One’s an active decision and one is forced upon them. They are not the same.
One’s an active decision
There are not so many quality notebooks without any brand-logos on them.
Also wearing a brand-logo when you have the choice not to, is kinda cringe.
I don’t necessarily agree. If a brand makes high quality stuff I’m not gonna avoid them just because they put their logo on their stuff. I have a kickass Adidas backpack from 2014 that is by far my favorite, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna get rid of it just because it has an Adidas logo on it.
I also have perfectly good clothes with various brands on them, and I’m not just gonna throw them away because that’s wasteful as hell. I don’t go out of my way to buy stuff with brands on them, but that won’t stop me from buying something I genuinely like and find to be high quality.
I want to see if I can find a quality Gateway 2000 decal I can stick on my next laptop so nobody touches it.
Most people probably wouldn’t even recognize the gateway logo anymore. It would work on me though. My past experience with gateways is entirely negative.
Man, gateway sucked, but I had one great experience with them. They got me laid in an incredible way, so that logo is dear to me.
Agreed on both, though if I ever get a personnal macbook (which I’m definitely considering, their silicon is so good), it’s definitely gonna involve a sticker
Seriously. Do people avoid buying Macbooks just because there’s a logo on the back? They make good hardware.
But they’re overpriced and have made many anti-consumer choices and as a consequence have made other platforms worse, because many other companies like to follow Apple.
I agree the hardware upgrades are obscenely expensive, but the base model pro’s are hard to beat for the price, depending on what you are looking for.
“hard to beat for the price” hahaha
I spent a little bit of time looking for true alternatives to a MacBook that would fit my needs, but there really aren’t any. Once you check out laptops with 16+ hour of battery life, then add a bright, HDR, color-accurate display, then add the performance of the M-series chips (which are not THE best, but certainly close to the best options from AMD and Intel), and decent speakers, there really isn’t anything to compete.
A base 14" M3 Pro is around $1750, which isn’t that far out of line for high-performing laptops in general. If someone needs something cheaper, they can get a used 14" M1 Pro for around $900-$1k. Also, if you’re someone that already owns an iPhone, it’s kind of hard to even see why you would go with something else unless you are required to use Windows applications or want to play a bunch of AAA games.
I’m beginning to think that people that diss MacBooks are just people that never owned them.
For people that are really struggling financially, but still want the above features, the 2020 13" M1 Air w/16GB RAM and 256GB storage can be found for about $500.
Mine was free!
I was an Apple employee, though… And they’d bin it and give me a new one every 24 months because upgrading’s not an option. Wouldn’t even wipe them and hand them/sell them to employees.
All the actual workhorse machines were Lenovo. If you worked with external clients, you’d get a Surface Pro so they didn’t have to work around your incompatibilities with their software, systems, and enterprise environments.
Also used to use an old Pentium 4 we found as a team server because multi-threading and 64-bit wasn’t available for some MS Enterprise applications in macOS then, but 365 and applications like Power BI is obviously what Apple runs on. This ancient box had a 4:3 monitor and an IBM logo on it, so it was made some time before 2005. But 64-bit CPU and no macOS, so it crunched calculations faster than the 6-core i7 in the MBPs. The day we could finally use all cores and 64-bit on the macOS systems was amazing, but we still kept the old IBM box around to monitor and log connections. I like to think my old friend is still kicking on…
Find another well build machine in a similar form factor that performs similarly, and gets even comparable battery life. Raw benchmarking performance isn’t the only value to a laptop.
The dell xps 13+ maybe? But that’s 13th Gen. intel and battery life is pretty awful.
But its all chained to shit rabidly anti consumer borderline soyware proprietary ecosystem software, so it’s basically trash.
Also, they’ve been making some really fucking stupid design decisions. Fucking camera in the middle of my fucking screen? Kill yourself, I’d rather just not have it.
Adblock lol
(If you are still using Adblock, I beg you, switch to ublock origin. Adblock takes money from advertisers to not block their shit.)
Adblock user = noob
I read the comic as referring to adblocking software as opposed to any specific extension. I can’t pinpoint what gives me that idea though so who knows
That’s weird because it’s both the icon of the app, and the exact name.
Yeah but nobody uses that one anymore and its become kind of an archetypal thing.
Maybe that’s the point of the comic. He only uses the popular brands.
…oh shit, was this an ad for adblock?
I’m using adblock plus (not sure if it’s the same one), I’ve never seen an ad not be blocked by it. Where does this happen?
I don’t run Adblock because I hate brands, I use it because the internet is more invasive by the day.
If one day I go to put on my shirt and another company sewed their logo over the neck hole, well then we’ll have a similar issue.
You go to reach for a coffee and the wrist hole of your sleeve suddenly accordions over your entire hand as an ad unfurls from your shoulder.
I open the toilet seat to have a pee, a three foot flag unfurls from the ceiling, ITS HONDAFEST!
A small corporate social media account emerges from the bowl, screaming relatable phrases it copied from r/memes. ITS GIVING SAVINGS, FAM NO CAP.
My wife enters asking if I’m ok. I reach out for her, too late, she has become a smiling vacant eyed Summer’s Eve ad. Not so fresh, I weep.
The future of neurolink.
I use it because that increasing invasiveness really messes with my ADHD. Ads make me spend extra energy and concentration to filter to what I want (and I won’t buy their crap anyway).
Honestly, I’m not against ads, I understand that a site with free articles needs to pay the bills somehow. The reason I use ad block is that online ads have become so intrusive that it makes websites unusable, and the way they track you is way over the line. If ads didn’t completely destroy the experience of reading a website and were reasonable in the data they collected I probably wouldn’t bother with ad block.
Good take
I wouldn’t even be against sharing some information so they could give me better ads
I’m not in the market for a new car. I don’t need car ads.
But knowing I shop at Something Hardware a lot and they are having a spring black friday sale on the tool I’ve been eyeing would be nice.
Even still Something Hardware just slapping their logo in an ad is not helpful at all.
If ads were helpful they wouldn’t be annoying
The website you’re on gives that information
They don’t need to track for that
Eg. Looking at car reviews, here’s a car ad. Watching the news? Here’s a gun ad
I feel like there’s some social commentary here somewhere but it might just be a bit too subtle.
I don’t like cars
That’s cos you like boobies instead!
Sensible.
But that’s not what they’re for. They exist to influence you abd control you, not infirm you and help you collaborate.
When I just used a browser ad blocker I made a point to unblock sites that I wanted to support and didn’t use obnoxious ads. Unfortunately for them I now use a network ad blocker too and it’s more of a hassle. One of these days I might make a list of domains to unblock but at the moment I’m more concerned with figuring out how to block YouTube ads at the domain level.
Afaik, they are unblockable. They are served from the same domain as the video, so if you block them you can’t see the video either.
Instead of blocking it at the domain level, you can install adblockers on almost any platform. I recommend uBlock for Firefox and ReVanced for Android. ReVanced is also supposed to work on Android TVs, iirc.
Running NewPipe for android to get ad free youtube, have been reasonably satisfied. Is revanced comparable, or good enought to bother switching?
Assuming you don’t mind microG, with revanced you can sign in and have access to more of the bells and whistles. Otherwise, newpipe is great, and it’s more than YouTube. It handles bandcamo and other services too
ReVanced is a modded YouTube (and others) app. IE normal YouTube but you fuck with it locally to skirt what got the original Vanced guys. Adblock, OLED black theme same old thing Vanced provided. I’ve used NewPipe very little but I’d summerise a comparison as ReVanced has better user experience (thanks to Google making the app) and you can sign in/get notifications ect
Yeah I’d be okay with banner ads on the side of shit. Might even feel obliged to look if they weren’t fucking spying on me.
Won’t happen though. Advertising is about control, and anyone looking for more is never gonna give an inch.
Fuck ads, you don’t owe them anything.
I had a family member like this… They’d go off about how awful capitalism is, and the shit that goes with it (to which I’d generally agree) but have a house full of google home devices, brag about how much they buy on amazon, and simp for the giant megacorp for which they worked a retail job…
It woulda been funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Let’s never forget that it is ok to criticize a system you’re part of.
It sure is. Unfair examples would include:
- yet he buys groceries!
- yet he drives to work!
- yet he is complicit in the slave trade via rare earth metals in his phone!
I did think a house full of smart speakers from the advertising behemoth is a kinda funny example though - what do you think?
I think the problem with capitalism isn’t the cool stuff that has been produced under it, it’s everything else about it. Literally the only reason to forgo buying a MacBook or a Google Home device as some sort of anti-capitalism spite move is to have the upper hand in conversations like this. In reality, you not making those purchases won’t move the needle in any way. If it did, it would be in the negative. Our entire economic system and system of employment relies on making purchases like that. Consumer spending is the economy.
Fundamentally there is no difference between buying an iPhone vs any other phone in terms of its support for capitalism. If anything, an iPhone might be better. Apple actually inspects its factories and at least pays lip service to stopping the most egregious abuses like forced or child labour. That white box Chinese android phone? If anything was built by forced or child labour, it’s that.
So targeting individuals for their purchases is both pointless and counterproductive. If you want to affect change, then vote, protest, organize. Push for and support proper regulation and controls. Make it so that people’s employment isn’t required for them to get healthcare, services, shelter. Make it so that an economic recession impacts those with the most, not those with the least.
Stressing about trying to make the least capitalist choice under a capitalist system just does exactly what they want you to do. The more time you spend judging your neighbour, the less time you spend looking up and see who’s really fucking you.
Thank you. I was trying to figure out how to express my opinion on this matter, and you pretty much did. We’re all allies in this, just by virtue of the fact that we were born into it. Let your fellow man do their thing, knowing they probably made the best decision possible with the information they had, and focus on systemic improvements, instead of trying to control one dude at the end of the line.
He complains about life yet he is still alive. Curious.
/s
I spose you missed the part where I generally agreed with his criticisms (as someone who is also part of the system), and how the focus of my reply was the simping and bragging.
I’m with you, liked your comment.
Someone had a great reply to me though!
According to Varoufakis, this is techno feudalism. He wrote a book about it. So arguably, it’s not capitalism but by no means is it better than that
Varoufakis is just one of many people who have come up with fancy new terms for capitalism and imperialism. It’s not to say that he doesn’t have an important perspective on some things, but coming up with new terms for things defined over a century ago only serves to distract.
Wouldn’t the best term be mercantilism? Power through the accumulation of wealth, but instead of nations it’s now corporations. It’s definitely not capitalist since capitalism is about having competition, and that doesn’t happen without constant government intervention to break up monopolies and trusts.
over a century ago Lenin has defined imperialism as capitalism in decay, monopoly capitalism, capitalism that has outgrown competition, that has stopped playing a progressive role in history and became solely a force of reaction, and since then not much has changed
Fair point.
Though counterpoint: if someone is willing to spend $3000+ on an apple computer and cool swag. The ads already worked.
However, if the Q/A on your product is so bad, that someone who spends $3000+ would rather install an ad-block to get rid of that experience, maybe the quality assurance on those ads or products aren’t as good as people think.
i think its just them trying to turn something that works up to 11
internet ads used to be more tolerable for a brief window there, after the popup craze died and before whatever the fuck we have now
Blocking ads is your duty and obligation. It is my honor to make sure every cent these companies spend on it is wasted. Stay Blocking my friends.
i install ublock origin on every computer i can get away with.
Hmm, whether PPC or PPI (pay per click / impression), I don’t believe advertisers are spending anything on you. I believe it’s whoever is paying the web host who’s losing, and it’s potential revenue instead of an expenditure.
Certain ad blockers click ads for you. Assuming these clicks aren’t registered as coming from a bot (a big assumption, I know), then those clicks should count as interactions on the ads.
True but don’t forget that we probably enjoy the benefits of ad-based internet. If way more people would adblock than currently, then a lot of sites may need to resort to paywalled or whatever other type of monetisation. Happy UbO user tho.
I hate buying any clothing with a brand name visible, but for certain types of item like sports clothes it’s almost impossible.
I just want plain coloured t shirts / abstract geometric patterns without annoying words!
Oh my god its so fucking annoying!
Buy Chinese knockoffs, they are cheaper and have random brand names. Lol
I’d rather choose my own poison than having them shoved in my face with auto play audio when I’m looking for porns. Thank you.
wow plural, you must be good!
He’s good son, real good! Maybe even the best.
Ha! I finally have the right place to brag about my anti logo wearing lifestyle!
Regardless of anti-corporatism sentiments, it’s just good fashion sense anyway.
I don’t get it why spend lots of money to have some fancy logo on a plain coloured shirt made by Chinese children, when you could get the same thing without the logo for under $10. I guess it’s a status symbol
Okay but less slaves blood to float on, so how much do you really save?
Maybe I can grift a nice bounty developing AR glasses which patch out all the brands on clothes and places in real-time.
Don’t forget to put a brand logo on them so that others can easily see it.
Just wait till the corpos have their hands on that, theyll make it do the opposite
Change that to a hat with a stage musical logo, and a metal band shirt, and this is me.
But when it comes to clothes, I can choose which ads I serve :)
I’m generally pretty covered in metal (and punk for the last couple years) band logos. It’s less of a side effect of buying clothing and more of a choice to directly support artists while giving them free advertising.
Don’t know what I was getting at tbh, I agree with you.
Why do I know you have a Mastadon shirt…
Nah I liked the first album but I’m really more of a Thrash/OSDM kinda guy, the progressive stuff doesn’t really appeal to me at all anymore.
Oh kind sir…I love anything from Morrisound Studios and Scott Benson… you should check out Kill Division…it’s got ex Malevolent Creation folks
That’s really good! Thanks for the rec!
Absolutely my man…I am going to presume you are well versed with Misery Index and Dying Fetus…if not definitely check them out. There’s a decent Death metal band out of Philly called Abortion Survivor you can find on bandcamp
Wearing band logos are very different to wearing brand logos. A band logo stands for something that you love, a brand is just capitalist nihilism; completely meaningless except signaling how much your garment costs and perhaps that you are stupid enough to believe that buying a certain brand says something about you or aligns you with something. Branding is for cattle.
I have a shirt that says Democracy Delivers with a picture of a plane dropping bombs…it’s not a band shirt but I think it’s as neat as my band shirts…but truth be told Grindcore band shirts are usually pretty off-putting visually but most of the time strive to actually make a point
I wouldn’t have a problem with adverts if there was a guarantee of no malware, no phishing, no scams.
They cry about not being able to serve ads while serving ads that are straight malware and scams. It’s especially funny when a platform goes out of their way to censor (suppress ad revenue) on videos which have even a chance of being misinformation and then proceed to play back to back ads of somebody selling their get rich quick webinar.
On YouTube, AI Musk has been telling me every other day about some amazing get rich quick scheme. I report it and days later YouTube emails me saying “Our investigation concluded that this is not a scam or spam”. As if.
Also if they were just less intrusive, a little static banner ad is fine
The best part is that more ethical ads are harder to block, because trackers are one of the easiest ways to identify ads.
Hell, the adblocker I use (adnauseam) doesn’t block ethical ads by default.
What are ethical ads?
In general: non-intrusive, non-tracking ads, with robust verification (i.e. not scams or lies), such as the ones you find on https://modrinth.com, or duckduckgo
With adnauseam: https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/FAQ#what-is-the-effs-do-not-track-standard-and-how-it-is-supported-in-adnauseam
I just visited Modrinth and yeah, the ads even match the theme of the website!
If that dude’s outfit was animated and played noise, and the guy jumped in front of whatever I was looking at and wouldn’t go away, and sometimes he put random shit in my pockets or got me sick, then I’d hate that guy just as much as internet ads
If I was paid to wear a logo then sure but to spend money on a shirt of a logo seems weird to me.
I laughed at the meme, but I also bought branded merch from a brewery whose beer I don’t even drink (unless I’m already drunk) because I was in their gift shop.
