Reply to post: You started it.

You started it.

I could've probably let it slide if you'd kept with a few simple text based ads, you know, just a few little unobtrusive low-bandwidth non-malware links. But no. You had to keep upping the ante, an image here, an animation there, then a sprinkling of Flash, and before we knew it you were hijacking webpages with animated autoplaying videos with audio that expand across the rest of the content if the cursor is in the wrong place. Stop fucking doing that shit. You wonder why people are pissed off with ads? This is why. You took the piss. You wouldn't just stop at a sensible limit, you had to push it, and push it, and push it, and push it.

Now half the web looks like someone ate a department store discount deals brochure, some tapes of QVC and a copy of the Ladybird book of Scams and vomited them into a disorganised pile over the content we actually want to see.

Oh, and YouTube? Your platform is about discovery, I'm not going to sit through preroll ads to find out whether I give a flying fig about RandomGuy89732's video about his shelf of collector edition figurines. To all the broadcast networks who offer online video? Half the reason I don't care for your TV channels is I'm sick to the back teeth of having the shows I like interrupted by breaks every 5 minutes (and/or having to watch 5 minutes of the exact same shitty ads before every episode), I'm sure as shit not going to put up with that on the internet too. That's why I stopped giving a damn about 4oD, I just don't care about your content enough to subject myself to that, and if I did then the pirates beat you for quality of service. This means you're doing it wrong. I would begrudgingly tolerate brand logo DOGs in the corner of the screen before I'd accept preroll/midroll ads again, and that's saying something, because those annoy me too.

So you may call me a thief, you may call me immoral, you may call me whatever you wish, but as long as you track us, feed us malware, make it difficult to view the content your ads are supposed to be paying for, chew up our bandwidth and CPU time and assault our eyes and ears, you don't get to hold the high ground and you don't get to be surprised that we eventually told you to shove it up your arse.