Ads on FrancisUniverse
First of all let’s make it clear, this website is not made to earn money. So it doesn’t matter if you’re using an AdBlocker or not. And I even recommend using one. The ads on this website are here because I don’t wanna pay WordPress to remove them.
Ads in my YouTube videos
The only time when I’d like you to pause your AdBlocker it’s when you’re watching my YouTube videos because thanks to my monetized videos I might one day earn a little bit of money. But it’s not even enough to buy a Coke at a bar. But I hope one day I will make enough money on YouTube to pay a domain name and remove ads from this blog. So if you disable your AdBlocker while watching them thank you, if not… I also thank you and if you want to help me hit the thumbs up button and share the videos if you find them useful.
What about other channels you’ll ask?
I think it depends on how big the YouTuber’s channel is. It’s very hard to make money on YouTube when you’re small and very small like my channel but after reaching a certain point I think it doesn’t really matter if the viewers have their AdBlocker on or off.
Following this statement, I disable my AdBlocker for new YouTubers and rising YouTubers but for YouTubers like PewDiePie, Casey Neistat or companies like BuzzFeed I don’t bother disabling it since they don’t need commercial revenues to make money and a living since they also do a lot of sponsored videos for which they’re paid for.
What I think about ads in general and my relation to it?
All the day long we are attacked by commercials and advertisement. You woke up and turn the radio on you have 1 chance out of 3 to hear a commercial -I’m speaking about French Radio. Then you turn the TV on while eating your breakfast I’m almost sure you’re gonna catch an ad. When I was in the US I was watching TV and something impressed me. I was watching an episode of “The Simpsons”. The opening started with the famous Bart chalkboard gag and the couch gag then fade to black and… COMMERCIAL! And I’m not talking about one single commercial but what I call a burst of ads! In my memories, the burst was longer than the Simpsons opening! Then, the episode started again then 5 minutes later just after a fade to black another long burst of ads and it was like that during the whole episode! The cherry on the cake that made me laughed, was by the end of the episode another fade to the black following by I let you guess… another burst of ads and when the episode resumed it was… the credits, following by … yes you guessed it! A burst of ads. The average episode length of The Simpsons is 22min but with all commercial breaks, it almost doubles the length of the episode. Those breaks make it very hard to follow the story of the movie or of the show you’re watching. In fact most of the time I gave up and went later on the internet to watch it again without commercials.
In France, the rules for commercial brakes on TV made them shorter and less overwhelming but they’re still here, sadly! There is something very annoying -I don’t know if they’re still doing it but I think so -I don’t watch TV anymore that’s why I’m not sure. They sync the commercial break with other channels of the same group. Let’s take an example to explain it.
On French TV there are three channels owned by the same company, M6, W9, and 6Ter. The “Groupe M6”, the name of this company, decided a couple years ago to synchronize commercials over their 3 channels, with M6 being the reference for when the commercial break starts. So you’re watching a TV-Show on M6 the commercial break starts and it happened just between 2 scenes when there is a fade to black. OK, nothing unusual. But if you’re watching something on W9 for example “The Simpsons” or “Malcolm in The Middle” on 6Ter the commercial break can start right in the middle of a sentence or a scene with a lot of suspense. And when the commercial is finished the sentence/scene resume – by the end of the commercial your forgot what the character was saying before the break. I remember at the beginning some people were wondering what the heck was going on and they asked on forums what’s the matter with the commercial breaks. Finally, Groupe M6 acknowledged that they were doing it on purpose to maximize the revenues of selling commercial time to advertisers.
Besides on TV and Radio, commercials are with you all the time even more than your wife and kids. You’re going to work? What about this giant billboard singing the praises of this awesome new car insurance or this new Samsung smartphone -that one, that will explode at your face or catch on fire in your pocket during your next business flight -OK this joke was too easy but I had to do it! But let’s be honest everyone is fed up! You’re going to your mailbox and what’s inside? A bunch of prospectus same thing when you check your emails, you have newsletters and spam!
But not enough pissing you off, those ads are also controlling your subconscious. On TV they’re targeting their viewers. Did you notice when there is a kid program, the commercials are about cereals, chocolate treats, toys and other kid-related stuff. They are manipulating the kids in order to make them ask their parents the product they saw advertised during the commercial break. By doing so, the advertisers are reaching the parents through the kids, and the parents are double-shotted, once by the commercial and then when kids are asking for the advertised product when the parents are not watching the TV and less prepared to the second attack. This technique was turned into a gag in the TV-Show “Malcolm in the Middle” in season 1 episode 12:
The worst kind of ads that I can think of, the commercial for funeral services during cultural TV games that elders love. There are also the scooters and stairlift chairs commercials. They are playing on the fact that some elders are less used to the commercial techniques and so weaker to the advertiser’s attacks. Sometimes they want to make elders buy services and products thanks to “Free gift” – BTW, if it’s a gift it’s free. And also by making them think if they buy the service or the product they will make life easier for their relatives. Most of the time it’s the total opposite because the products they are advertising are bad quality and sometimes just scam messages.
Here another example of mind control techniques used by advertisers: last time I was doing my groceries, I had to buy some laundry detergent, and I was picking a random one -the cheapest one and in my head I was telling myself “Oh no you should pick this other one because it keeps your white laundry really white and make it even whiter” It’s literally the slogan used in the commercial! And I never watch TV, the only time I’m watching it it’s when I’m eating at my parents’ house on weekends! The funny thing is that I have a very bad memory, for example, I was never able to learn the multiplication tables back in primary school. I also have hard times memorize simple stuff like new colleagues name, but a commercial I barely heard once while talking with someone no problem! It’s crazy how advertisers are good to make it easy to remember things. I think they should try something for students in order to help them memorizing lessons 😂
So, I think we need some rest from all those commercials and that’s why I’m using an AdBlocker on my computer and on my iPhone and I wish something like that could exist on TV and on Radio.
Even the Content Providers confessed it in 2015 “They messed up” the Web. Scott Cunningham, senior vice president of technology at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said: “As technologist, tasked with delivering content and services to users, we lost track of the user experience”. You can read the article published on the Washington Poste on October 15, 2015, here: Advertisers admit it: ‘We messed up’ the Web
For me, people working on the internet and huge websites have to find another way to earn money and reduce their use of ads. Some are adding the possibility to make donation thanks to Paypal or other services and that’s a good idea, some other think it’ll be a good idea to make their readers pay to read all their low-quality articles, I think it is a very bad idea because people won’t pay for something they can read somewhere else for free and with a better quality. The worst thing I’ve seen so far is the article where you can only read the half of it and if you want to access the full version you have to pay a monthly subscription or pay $2 to have the full version. And they are also using ads, and some medias are also distributing newspaper with commercials in it! Don’t you think it’s a bit odd?!
Another example:
But…
Some websites who grew up and never used ads have now to make some money to pay hosting bills and keep them up, so they decided to do something very smart it’s the premium content. They still publishing the same amount of public content than before but they are doing premium stuff that only premium readers can access in exchange of a little subscription fee and they also accept donations -I’m thinking about a french website lokan.jp that I love if you’re reading me LoKan hello 😉!
Be smart
The downside of AdBlocker it’s that some websites aren’t working very well when you’re using an AdBlocker. Websites like Amazon or governmental websites are not using or almost no ads but your AdBlocker think some functions or part of the website are commercials and it broke them. If you notice that some websites are buggy just try without your AdBlocker sometimes there is no ads or just a little and they are not intrusive at all.
To finish this post I’ll tell you to use your head and be smart when you’re browsing the web. Also, try to not be influenced by advertisers, the most advertised product is often not the more efficient.
Francis Universe 