Video ads top reason I detest some sites

I’ve been online, in one form or another, since about 1979. I started out using a TRS-80 with a 300-baud* coupler device to connect to other computers or select networks. Back then, in the days of the dinosaurs, video ads were not even a thought on the Internet.

Nowadays when I go to a site as a visitor, I’m find the site owner feels it’s all about their financial status. As a visitor, the site owner ought be focused on trying to keep me happy in all ways related to the site. Sadly, too many site owners are focused on ways to steal the wallet of each visitor or financially rape them before they’ve even had a chance to be seated or drink a little coffee. In this particular instance, I am talking about the on-load auto-play audio and videos, particularly of video ads.

I’m finding, more and more, that too many sites – and I am not speaking specifically of porn sites, mind you, but of sites such as The Wall Street Journal and its story with on-load, auto-play video ads before the news video about the Philippine government fighting China in court.

There are times I am opening links, believing I am going to a text-based news story or other text based site, and lo and behold, some marketing crap is blowing out my speakers.

Would you like the Family version or porn version video ad?

Other times, when opening a few links from Google, inevitably, I hit a site supposedly with video content, but for the first 15- to 70-seconds, I am trapped in video-ad hell. Sometimes it is video ads for cereal, other times it’s some twerking thing, and sometimes it’s a video ad for a blue pill or green pill or yellow pill or color of the month pill ad. And, at times, PG-rated video ads that sound like it ought be X-rated or a X-rated video ad that sounds like it should be G-rated.

The worst part of these on-load, auto-play video ads is that many of the advertisers or site owners disable or delete the controls. You, the visitor, cannot pause or stop and cannot mute many of these ads for which they are making money. For instance, you wake at 3 a.m., logon to your laptop in the bedroom, and see in your newsfeed a tweet that catches your eye. It looks like it’s a like to a news article.

This isn’t 1997 with newbies starting their mass influx to the Web. No, most people online today are savvy enough to know how to click on a video or even the video start button to play it. If a site is going to force you to view a video ads prior to viewing news videos or any other video content, on the site, let the site visitor choose when it will play, not some on-load, auto-play script. Let’s get real:
[mouse click]

Consideration goes a long way in video ads

Audio is blaring into your bedroom. Your spouse is now awake and you hear one of your children starting to sound fussy. Does the WSJ care? No, but in less that 1/15 of a second, the WSJ made 15 cents on your click while waking your family.

I’m getting to the point that I’m blocking the video servers, by IP, that use on-load, auto-play audio and video. If these sites don’t want to give me the option of playing the video when it is convenient for me, then I’ making sure these same sites make not a cent more from my clicking.

_________________________
* For a basic understanding of how fast a 300-baud modem transfers data, see the C.T.M.O. site for a comparison page between a 300-baud modem and a DSL/Cable/T1 line speeds on some of the Web’s most popular pages.