That’s what TV (first, broadcast, and then, cable) was like in the 80s and 90s, and was a small part of why we jumped at internet video.

For TV, there were devices that promised to automatically lower the volume when commercials came on - I don’t remember how they were supposed to work.

I wonder if those devices simply looked at the volume and said, "If it's high [perhaps for a few seconds at a time], then it's probably an ad". Seems like a pretty good heuristic.

I had one of those but it was built into our TV, a Magnavox. It relied on a small black frame that local broadcasters used to insert their ads. National broadcaster like NBC would stream to their local affiliates. And the stream would have blank spaces to an insert their own ads. It’s very fast ,0.1s, that your eye would see briefly but to smart enough electronics was very perceptible. Once the commercial block was detected volume goes down. And the subsequent black frame turns it back up.

It's a tiny algorithm listening to output volume and reacting to drastic changes via the VolUp/Dn buttons on your remote (figuratively): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression

"Night mode", if it is present, should also do this to a lesser extent. I am grateful for this feature in movies where light chit-chat is interrupted by window-shattering explosion sounds.

TV ads (almost) never interrupted the flow of the show you were watching, because the show was specifically designed around the ad breaks. Radio ads always came between songs.

YouTube is now just sticking ads in any old where in videos. The middle of a song. The middle of a sentence. It's revolting, and in many cases it ruins the content you're actually trying to watch.

If you've got a local public broadcaster, you might want to watch the stream via them instead.

Eurovision should usually be free of ads after all.

You know, if someone would constantly burst into rooms shouting at the top of their lungs for you to give them money, we'd beat them with a wrench. Yet this same behavior is not only tolerated and excused, but encouraged, when done in the name of business profits.

And we wonder why society is so fucked up.

Excellent point!!

> And we wonder why society is so fucked up.

I'd rephrase that to "and there are people who want to debate whether blocking advertisements is morally defensible" as this is not so much an indictment of "society" as it is an exposition of the moral bankruptcy of the advertising industry. The question should not be whether blocking ads is morally defensible but the other way around, whether exposing yourself and others to "modern" advertising is defensible - to which the answer is a wholehearted "Hell No".

Give me a catalogue full of ads like the Computer Shopper [1] magazine of yore and I'll sing praise of the advertisers who clearly showed what they sold for which prices. I actually bought the thing - imagine that, paying money for a telephone book-sized magazine filled with nothing but ads - because it was useful in showing what the market had to offer. A modern-day Computer Shopper would be filled with...

...lifestyle-related drivel

...virtue signalling diversity statements without any relation to whatever product is sold

...celebrities doing things they only do because they get millions for it

...clearly stupid clueless men who only make it through their day because they have women and girls to correct their stupid mistakes, bad choices and silly habits

...some more diversity statements but this time with celebrities

...etc.

Now I understand I'm not really part of the target market the advertisers are trying to brainwash and that the nothing-but-a-list-of-products-with-prices style of advertising does not appeal to everyone. Find some other way of reaching your target market which shares the simplicity and honesty of this type of advertising, stop shouting, stop the brainwashing, get rid of the subliminal messaging, ditch the lifestyle drivel, just quit being bottom feeders and get back to advertising products and prices, no more and no less. Unless you want to be beaten with a wrench that is but in that case you better start wearing helmets and toques.

[1] https://archive.org/details/computer-shopper-february-1986/C...

> We were watching Eurovision

Eurovision is basically a big tourism add wrapped in a sell of the cheapest, dullest more forgettable pop songs available. Watching publicity is the whole experience