Saturday 21 April 2012

F7U12: Sometimes I really hate the internet

Okay, so I have a question for you, internet:

Since when was it okay to start streaming video and audio at me without my consent?! Who started this trend?

To provide you with a little bit of background, my internet connection is currently shaped. For those of you are not familiar with the term "shaped", let me paint you a picture. Imagine you are tasked with transporting a bowling ball through a hosepipe using only the suction power of your lungs. That's what browsing on shaped internet is like. Remember how fast 56k modems were? It's actually slower than that, and I'm willing to bet money, precious money that most of you only think you remember how slow it was... but it is, in fact, slower than that.

So, I have resorted to using my iPhone as a modem instead, and am tethering directly to it via USB to access the internet, like a heathen. To be fair, the browsing speed of this setup is actually not too bad... but I have a very limited data plan on my mobile so I can only get away with it if I can maintain a certain level of stinginess.

Because of my limited download capacity, I'm being very frugal with which websites I'll visit, based on their inherent data consumption. For example, I'm steering clear of YouTube, not Skyping anyone, and pretty much limiting my experience where possible to sites that are text and image based only.

So, here I am; Headphones on, relaxing and enjoying some tunes while browsing the internet. Imagine my frustration when I click on a link to read a forum or blog post, only to be visually and audibly assaulted by how awesome 3D poker is, or receive some fashion tips from some douchebag who calls himself Aunty Gok Wan.

The once enjoyable melody of Dream Theater becomes a cacophony of guitars and cheesy voice-over; I rip my headphones off of my head in distaste, and scramble to close down the infernal browser responsible for the molestation of music. I drop to my knees, look to the heavens and roar.
"FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU-!! I just wasted 1.75Mb!"

Not to mention the part of the song I was looking forward to has now been sullied, the chilled out mood has passed. Do I restart the song from the beginning? Do I rewind the song to the point just before the intrusion or just let it slide? Well, you know what? Damn it, I have let it slide for too long.

How dare this godzilla-damned website force advertising down my throat in such an aggressive manner?! They think they're going to catch customers by injecting their propaganda directly into their ears and eyeballs? Seriously, I want to meet the chammer that first came up with this idea. I want to sit down with him, man to man, and ask him why?! Actually, this must work..? Otherwise, they wouldn't do it?! Okay, new idea:

I'm going to attempt to round up every single person on Earth that has ever clicked-through one of these unholy abominations, and am going to strip them of their internet access. You cannot be trusted to remain on the internet as regular people, you're a liability.

It's funny to think back to the days where internet advertising in general was considered distasteful, and they were just innocuous blue links. We've come a long way, baby. Oh well, no individual person can be blamed for this trend, I suppose.

I think my man Joseph Ducreux can sum up the situation below.

Joseph Ducreax - History's greatest philosopher


3 comments:

  1. Don't hate the player, hate the game?
    Nice :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. Simple solution: block pop-ups.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Or flame the site. The latter is more satisfying.

    ReplyDelete