I use adnauseum on my computer so it blocks the ads, but also sends a request simulating a click to the ad network. Based on average CPM, I've cost advertisers like $300 so far.
Jamie
I am a Texan and I can confirm, y'all is fun to say, y'all.
I'm a Loss Prevention Manager.
I just wanted to know how computers worked when I was fairly young. Like, I'd open a web browser and look at the homepage, and think "But how does the computer know how to draw all this stuff?" As in, how do you take an image of something from real life, and over the internet put that image on somebody's screen for them to see? Or how does it know what to do when I click this icon and run a program?
I found out about a popular programming language called C++, asked my parents to buy me a book on it while we were at the book store. Learned a lot, moved on to other languages for other things I wanted to do. It's still a fun hobby, but I never opted to make a career out of it.
I think it's just easier for people to cope with bad things happening around them if they can simply point a finger at someone or something and blame that. It's easier than accepting that the universe is random and chaotic, and sometimes random chaos decides to hurt you.
I think my credit report still says I work at "DOMINOES" after like 5 years of not being there. It doesn't effect anything, but I get mild amusement out of it being misspelled on top of that.
When you blockade supplies and infrastructure from an entire region of people, most of whom have done nothing wrong, then yes, food shortages are your fault.
In this case, I had a deal that had no penalties for early payoff, so in my case, paying off my car in 1/8 the time saved me 7 years of interest with no serious downside. Unless you count credit scores being BS and paying off loans early technically not being ideal credit management.
Leaving Reddit gave me the opposite of FOMO. I'm glad to not be fed as much algorithm-tailored BS as before. I still use YouTube, but most of my YouTube viewing is at least related to my other hobbies.
Speaking anecdotally here, I wonder if the banks are trying to push those super long loans, too. I bought my car last year, have excellent credit, and put 50% down. The only loan I was offered was an 8 year loan when I wanted 4. Out of sheer spite, I took advantage of the early payoff and paid it off as early as possible to deprive them of as much interest as possible, and it was much faster than the 4 years I asked for.
Also the average length of car ownership before buying something else is about 5 years, but the average loan duration for a new car is 7 years.
The car market in the US is just screwed.
I block ads on all my devices, but I assume they're scams by default when I do see them.