To people who look at commercial ads; why do you look at ads? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 days ago by comfy@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Yes, this instance is definitely the wrong place to ask, but maybe I'll be surprised.

I hate commercial ads. I consider them intolerable and violating. I'm far from alone in this perspective (see: famous Banksy quote, and subvertising + related cultures). It's one of the rawest forms of exploitative manipulation.

So surely you can understand my confusion whenever I see people just watching ads on their phone until they finish, or even watching ads on television until their show starts again. Come on, just do something else for 4 minutes (most channels run two 4 minute segments per half hour, that why your downloaded TV episodes are 22 minutes each instead of 30)

Is there a more meaningful answer than "laziness"?

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[-] dsilverz@calckey.world 3 points 2 days ago

@comfy@lemmy.ml @asklemmy@lemmy.ml

Back when I used TikTok, I found some incredibly rare, interesting pitches, regarding some kind of product or service I didn't know the existence of. Can't really recall examples atm; it's been a long time since I ditched TikTok, but I vaguely remember seeing some agricultural-related ads (farm machinery) which instantly led me to wonder "what the... What is this thing, how does it work?". Of course I didn't buy the thing, it's just that it was interesting to learn about the existence of such a thing, even if through some annoying piece of advertisement.

Again, extremely rare situations.

this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026

54 points (100.0% liked)

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