Selling Out to the Man

Last Updated on: 11th April 2014, 11:38 am

What is it with people? As soon as they think about opening a business and there might be profit involved, they undergo a metamorphosis. They go from normal human beings with principles to greedy whores. I know money talks, but does it have to become a ventriloquist and turn you into the dummy? Someone I know just showed me how driven he is by money. He’s thinking of starting an internet radio station. Cool. And he needs to find a way to pay for it. cool. And he’s going to pay for it by using one of the more obnoxious forms of advertising. Not! Cool! It’s like he’s forgotten what it’s like to surf the net and stumble onto one of the sites using what he wants to use. Actually the worst part is he *hasn’t* forgotten. He just doesn’t give a flying fuck. All that matters to him is forcing people to trigger the ads so he’ll get paid.

And the worst part about this is the ads he’s using aren’t just annoying, for us blinks, they can sometimes make a site unnavigable. Let me explain. Some ads, so that you see new ads every so often, will make the page reload at intervals. And what does that do to our screen-readers, boys and girls? It makes them pop to the top of the page too. So you’ll be reading a nice story about something..and bang! You have to start again. If this happens often enough, forget being able to read the story, because for us, you can’t just scroll down. You have to search for where you were. This cuts down the time you have to finish reading the story before the next click..trip back to the top.

Wait, that’s not the worst part. The worst part is *he’s* blind. So not only is he using annoying ads, he’s using annoying ads that screw up reading of the site for other blind people. And he’s doing this because…he just wants to maximize his revenue! On top of that, if he went to one of his favourite sites and they chose to put those ads up, I’d bet dollars to doughnuts he’d be the first to email them and tell them the site was unnavigable and that they’re screwing themselves out of the blind market. And ya know what that site’s webmaster would probably do? Laugh at him and tell him the blind market was small. And he’d get pissed. And I’d tell him to suck it up, because that’s the exact message he’s sending us by plastering refreshing crap ads all over his own site. We don’t matter, and all that matters is him getting the most money possible.

I understand that some people don’t know any better when they implement these ads. Maybe they’re not really that annoying to sighted people, although I can imagine they must be. They just look at the ad program and go, “Easy to put up, will do it on its own, cool! We’ll get paid.” It’s when people do know better, and because they’re motivated by their back pocket, they do it anyway that I get pissed off. I also understand that running an internet radio station isn’t cheap. But if you’re so broke that you have to depend on these ad programs at the expense of your principles, perhaps now’s not the time to run your station. I have nothing against ads by themselves. If he just used a banner or two and it didn’t turn the site into a nightmare, go right ahead. The man’s gotta get paid. I’d even click on the banner. But once you start forcing me to see new ads, so much so that I can’t get around the site or it’s a pain in the ass somehow, I don’t like being forced. I just won’t come back to the site. there are other places where I can get my music.

So, if I ever turn greedy and money-grubbing, somebody shake me before the metamorphosis is complete!

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