Ad Mad and Bad.

Wherever you look these days, the internet is becoming ever more Ad Mad. One of the worst offenders is YouTube, whose habit of throwing a banner ad across the video you’re trying to watch is a serious challenge to one’s sanity.

Ads generally fall into one of three categories:

1. Rare. Those which simply inform me of a new product or service which I might (but probably won’t) find desirable or useful. These I can tolerate, as long as they’re not plastered across something I’m trying to watch.

2. Commonest. Those which try to manipulate me into wanting something they want me to buy. These I find intolerable wherever they’re placed.

3. Becoming commoner. Those which tell me they’re giving me something FREE. You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to know that nothing comes free in a free market economy, so this type is verging on the criminally dishonest. My considered opinion is that the perpetrators should be locked in a darkened room with only YouTube for recreation, but a version specially doctored so as to remove the little cross in the top right corner of the banner ads. Fiendish. Let’s see how long it takes before they’re begging for a straightjacket to save themselves further injury.