It just feels like that shit has ramped up. Like it's gotten particularly scummy and bad lately?
Capitalist countries have always covered everything in advertising, sure, but lately it seems even spaces that used to be safe from it are being poisoned by the most scummy adverts.
For example, I can't believe people are paying sometimes more than $1000 for a phone and then, boom, there is advertising in the settings menu.
I've also noticed that a lot of products and services are just openly scammy now too. Like really fucking bold in being greedy in a way that was at least slightly covert in the past. It's hard to explain what I mean, but just as example look at this:
"Pay us $200 for the opportunity to pay us another $150 and for a security app that probably is the same as the one the phone comes with, also customer support that we should be doing for free?"
The proliferation of AI. Windows adding advertising directly into their OS. You lift any modern device out of sleep mode and that shit has a push notification telling you to buy. Subscription streaming services that have the gall to charge you an overpriced subscription and then insert advertising and lock some shows behind a second paywall? This is just becoming like a parody you'd see on Futurama. It's just suffocating.
Oh yeah, one more thing. I've noticed there has been an increasing trend to shame people for not using a certain product. That's always been a thing, but it's getting worse. Like people saying that using a card to pay for things instead of a phone is for boomers. Like it's literally the same thing except if I use my card Google might get a little less predatory advertising data from me. People are increasingly not giving a shit that corporations are making a profile of what you buy, when and where you buy it. All data that can be used to flood you with advertising or even bought by scammers. You're treated as weird for caring about this kind of thing, even as the US is making collecting "lists" of trans people and "illegals".
I'm particularly worried that young people might be becoming more consumerist but I have to remind myself that when I was younger I was trapped in the same mindset. It just feels like there is less of a counterculture to consumerist BS these days.
