ads suck! digital ones even more so
Permit me, if you will, to be a bit of a curmudgeon about a thing that probably not too many people like. I'm not here to break new ground.
I don't know when the shift happened, but I can tell you I first noticed it when they put up the new EV chargers. Probably it happened long before this. The chargers are these giant, glowing screens that (probably) run 24/7.
And all they do is play ads. Constantly. Endlessly.
I'm not unique in disliking ads. But I can say I hate these ads even more than the analog ones. It's very hard to reduce one's screen time when everything around you is displayed on screens.1 Now I can't help but notice them and get annoyed by them. I did no research for this since my goal is to just be a curmudgeon rather than make a sound argument, but I imagine they also contribute, even just a little, to light pollution when they're installed outdoors as well. And they don't even have the audacity to display something useful! Just ads, an endless stream of clever tricks to provoke consumption.
(There's also a preponderance of gambling/lottery ads...that's a whole other kettle of crabs to dislike.)
Like I said, just being a grump here. But there is one thing these screens do that no analog advertisement can do, and that is the little delight of seeing the display showing a desktop, a command line, or an error screen. So, you know, we take the small joys where we can get them.2
Screens but also demands to download apps or scan QR codes. I walked past a restaurant that, rather than having its opening hours on a sign, had a sign to scan a QR code to view its hours??? What are we doing here???↩
Apologies if you're a person responsible for fixing these mishaps or have had their failures come down on your head.↩