Sometimes I feel like if I do so I’m basically serving as an ad, and I don’t really care for that, especially if later I find that the business was scummy in some ways (which is often the case, especially later as it changes leadership/ownership).
If you do, how do you deal with it?
Not if I’ve vetted the product and feel like they offer a decent value, in one form or another.
This is mostly a symptom of being online too much and seeing enough ads to think critically about them.
People have talked about the tools they use for about as long as we’ve had both tools and language. I think its fine to just talk about stuff and not need to worry about your impact on capitalist society while doing it.
This is mostly a symptom of being online too much and seeing enough ads to think critically about them.
Would this apply even in the case of an avid ad-blocking person? At least that’s my situation, so what I’m seeing is less the ad-ridden web and more what remains, which is still a lot of discussion of commercial stuff.
I guess I’m thinking along the lines of the “What the hell is water?” story in a way.
I get what you mean, but my statement wasn’t really about how someone can escape the matrix by seeing enough advertising to realize that its poisioning society and wanting to escape that.
Its more that people would still talk about their commercial products even if there werent ads for it. Thats just a human experience thing.
Advertising muddies the water a whole bunch here because someone has taken that moment of human connection where you talk about a tool that fixed a problem you had, or some food you tried that was really good into something to make money.
Basically your choices are:
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Talk about the things with people and ignore the commercial implications.
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Be riddled with anxiety over a conversation accidentally making a few extra dollars for CocaCola or Amazon.
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Somehow totally dismantle the capitalist system and remove the profit incentives from human conversations involving things you can purchase.
TLDR: you can’t totally avoid capitalism so focus on your own happiness rather than worrying about who might be making money from the things youd be doing anyway.
No, just because we’re living in the decline of the empire/regime dejour, doesn’t mean we don’t still live our lives when possible.
As an example, If my country, the US, saned up tomorrow and started collecting guns, like actually enforcing it including the inevitable stand offs with the nutters climbing bell towers over it to get it fucking done, I would throw mine in the pile eagerly. Wont happen, but I don’t fetishize the firearm I own explicitly and exclusively to defend myself from the gun nuts.
I have to live next to the neoconfederate nutters with arsenals. I am still subject to the violence of their nuttery. When in (the fall of) Rome.
Almost everything is commercial, one way or another. If I’m happy about something that I bought or subscribed to, I don’t mind sharing my excitement with others.
how do you deal with it?
By not caring what others think. It’s become way more efficient for me to pay for certain reliable items or services rather than spending my time to learn to and do such. If a service or product saves me time and frustration, ya I’m much happier to pay someone to do it or pay for a known fix. Sometimes that results in me spouting off about how much that was worth to me, and how much I saved (if not in money, at least in sanity).
Sharing your experiences and thoughts on a commercial product doesn’t make you a shill, or a walking ad. Rather sharing your experience with friends should be seen as a trustworthy review.
