I really like this. There is a huge difference between,

“We make Foo. Foo helps you Bar the Baz. Check us out at foobarbaz.com”

Vs.

“Look at this scary Baz. Feel emotions about it. We want you feeling anxious and ill-equipped. Okay now here’s Foo. We want you feeling better. Nicer music. Smiles. Good emotions from you. What a relief. If you’re tired of being a dumb idiot who suffers from Baz all the time, we can fix you with Foo.”

The second might be why the water-powered computer dumped core during Crunchly's visit for a product demo.

. o O ( Yes, it's a reference to a thing. )

Downvotes? Well, shame on me for thinking the two parent posts that used canonical foo-bar-baz would load The Jargon File and its Crunchly cartoons into the context. Correction accepted. >.<

HN asks for substantive comments, not memes or internet tropes. HN also asks you not to comment on voting because it's shallow and boring. Written guidelines are here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'd rather take is a step further:

"Foo Corp. makes Gizblams." Whether or not they're high speed depends on the other Gizblam manufacturers, whether or not it can help me or my family depends on if I like it or not.

I'd take is even further:

"PEPSI - When they don't have Coke."

To NPR's point, I do not find NPR's voices advertising objectionable when they come up once or twice an hour. They're non-offensive and in the same voice, tone, and level as all of the other commentary.

Hey I'd never heard that one before, I like that one a lot. I wouldn't mind ads if they were sponsor messages like that or remember PBS and stuff? Less noise and crap would be great and ads wouldn't be so crap to deal with. If ya want to let me know your product exists just say it does don't try to lie to me then yeah I'd be more okay with ads or "sponsor messages" as you say there.

Thanks for sharing that