this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025

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They made computers behave like annoying salesmen | exotext (rakhim.exotext.com)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The population (especially the younger generation, who never seen a different kind of technology at all) is being conditioned by the tech industry to accept that software should behave like an unreliable, manipulative human rather than a precise, predictable machine. They're learning that you can't simply tell a computer "I'm not interested" and expect it to respect that choice. Instead, you must engage in a perpetual dance of "not now, please" - only to face the same prompts again and again.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

My government, my company, my former university and even my former highschool have all identified "understanding consent" as a significant social problem worthy of significant spending on PSAs and education programmes.

But even as people are learning about how consent is like tea, they are being exposed every day to software and services that treat it as informed consent if you don't dig into settings to disable something, don't actively delete your account when they arbitrarily change their terms of service, or offer a "contract" with a piece of software you've already purchased that you can't negotiate.

It shouldn't need to be said but...you don't get to skip getting informed consent just because it would be difficult or time consuming or annoying or expensive.

Sarah Jamie Lewis

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 days ago

. Instead, you must engage in a perpetual dance of "not now, please"

For similar reasons the ask not to track verbiage of iphones rubbed me the wrong way.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

What's great about YouTube and other corporate social media is that you can never use it.

I highly recommend that.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

Nicht wahr. I failed my first Discrete Math exam trying to teach myself using only the provided resources (professor, text book, notes, etc). The only reason I passed with a C was because I was able to watch lectures from better professors on YouTube.

I have also used YouTube to fix my car and many other things. Old Reddit (corporate social media) was a very valuable resource of knowledge.

Every single human accomplishment of note was only made possible through social bonds and social collaboration. We need each other. We need tight knit communities, but since so much of the soul of our race has been eroded by capitalist zombie consumerism and the atomization of individuals through car dependent urban sprawl, we are sometimes forced to rely on social media to meet that need.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

You could have used ad blockers. You could have done any number of things. You were not forced to use YouTube as it is. But I understand ... It is hard to recognize that we actively consume media. It is hard to think from perspective.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

That’s the second time now I’ve seen this term atomization referring to people.

Are people being turned into atoms now?

EDIT I mean we’re already atoms. But like into a single atom maybe?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

"Nuclear Family" TLDR Early USA zoning policies deliberately encouraged segregation and car dependency and promoted a family household consisting of a Mother, Father and 2.1 children, following industrial era ideas, which are relatively new and rather stupid. Pushed to the logical limit, this led to people getting pushed into housing that is deliberately far apart resulting in increased loneliness (gender free fuckery), and weaker communities, hence "atomization".

Is it fixable? Yeah. This was covered in Environmental Sciences 15+ years ago and most cities are realizing that pedestrianized areas are wayyyy more profitable than asphalt. People complain, but the world keeps going.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Fine, but don’t log in. Stop allowing full unfettered access to every bit of data that comprises your daily existence. That’s obviously my point.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Stop allowing full unfettered access

There's a decline button. At least privacy settings don't repeatedly come up again (what this post is about).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

So long as you’re not using an app or a standard browser, sure. Everyone’s running Tails?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

What? The decline button adds a cookie that tells a given website that you've declined any given popup, so that the website knows not go give you this popup again. This means that if you are using a standard web browser (defined as generic firefox/chromium without adblock) said cookie remains for some time until it expires; because yes, keeping any cookie for undetermined amount of time is bad. So if anything your tails gets more popups if they dont store said cookies and use no external tools to block those popups like adblockers. Also yes I know tails is an OS, but I dont get why using it matters in the discussion about cookie popups not storing their declination state for rolls dice 4 years.

[+] [email protected] -9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I understand that it's not the "YouTube program" having its own agency and making this decision - it's the team behind it, driven by engagement metrics and growth targets. But does the average user understand this distinction?

Yes.

What a stupid question. Does the author think that people believe televisions want to sell them things too?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think you vastly overestimate the technical proficiency of the average user. The average user does not understand technology and computers at all. The average user can barely send an email.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I get the "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the general public" vibe - but do you really think that people believe that websites act with agency to sell them things?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

People have a psychological bias to humanize anything that communicates with them and companies are trying to latch onto that mechanism because they benefit when people get an emotional attachment to websites. So I think Google and many others are trying to make people think of websites as things with agencies, rather than machines controlled by people. And yea I think they are partly successful.

Not dissimilar to how LLM AI is marketed nowadays.

My mom asked me the other day whether a virus warning was a scam or not. It was a webpage in her browser. She did not understand that it was not her computer system warning her, but just the website itself. People can't even tell the difference between their operating system and their apps.