Back in the late 90s to early 2000s I think I subscribed to every tech magazine I could get my hands on. PC World, PC Magazine, Maximum PC, Red Hering, Technology Review, Popular Science (Yep), Mac World, Mac Life (even though I didn’t own a Mac), Wired, Stuff, Mobile Technology To Go, CNET…I could go on.
Back then tech magazines were an awesome, colorful, well-designed experience stuffed with content, knowledge, photos, & at times actual journalism. I was all in.
And then there were the ads. I LOVED the ads. The ads were more tech, more new products, more new services taking their shot & promising the future that I wanted to live in. Fast Company alone was so crammed with colorful ads that it rivaled the thickness of a small-town white pages.
Photo by Lisa Fotios: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-in-clown-mask-standing-outside-window-18637342/
The ads were awesome back then. They made me feel like “WOW! Look at all this great new stuff!” & you knew you were seeing them because you were interested in that type of content. Advertise tech stuff to tech people. Simple.
Ads today aren’t based on your interest. They’re based on stalking your actions & trying to predict your behavior. These are hardly ever the same thing, nor are humans so one dimensional that a passing interest in something means that’s who we are now.
Regardless of what you’ve asked to see, you’re seeing an ad (and content) today because your devices & all your actions are being constantly stalked tracked & compiled into a profile that decides that because you mistakenly bumped into a pack of diapers at the grocery store that now the trackers stalkers algorithms think you’re shopping for diapers so instead of showing you context ads based on your actual interests, you’re being force fed what the stalkers trackers algorithms have determined your future actions will be.
It’s because we now know what’s behind the curtain that ads today make us feel like we’re being stalked by an abuser who’s constantly flaunting the fact that you can’t hide from them. It’s a reminder that your stalker ad platforms & data brokers have decided that they have a right to see everything you do on the devices that you’ve already paid for, then use the internet service that you pay for to deliver the data back to themselves, & profit from the personal, private information that they siphoned from you, & then they dare you to try & do something about it.
People don’t block ads simply because they’ve become so invasive & overbearing that you can barely enjoy the content, or because we don’t understand the economics of the internet. People block ads because ad tech is creepy, arrogant, abusive & makes us feel icky.
For most media it’s clear that it’s only an excuse to show ads, so when I find good content that is actually about the content, I appreciate & want to support it so that they aren’t forced to spy on me just to survive.
I want to keep these resources around for my knowledge & enjoyment.
Wired
I’ve been a fan of Wired the magazine since I first discovered it back in the 00s.
The Information
I’m new to The Information. Discovering it recently when Paris Martineau became the new co-host of This Week In Google on the Twit Network, replacing Stacy Higginbotham.
They write good stuff, produced by real journalist. It’s that real gritty, deep dive into technology that reminds of me of Red Herring & Fast Company. Like Wired, I find myself reading multiple articles a week, not because I have to keep up with tech for work, but because I genuinely enjoy the things they talk about & report on.
ChatGPT Plus
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YouTube
I love/hate YouTube but it still remains a great resource of content created by people who are both knowledgeable & passionate about things that you are also interested in. While YouTube itself doesn’t actually create content, they do provide the content delivery network for those creators, & they profit from it with ads. A LOT of ads. There are so many that watching YouTube with ads is IMO unwatchable. There’s no way I’d spend much time on it if I was forced to watch the ads, so I pay for ad-free.
At $9.99 YouTube premium was a great value that I was happy to pay for. The fact that it came with Google Music which I also liked was a real bonus, so of course I got hooked on the service & sang its praises.
Then it went to $13.99 a month, they killed Google Music in their quest to make everything YouTube, & there no more grandfathered rates for those who’d supported it from day one. Fine. The price change was noticeable in a way that made me question if I really wanted to pay more for YouTube than Hulu, & HBO (at the time). But I stayed.
If the price goes up again, I don’t want to pay that much for it. Even if it’s $1. I’ve already been scouting out how many of the creators I like are on LBRY, & other platforms that are NOT Meta or what was formerly known as Twitter. At this point I’ve already cancelled all my streaming subscriptions because I couldn’t help but feel like a chump for slowly falling for the con of ad free at first, to now paying to still watch ads, I see the writing on the wall with YouTube.
YouTube is already following the enshittification path that Facebook took years ago as it went from being a social network where you could follow things & people that interest you, to having 2 settings that you had to constantly toggle…things you’ve asked to see & things it thinks you want to see… to taking away that option completely & forcing content across your feed that it thinks will make you angry you’ll engage with more because ads are now it’s purpose.
YouTube still lets you select your subscriptions so that you can see the most recent videos of the things you’ve actually asked to see. However, the Home page is a disaster that is easily fucked even more if you happen to watch ANY video that is not your normal interest, & it takes forever to “retrain” it to stop doing that. The only way to “retrain it” is to actually NOT watch any other videos. This is exactly how Facebook turned shitty until there was no way to “retrain” the algorithm…what you see is what you get. YouTube’s home page is such a pain in the ass & so user hostile that sometimes I’ll just log out & pick up Wired Magazine..content that I enjoy, pay to see, & that doesn’t completely change just because yesterday I picked up different magazine.
YouTube Premium is still a decent deal at the moment, but you can see that they’re going to f*ck it up. If I had to guess, they’re going to Hulu it… raise the price again, & then offer a lower priced “Premium plan”, that includes “some” ads. You know, the cable TV model of paying to watch ads that we already had.
I really want to be wrong.
The Twit Network
I discovered Leo Laporte & the gang back in the day on ZDTV (Turned Tech TV). I couldn’t believe there was a TV network all about tech & I fell in love with not only the content, but the fun personalities & experts who were talking about what I loved & had absolutely nothing to do with my geeky crushes on Kate Botello, Megan Morrone, & Sumi Das.
When Tech TV ended, not gonna lie…I was a little lost. Nothing replaced it & I was starving for tech related content. It was years before I realized that Leo had moved on & started The Twit Network. I was both ecstatic & pissed that I hadn’t known for so long. It’s been a few years now, & I’m more invested in some TWIT shows more than anything on network television. Not a week goes by that I don’t watch Mac Break Weekly, Windows Weekly, This Week in Google, & This Week in Tech live as they produce them, & then other shows like Tech News Weekly, Ask the Tech Guys & others such as This Week In Space, & the untitled Linux Show when new episodes are available.
Twit.tv produces a staggering amount of great, informative, entertaining tech content & at a production value that is unmatched by anyone else.
Leo hasn’t been shy about telling us about how they & podcasting in general has suffered from lower ad spends. How advertisers want privacy invasive metrics on their tech savvy listeners who are hip to the game & are about as anti-tracking as you can get. He’s been clear that’s not the model he wants to chase.
Tech advertisers still haven’t figured out that the audience they really want to reach. The real geeks, industry insiders, decision makers, & the most likely to be first adopters DO NOT WANT TO BE TRACKED. You can get away with it when the audience is oblivious, but you can’t pull it on people who know how it works, & work in the industry. I want my tech ads to be content based. Not personal.
When they started Club Twit memberships to support the network, I jumped right on it. I get far more knowledge & entertainment out The Twit Network than all of my other, more expensive subscriptions combined, & the tech world would be rudderless if Twit, the OG of it all didn’t make it through. I fully support the subscription model & think it’s a great opportunity to support content that I love, without being tracked across the internet just to do so. Although, in this & only this instance, I’d happily accept a little tracking if it meant saving this precious resource for as long as we’re lucky enough to have it.
Multi-disciplinary IT support strategist with 15+ years experience empowering entrepreneurs, corporate colleagues and remote teams with the knowledge, skills and technologies to get stuff done. | Sec+ – CySA+ (CSAP) – ITIL – ACSP
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