We need to define the things we hate. Give them words. Use the words as weapons.
I've been thinking about this a lot recently with "watermarks" of the statistical and non-visible kind used to track image creators. (Google embedding "this image is AI but also here's the user ID".)
I've been thinking that practice needs a new word too. It's not watermarking, it's signals-math based tracking, so maybe sigtracked.
That might not sound gross enough though.
[YES, I DO, THE IMPORTANT TRACKING ONES] [YES, I DO, ALL OF THEM] ⁿᵒ ᵃⁿᵈ ᶜˡᵒˢᵉ ᵈᶦᶜᵏᵒᵛᵉʳ
My experience was probably exactly as intended. Click on the "What is a dickover?" link trying to come up with things that it might be. And a brief moment after the page loaded (this little pause is crucial) I am hit in the face with a big annoying popup saying "This is a Dickover" followed by immediate understanding.
Now at least I know what to call it the next time I visit Substack.
This shouldn't be the user's problem, but this is the market working. The dickovers are there because someone somewhere is making money because the dickovers are there. Saying you want the content without the spam is more or less saying you want other people to do the work and you don't want to pay for it.
If you don't like ads/dickovers, you don't have to use the site/app. The provider has decided you're not worth it. To be fair, you probably aren't making them money.
There are exceptions, but you shouldn't feel entitled to use the thing without paying the "dickover price" that the provider has decided to charge.
I've been wondering how we can use AI to clean up websites before they hit our eyes. If AI is as good as they say it is, surely it can clean up dickovers. If someone is allowed to shove something in front of my face should I not be allowed to make them invisible?
Yes, I'm 100% on the adblock train. Local AI adblock sounds like a great solution.
Then maybe dickovers will go away when the market realizes they don't work. That's the only way.
What won't help is complaining that the largely free products we get don't work the way we want them to.
So the developers and bosses all think they're doing a great job and they've got a carefully curated homepage, even though the regular users get a cloudflare captcha, then a cookie modal, then a newsletter modal, then an install-our-app modal, all blocking their access to the 'buy product' button.
Why would I say that in front of any female colleage or any non-technical layman? We already have a name for this and it is a "popup".
Which sounds better?
"Remove this popup" or "Remove this dickover"
Be honest.
> Be honest.
The latter definitely is the more honest answer.
JKCalhoun•1h ago
My own blog has none of that crap. No Google analytics, no tracking. If someone visits my site, I have no idea. And I don't care.
king_zee•47m ago