this company is spending a lot of money on marketing. Guess I'll buy from a company doing less marketing so I'll get it cheaper.
- Or that is so good, they don't need anything more than word of mouth. And I mean real word of mouth, not the fake influencer shilling that relies on parasocial relationships "word of mouth"
  
  I exclusively buy from brands that are engrained in folk lore. Unless it's literally the stuff of legends, you won't see a penny from me

I have a rule if they sponsor on multiple youtubers they are probably a scam and avoid. If i find the service interesting i search up alternatives that spend their money better
- yeah, the only good sponsorships are the sponsors of small niche channels, like a lens sponsorship on a photography channel.

This is how I felt when Bambulab started giving all creators printers.

I have noticed every YouTube sponsor, with no exception so far, is 1. A scam. 2. Overpriced.
- The 3rd option, "product of the creator," can actually be ok sometimes. It just depends on if the creator is the type to scam people.

SponsorBlock FTW!
- also also, firefox on android supports extensions. never go anywhere without ublock origin and sponsorblock.
  
  If you're on android I'd recommend viewing youtube videos through newpipe as it strips out everything except for the stream. Only downside is that it doesn't have replacement functionality for sponsorblock.
  
  No need for the clumsy browser experience. Just download ReVanced.
  
  or just get tubular from f-droid, which has sponsorblock built in

I assume if companies have a positive ROI for ads/sponsorships, they have very high profits (i.e. they're ripping people off).
- can’t afford ads if you have an honest product

That's how advertising works…

Nothing feels worse than seeing ads for shit you've already got, too. That's when you know you've fucked up
- yeah, the best time to advertise at me about a thing is while I'm researching thing to buy.
  Advertising at me after I bought the thing is useless, I already bought it!
  
  It does have a purpose. I found the name of it once, but it's basically choice confirmation. When you buy something and then shortly after see lots of ads of other people who bought the same thing and are really happy with it/it appears popular, it confirms to you that you made the right choice and should make it again if given the chance. This kind of "confirmation after the fact" advertising is especially used in larger purchases like a car. It reinforces the choice you made in your mind so you feel more satisfied with the brand itself.
  
  Bought a gift for a babyshower, I was getting ads for baby stuff for the following 3 years

fuckin looking at YOU, OPERA GX.
- NordVPN and ExpressVPN are trying to hide behind Opera

This, but applied to all ads.

RAID SHADOW LE- JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP, BRAND!
- The funniest thing was when Alec Steele (blacksmithing/metal working YouTuber) did a Raid add. Him following their standard script was ridiculous
  His phone he played the game on had a cracked screen
  It really showed me not to believe any of his ads in particular

I feel this way about Aura. They'll stop other companies from using your personal data but do they ever say they won't use it?
- I think it's safe to presume they are trying to capture all of the value of your data.
  They are certainly selling whatever data they collect, unless they're making their own advertising service
- This is what I hate about that whole model. Are they just trying to insert themselves as a middle man?

Me with Sponsorblock: gremlin noises

hmm enough profits to sponser all youtube. sus
- Especially if it's a free to play game
  That just tells me "you will definitely spend money to get what you're looking for in this game"
  No fucking thanks
  
  a free thing with suspicious amount of advertising requires a lot questioning at the least

This was me watching the Hims ad during the Superbowl lol.

VPN is a scam~ 🥰🥰🥰
- Yes and no. A lot of VPN ads are full of lies and misleading garbage, and they're also often pretty overpriced, but they can be a genuinely useful service for a lot of people as well. Just don't get the ones in the ads.
- If you are fine with torrenting using your real IP, then yes. However, here this can easily lead to high legal bills as rightholders can demand pay for damages even if a tracker just returned your IP as a participant of a swarm. There is no first strike here where you just get a mean letter. It goes into the thousands straight away.
  Personally, I wouldn't do that, especially here with law firms that specialize in that kind of behavior. I rather pay some bucks for that rare case where I want to get something from BitTorrent than risk all that hassle.
  
  VPN, as it is sold by YT sponsorships, is a scam.
  
  Where is "here"? Germany? Italy? Most other EU nations don't give a fuck though. I've been torrenting straight from tpb proxies for over two decades without a single hitch.
  
  If you're only interested in torrenting don't use a VPN, just get a seedbox. You can get one with minimal stats (1TB storage, 2TB/mo upload on a 50Gb connection) for like $6/mo. You use it to run all of your torrents and handle seeding (handy for getting access to private trackers) and then just download everything via SFTP/rsync/whatever. Or, you can spend a bit more and have them host the *arr suite and Plex/Jellyfin so you have your own private streaming service. Split between a few family members, this is a very affordable alternative to commercial streaming services.
  If you're looking for a VPN for privacy concerns, don't use a US-based provider. You have no guarantee of privacy, just a flimsy 'guarantee' from the company. Use a provider located in a place that has strong privacy and secrecy laws, like Switzerland.
- some vpns are scams, yes, but that happens in every industry. Ignoring illegal shit, my Internet speeds are faster when I use a vpn vs not, and that's reason enough to have one.
  
  I used mine for a similar case because my previous provider had shitty peering which caused YouTube etc to not work well, especially Saturday evening (search for Telekom peering of you want to know more). VPN circumvented this. However I have since switched to a better provider

It's a great general policy to have, but there are exceptions. NordVPN and ExpressVPN are both great VPN services, and Nebula has been absolutely fantastic.
- Nebula is a creater owned abs controlled coop isn't it? Way different beast.
  
  Yeah, more or less.
  But that's sort of the point, isn't it? Just because something's being advertised in a lot of places, doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad deal.
- Yeah, but the creators advertising Nebula also make the content, and there's definitely VPN providers I distrust less than those two.
  
  and there’s definitely VPN providers I distrust less than those two
  I find that a weird way to phrase it. Both Nord and Express are perfectly good. So is PIA, and probably more besides, but I didn't mention others because those are the two I've frequently seen advertised. Both Nord and Express have passed security audits with flying colours, and Express even had a case where their servers were seized but the seizure was unable to be of any value to the authorities, because their claims of not keeping logs were true.
- When I was shopping for a VPN I skipped those two specifically because they advertised on most podcasts I listened to (I know they are good now but that made me skeptic back then)
- I tried Nord VPN and realized three things: 1: The "limited time specials" they boast are completely misleading. You pay more per month than what they make it sound like in their sponsored messages. 2: They try to automatically renew your subscription and charge your credit card for a significantly higher price with the hope that you wouldn't notice. 3: Unsubscribing is made to be a frustrating pain in the ass. You have to talk to their sales representatives and they will make you argue for it. And then you'll have to do it all over again because even though they said they cancelled your subscription it won't be because " technical problems".
  VPNs rely entirely on trust and Nord has proven to be completely untrustworthy.
  I use Mullvad now and it uses none of those deceiving tactics to lock you into an expensive contact. It also goes long ways to keep you anonymous and has periodic audits to prove they don't collect your data.