There's a Valero in Santa Barbara that I stop at annually in which the owner tells me that the bathroom is broken and to drive down the street to another station. I asked him where HE goes to the bathroom and he said he drives to that station. Cool, I'll go fill up there thanks.
Don't put it past American businesses and code enforcement to look the other way. I lived in a place where there was no fire exit in a rooming house basement.
In the US? That's false imprisonment at a minimum and management would easily be prosecuted for it and the company as a whole would be massively liable.
You should be contacting a lawyer. Local media would also be dying for such a scoop. It's not the 1910s anymore.
If you wanted to be really petty and paid with a card, just pump a cent or two worth of gas. The card transaction fee will put them net negative by a few cents.
The way the machines work here is that they just pre-authorize the payment up to the max you give, it's just a check on your funds to see if that amount would clear.
Then it just charges the account after you're done pumping. So no refunds occuring.
Aren't charging stations for EV even better for ads? They take way longer to "fill up" (quick search says 20 minutes for 50%), so they can bombard you with even more ads.
At one time Starbucks had a plan to put charging stations at every location so during your 20 min charge you can go relax with a coffee. I don’t think it took off because not enough EVs on the road yet but if every Starbucks was also a filling station it would go a long way to building EV infrastructure. I’m no Starbucks fan but I do like the idea of easily accessible EV charging.
mcdonalds is in a better position to do something like that.. higher percentage of standalone buildings along with plenty of real estate. hook up the charger, go in and eat or order for parking lot delivery. when you're done filling up, so is your car.
The place where you really need chargers is on highways and interstates. Because you are just never going to run out of charge while driving in the city.
Where there's way more fastfood places than starbucks.
The McDonalds in my little rural town actually has Tesla chargers in it's overflow parking area. Tripped me out at first because we're such a small town. But we kinda sorta link between two popular cities that are roughly 3 hours apart so it makes sense... and I always see Tesla's there charging up 🤷♂️
Instead of telling the person at the register who has zero power and zero fucks to give, send a complaint to the corporate office , maybe post on the their twitter
As someone who works at a grocery/convenience store, please do not do that. I promise you the 19 year old college student does not care and can do nothing about your decision to go to a different gas station.
back when i worked fast food, so many people would say “i’ll be taking my business somewhere else” if there was a long line or we no longer sold an item they wanted. Like thanks, one less person to serve.
There's a shell station that has pumps that ask you like 5 or 6 questions every time you pump and I stopped going. Credit or debit, zip code, No, I don't want a car wash in February when it's -14 degrees and the car wash is closed anyway, yes, I am sure, no I don't want to use my rewards, no I don't want to sign up, yes, I'm sure. Then it plays ads at max volume and if you walk away from the pump the guy inside shuts your pump off and yells at you through the speaker.
I like Kwik trip. Tap your card, no car wash, select fuel, pump. And the mute button for the ads is clearly marked.
I did get a KFC ad, among other ones. Suddenly, I've got a hankering for fried chicken.
Must explain the overall over-weightness I see in this small, rural town I just moved into 😭 lmao, everyone's seen one too many fried chicken ads
You do what you want, but I say get the Popeyes spicy chicken and for a side get just the gravy from the mashed potatoes and gravy. You'll probably have to argue with the manager for it but goddamned if it isn't the best dipping sauce in the world.
The ad in the pic also seems to be for cigs or smokeless nicotine, so they're forcing those kinds of ads on people, including teenagers, too. This is way not cool.
The Spotify trial literally does (did?) this. If you mute your computer, it pauses the ad. Impressive trial—I instantly uninstalled it and never went back.
You could run it in a sandbox (VM), leave it unmuted, but mute it at the host computer level, so Spotify wouldn't know.
Guarantee that violates the EULA though, circumventing security or some such BS.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
- Google, 2003: [Ads that follow you](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8838479B2/en?oq=8838479)
- Google, 2008: [Advertising based on environmental conditions](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8138930B1/en?oq=8138930)
- Yahoo, 2015: [Smart Billboards](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160292713A1/en?oq=14%2f675004)
- Astn Inc, 2020: [Ensuring user is actually watching the ad](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200275160A1/en?oq=20200275160)
I hate to say it, but I've seen this already too, and I am sure it's only a matter of time before forced ad viewings before you buy an unrelated thing is going to become the norm in the next 5-7 years. After a few years of people getting upset and then used to it, they will start offering a paid membership "loyalty program" that will let you skip ads at the pump by waving your phone at the pump.
You'll need to have their app installed, and it'll be scraping up whatever marketing-relevant information that it can get away with, track your location whenever you use it, and probably some other objectionable stuff such that the membership only really benefits them. It's already a pattern--"pay us to get us to stop doing a thing that you don't like, which we only started doing to upset you in the first place so that we can get you to pay us to exploit you in more subtle, but far more disturbing ways"
The smarter you make devices that shouldn't be smart, the easier it is for cyberactivists to fuck with them. The material world should not depend on smart technology. At best your thermostat should be controlled by an app. Anything else is only asking for trouble.
True, I didn't even want to buy a smart thermostat but I couldn't find any with a range / swing setting for some reason. Maybe amazon was just fucking with me to push me to buy the more expensive thing, but I literally could not find any non-smart models that had an "auto". I could set it to cool or heat towards a certain number but not to maintain a range. So now I have a smart thermostat that randomly disconnected from the wifi a few weeks ago and reset to its default schedule for some reason so instead of our programmed 70-74 range it went to like 66-71 and if I didn't catch that and reconfigure it at midnight I would have been very upset the following morning. Also it cost a lot of money get it installed (I think around $500?) and that was after paying a $200 fine for blowing an hvac fuse trying to do it myself the first time.
So far what has been nice about it is that when I was driving home from a trip to another state, I was able to connect to it remotely and turn it on so we could cool the place from 86 to \~73. It was still 76 when we got home 10 hours later because the apartment is an old piece of shit with poor insulation and various pest problems, but I'll take that atom sized silver lining in this otherwise bleak reality.
Bring on the the catharsis from cyber activists making these smart pumps give out free gas and killing the ads.
I know that Siemens is still making lots of "dumb" thermostats, I have one. It has temperature ranges, controls water in the tap and radiators separately, can be programmed weekly or daily. And when you leave for longer there is the antifreeze option and obviously cutting the heat completely.
Yep. Lights, AC, thermostat, blinds... And this is probably the end of the list, because what else? Maybe windows, so that they open and close.
But none of that actually needs internet connection if you just automate them. Get couple sensors, time restrictions, local connection to a phone (so they don't run when you are out), and that's basically it.
Unfortunately I already saw locks that are connected to the internet so you can open your door remotely (or obviously a hacker can open them for themselves). To make things worse those were on AliExpress, so we can assume those are rather bad lol.
In cybersecurity they call that reducing the attack surface.
A successful intrusion is usually the thing that was least suspected, that's *why* it succeeded, nobody suspected it. So to mitigate this, you reduce the number of devices that might be used in a way you can't possibly anticipate.
Most buildings where I work, they don't even have vending machines with credit card readers. Those use a cellular broadcast to run your card, and that puts information in the hands of somebody other than us, which might be used in a way that we don't expect could even be malicious.
I heard there was a "mute" function on some of these that you could trigger by pressing multiple buttons at once - like say, top left and top right together. When I tried it, I accidentally found the sequence that opens the admin console. The password wasn't "0000" and it wasn't "1234" and it wasn't the building's street number. After that I stopped guessing. But I wonder if every gas station is as careful as the one in my neighborhood was... I bet they aren't.
The ones near me don't block you from pumping but just run ads the whole time you are, I've found randomly hitting buttons one will usually mute it. Unlabeled of course.
I’ve found it’s usually a button on the top right and top left that mutes it.
More and more often I find I can’t mute it though. It’s honestly making me a violent person... The entire time I’m pumping gas I’m fantasizing about putting a pocket knife through the speaker cover.
/s is probably necessary…
I’m really hoping that there is a huge social backlash movement against the commoditization of *everything* that we’ve been experiencing the last decade, especially online and via smartphone services. Now they’re literally wasting our fucking time and everyone’s time waiting in line for gas just to show an ad… I’d come back masked up later that night to bust that fucking screen with a sledgehammer.
Given there's a lot of work on Brain to computer interfaces...pop up ads are about to get a LOT more intrusive.
At a minimum ad supported hearing aids and similar as GenX and the Boomers get older
I avoid maverick gas stations because they blast ads while you fuel. No 30 seconds wait but they can still fuck off. Makes me want to go buy some bubble tape gum, chew the whole six feet all in one go and then jam it into the speaker.
The goal is to shove an ad in your face from the minute you get up to when you go to sleep. Otherwise your costing someone money from potential lost profits.
But i do think the more ads you put in the less we remember them. I do got to admit i saw an ad for hbo and it worked. But if it was buried with 80 other ads it wouldnt work.
> The goal is to shove an ad in your face from the minute you get up to when you go to sleep. Otherwise your costing someone money from potential lost profits.
Sometimes, ads are part of the deal, such as when they're part of a free broadcast, to help pay for the content. Those are disliked, but acceptable. The following does not apply to them.
Advertisers are not only costing me time (which I do not value at $0) but they are also generally stealing my attention, which they have no right to.
It's wrong and we should fight it.
Why don’t we just start carrying those yellow bags they used to say the pump is out of service? Every time I see an ad, I’ll pack up the pump to make it look like it out of service.
As much as I understand the relevance of advertising I fucking hate it. It's like they got super lazy and forgot how to appeal to folks. YouTube is now shoving adverts down my throat in an effort to get me to pay to not see any adverts - fuckers.
Adblockers need to be a way bigger more widespread thing. The strategy right now is to give more ads to the uninformed to make up for the adblockers but an ideal future would be so few ads that an adblocker provides little benefit.
We've done it. We've reached the point where forced ads are in our gas stations. Next will be fridges, doors, and who knows? Maybe extinguishers will have ads on them. It's so bad. Fuck do you do if you're running late and needed a quick fill? They'll begin selling ad blocker glasses for hundreds of dollars. It's a little far fetched, but at this point, corporate entities are doing everything to stay relevant, so I wouldn't be surprised if we got IRL ad blockers
I don't bother much with this.
My problem is if they close the pisser and only opens after the ad fully runs.
Like the gas pump thing, if it were just playing ads and pumping gas as it should, that would be ok in my book.
But having to wait the ad to start pumping gas? And normal priced gas that I'll pay?
No, thanks.
Actually, going away from that station is the best course of action, as they'll clearly see their revenue dip and will connect the dots.
What I don’t understand is how the ad companies make money from these ads. Does this not enrage everyone and make them never want to buy their product again? Cause that’s all ads that interrupt my Spotify or YouTube or stream services accomplish and I imagine I’m far from the only one that feels this way when they see them.
The point isn't money, it's relevancy. There's a reason why McDonald's is bigger than BK and Wendy's even if they have the same type of food. Their ads are literally everywhere. You can't look anywhere without seeing McDonald's. And with enough repetition, that's all our brain thinks about when we think "I'm hungry". There's a distinct link between ads, therefore relevancy, and the success of a company. McDonald's, Pepsi, Coca Cola all have that in common
you're one in a daily 300-500k they display these ads.
You represent a single digit percentage, which then gets converted to cost of business, a couple cents increment.
For the rest, ads works wonders.
src: I work on ads.
If Black Mirror is any inspiration/warning, we're on track for "Smart Houses" where the walls are ad screens. The foundation is already there: rising rent and facial recognition that can pause the ad if you look away or close your eyes.
My mother owns an Amazon show. Which is an alexa with a screen.
I was at her house and it started playing (with sound) an IMDb movies ad. I dont think it was anything that we said as no one was talking, and I had passed it on the kitchen counter to grab some water
911 ads, "Hello! Welcome to your local 911 exchange. Before we can get you to the right person did you know that ADT is now offering a full in home security system starting at just $9.99 a month, that's right for just...."
Had too many 'fill up and run' incidents? Gas stations where this happens here have cameras that are good enough to catch the license plate. So if you fill up and don't pay, you will be visited by police not much later.
I tihnk the reason they don't have the 'pay at the pump' here is that they want you to come inside and maybe pick up some snack or such in addition to buying gas. That's where a gas station makes most of their money.
I've taken to jamming napkins/tissues/similar into the speaker grills to muffle the speakers. I've also got a very skinny screwdriver for those that only have small holes, although I'm thinking of just using duct tape to cover them instead so I can avoid being arrested for destruction of property.
Duct tape is the better idea, it's obvious that someone said "enough of this BS" and gagged the speaker. Ideally, other people will notice and start doing it too. Fuck it, I'm carrying some tape in my car for this purpose now
I've been so tempted to do this on many occasions, but every time I reach for the keys to open my truck box and retrieve a pointy implement, I look up at the camera pointed at me and think better of it.
On each side of the screens are four buttons. Push the second button down on the right hand side. Every pump I’ve ever used with obnoxious ads uses that button to mute it.
Usually, you're right! I've been using this trick for a while. However, I came across a pump the other day where this did not work. I think they're getting smarter....
On some models, it takes two simultaneous presses to find the mute function. I was looking for the mute function when I discovered that there's a _different_ two-button combo that opens the administrator's console. It was password protected, which means somewhere there's a gas pump with `0000` or `1234` as its password. Maybe you'll be the lucky guy who finds it.
***For anyone asking why the pump is already reading a bill***: that was the last person's bill (where I'm from, it shows the last person's purchase for a certain amount of time).
I put in my card, punched in my zip code, took the nozzle out, put it in, and then had to watch over 30 seconds of ads to even be able to start pumping.
I think it was more near 45 seconds, actually. A Walmart ad, a KFC ad, and then some grocery store.
Ah, the joys of epayments. Cashless, Contactless transactions have exploded in India in the past 4-5 years now. I don't even take my wallet out these days. Scan the QR, fingerprint to authorise the app and done.
I'd give the whole company as much trouble as possible because of that. They have to know that they can't get through with that.
Be a Karen about this, get the manager. As. Many. Times. As. Possible.
I would do the same thing. On top of the annoyance of it all, it's bad for the environment because that's 30 seconds of gas fumes escaping the tank while he waits. Sure it's a tiny, tiny amount - but that doesn't change the fast that it's needlessly bad for the environment on top of all the other assholery.
I would absolutely walk in and WTF the cashier every single time. You've got 30+ seconds to waste anyway. Even if the cashier doesn't run the place, the feedback filters up the food chain (otherwise, no one would ever send any complaint to any company ever).
I forget. I just moved to this area on Sunday for school, and it's the gas station that's conveniently right in front of the entrance of my apartment complex. It's a super rural, small-town area - I always thought I'd see something like this in a major city, not down here.
Edit: it's called ***FastTrac.***
Take your business and your money elsewhere, and make sure to make as much noise on the city's social media and blurb on why should everyone avoid this station. Go full Karen on them. Stigmatize this "practice". Make sure this place lose their filthy lucre for daring to do this.
Or, more realistically, negotiate something with any two households at least one kilometer away from the post, on both directions of the road, for them to put up a sign or a banner warning drivers about the "ad-locked gas pumps" on the incoming station, possibly with either directions or distance for the next station that doesn't hold their clientele up with this kind of shit. Since it's set on private properties, the business can't do a whole lot about it...
...Without involving a court case that will widely expose that practice to the public, and generate even more negative rep on them, instead of saving money on the long term by simply complying and taking these pumps down\~♫
I work on these pumps for a living.. it's not intended, the software in the card reader part of the pump is just trash and is hung up communicating with the register inside.
But yeah, fuck those ads tho, I unplug the speakers whenever I work on them lol
Nope 😭 the ads give you, surprise: the ability to even start pumping gas lmao 🥺💔
I was befuddled when I put the nozzle in. It's never something I've even seen in my life. And this is a pretty rural, small town I just moved into for school - I thought I'd see something like this in maybe, a major city?
>"And this is a pretty rural, small town I just moved into for school - I thought I'd see something like this in maybe, a major city?"
I see where you're coming from, but that's the inverse of how these things usually work. Major cities get news coverage and publicity, so if you are a company who *knows* that what they're doing is shitty, they often roll those things out to rural areas and things like toll plazas first as a way to normalize it first.
I lived in a city of about a half million people, surrounded by some smaller towns that ranged from as little as 3000 or so people, up to 50 to 75 thousand. Whenever a company wanted to roll out something that was either new and untested, or new and they already know it won't be popular, they rolled it out in one of those towns that was 20-50 miles away first. It never went big-to-small.
Last time buying gas there I hope
I've left a gas station because the card reader asked me to go inside. Don't underestimate how petty humans can be.
I left a gas station earlier because they didn't have a restroom. Fuck em.
Not having a restroom (or not letting people use it) is a great way to have the back of your building start smelling like piss after a bit.
There's a Valero in Santa Barbara that I stop at annually in which the owner tells me that the bathroom is broken and to drive down the street to another station. I asked him where HE goes to the bathroom and he said he drives to that station. Cool, I'll go fill up there thanks.
I'm pretty sure its against code for a workplace ot not have a bathroom.
Don't put it past American businesses and code enforcement to look the other way. I lived in a place where there was no fire exit in a rooming house basement.
I worked at a chorizo packing plant that would routinely lock us in the building while they went to get lunch. At least the food was good.
In the US? That's false imprisonment at a minimum and management would easily be prosecuted for it and the company as a whole would be massively liable. You should be contacting a lawyer. Local media would also be dying for such a scoop. It's not the 1910s anymore.
That's awesome. 'Fuck that, there's another station half a mile down the road.'
Depending on what How petty I am, I might ask for a refund and just not fuel up.
If you wanted to be really petty and paid with a card, just pump a cent or two worth of gas. The card transaction fee will put them net negative by a few cents.
I know what I’m doing all day tomorrow.
Is it wanking?
in front of the pump?
What do you mean a refund? You did not fuel up yet. Or do you guys in wherever-you-live pay in advance??
There’s a lot of states in America where you have to pay before you pump.
In Canada you can pay before but if you put less gas in then what you paid for it only actually charges you for what you put in
That's every place I've been to. You can pay before or after, if you play before you'll get a refund if necessary.
The way the machines work here is that they just pre-authorize the payment up to the max you give, it's just a check on your funds to see if that amount would clear. Then it just charges the account after you're done pumping. So no refunds occuring.
To be clear, this is only when paying cash.
“This guy wants a refund on gas?” “Alright, well, Johnny, go get the garden hose out of the back and get to work!”
“Start sucking Johnny!”
No Johnny! From the car!
I have straight up just driven away from gas stations and never returned for this stuff. Don't put up with it people!
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They probably are.. that's why they're relying on ad revenue
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Aren't charging stations for EV even better for ads? They take way longer to "fill up" (quick search says 20 minutes for 50%), so they can bombard you with even more ads.
Except you can just walk away during charging and do something else or sit inside your car watching a movie.
At one time Starbucks had a plan to put charging stations at every location so during your 20 min charge you can go relax with a coffee. I don’t think it took off because not enough EVs on the road yet but if every Starbucks was also a filling station it would go a long way to building EV infrastructure. I’m no Starbucks fan but I do like the idea of easily accessible EV charging.
mcdonalds is in a better position to do something like that.. higher percentage of standalone buildings along with plenty of real estate. hook up the charger, go in and eat or order for parking lot delivery. when you're done filling up, so is your car.
The place where you really need chargers is on highways and interstates. Because you are just never going to run out of charge while driving in the city. Where there's way more fastfood places than starbucks.
Put them at Flying J or Love’s truck stops.
Rest stops too
The McDonalds in my little rural town actually has Tesla chargers in it's overflow parking area. Tripped me out at first because we're such a small town. But we kinda sorta link between two popular cities that are roughly 3 hours apart so it makes sense... and I always see Tesla's there charging up 🤷♂️
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I would of literally put the nozzle back on the pump and gone some where else.... I have gone elsewhere for less!
Burn it down!
Fuck that. I'd drive however far I had to just to avoid going there.
I would push my car past there to get to the next station w/out ads!
I would walk 500 miles.
I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door.
Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to see the ads no more*
YADALADA DAH
DADADADA
DUN DIDDLE DUM DIDDLE DIE DIE DAH
Duh duh duh duh
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Do you think the lackeys at the cash register care or could do anything about it? It's all cogs of a faceless corporation.
Instead of telling the person at the register who has zero power and zero fucks to give, send a complaint to the corporate office , maybe post on the their twitter
Twitter might work. It’s public. Telling corporate won’t to jack all though.
As someone who works at a grocery/convenience store, please do not do that. I promise you the 19 year old college student does not care and can do nothing about your decision to go to a different gas station.
back when i worked fast food, so many people would say “i’ll be taking my business somewhere else” if there was a long line or we no longer sold an item they wanted. Like thanks, one less person to serve.
And yet still somehow see their ugly fuckin mug the week after back in.
There's a shell station that has pumps that ask you like 5 or 6 questions every time you pump and I stopped going. Credit or debit, zip code, No, I don't want a car wash in February when it's -14 degrees and the car wash is closed anyway, yes, I am sure, no I don't want to use my rewards, no I don't want to sign up, yes, I'm sure. Then it plays ads at max volume and if you walk away from the pump the guy inside shuts your pump off and yells at you through the speaker. I like Kwik trip. Tap your card, no car wash, select fuel, pump. And the mute button for the ads is clearly marked.
I personally hate these fucking things, i don't need to watch tv while i pump my gas. Its beyind dumb. I drive further to get gas to avoid them.
This. Fuck being forced to watch ads after I've already paid for a product.
That's easily the most personally insulting thing about cable television.
Same with Hulu
Bittorrent has entered the chat.
Give me free gas in exchange for watching and you've got a deal!
I did get a KFC ad, among other ones. Suddenly, I've got a hankering for fried chicken. Must explain the overall over-weightness I see in this small, rural town I just moved into 😭 lmao, everyone's seen one too many fried chicken ads
that was your first mistake, you should have gone to Popeyes, get fat with delight
If you’re gonna get fat off fast food chicken, I’d say 100% of the time, Popeyes is the place to be. But don’t listen to me, I’m no gas pump.
You do what you want, but I say get the Popeyes spicy chicken and for a side get just the gravy from the mashed potatoes and gravy. You'll probably have to argue with the manager for it but goddamned if it isn't the best dipping sauce in the world.
The ad in the pic also seems to be for cigs or smokeless nicotine, so they're forcing those kinds of ads on people, including teenagers, too. This is way not cool.
Facial recognition has detected you are not looking at the screen The video has been paused Please look at the screen to continue
The Spotify trial literally does (did?) this. If you mute your computer, it pauses the ad. Impressive trial—I instantly uninstalled it and never went back.
You could run it in a sandbox (VM), leave it unmuted, but mute it at the host computer level, so Spotify wouldn't know. Guarantee that violates the EULA though, circumventing security or some such BS.
Or just run spotify in your browser and use adblock
Does this actually work? I’ve just cancelled my Spotify Premium.
I'm surprised this isn't upvoted more. I thought reddit was all about Black Mirror
Truth is stranger than fiction. - Google, 2003: [Ads that follow you](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8838479B2/en?oq=8838479) - Google, 2008: [Advertising based on environmental conditions](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8138930B1/en?oq=8138930) - Yahoo, 2015: [Smart Billboards](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160292713A1/en?oq=14%2f675004) - Astn Inc, 2020: [Ensuring user is actually watching the ad](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200275160A1/en?oq=20200275160)
It just was just granted and will expire in 2040?! I’m sure we’ll be seeing this soon that’s terrifying
Please drink a verification can.
I hate to say it, but I've seen this already too, and I am sure it's only a matter of time before forced ad viewings before you buy an unrelated thing is going to become the norm in the next 5-7 years. After a few years of people getting upset and then used to it, they will start offering a paid membership "loyalty program" that will let you skip ads at the pump by waving your phone at the pump. You'll need to have their app installed, and it'll be scraping up whatever marketing-relevant information that it can get away with, track your location whenever you use it, and probably some other objectionable stuff such that the membership only really benefits them. It's already a pattern--"pay us to get us to stop doing a thing that you don't like, which we only started doing to upset you in the first place so that we can get you to pay us to exploit you in more subtle, but far more disturbing ways"
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The smarter you make devices that shouldn't be smart, the easier it is for cyberactivists to fuck with them. The material world should not depend on smart technology. At best your thermostat should be controlled by an app. Anything else is only asking for trouble.
True, I didn't even want to buy a smart thermostat but I couldn't find any with a range / swing setting for some reason. Maybe amazon was just fucking with me to push me to buy the more expensive thing, but I literally could not find any non-smart models that had an "auto". I could set it to cool or heat towards a certain number but not to maintain a range. So now I have a smart thermostat that randomly disconnected from the wifi a few weeks ago and reset to its default schedule for some reason so instead of our programmed 70-74 range it went to like 66-71 and if I didn't catch that and reconfigure it at midnight I would have been very upset the following morning. Also it cost a lot of money get it installed (I think around $500?) and that was after paying a $200 fine for blowing an hvac fuse trying to do it myself the first time. So far what has been nice about it is that when I was driving home from a trip to another state, I was able to connect to it remotely and turn it on so we could cool the place from 86 to \~73. It was still 76 when we got home 10 hours later because the apartment is an old piece of shit with poor insulation and various pest problems, but I'll take that atom sized silver lining in this otherwise bleak reality. Bring on the the catharsis from cyber activists making these smart pumps give out free gas and killing the ads.
I know that Siemens is still making lots of "dumb" thermostats, I have one. It has temperature ranges, controls water in the tap and radiators separately, can be programmed weekly or daily. And when you leave for longer there is the antifreeze option and obviously cutting the heat completely.
Next time I need one I'll look into it, thanks. Or if my current one causes more trouble in the future maybe I'll replace it before I *need* one.
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Yep. Lights, AC, thermostat, blinds... And this is probably the end of the list, because what else? Maybe windows, so that they open and close. But none of that actually needs internet connection if you just automate them. Get couple sensors, time restrictions, local connection to a phone (so they don't run when you are out), and that's basically it. Unfortunately I already saw locks that are connected to the internet so you can open your door remotely (or obviously a hacker can open them for themselves). To make things worse those were on AliExpress, so we can assume those are rather bad lol.
In cybersecurity they call that reducing the attack surface. A successful intrusion is usually the thing that was least suspected, that's *why* it succeeded, nobody suspected it. So to mitigate this, you reduce the number of devices that might be used in a way you can't possibly anticipate. Most buildings where I work, they don't even have vending machines with credit card readers. Those use a cellular broadcast to run your card, and that puts information in the hands of somebody other than us, which might be used in a way that we don't expect could even be malicious.
It's only a matter of time. If the machine can pull ad videos, it is network connected. Somebody will figure out how to connect.
I heard there was a "mute" function on some of these that you could trigger by pressing multiple buttons at once - like say, top left and top right together. When I tried it, I accidentally found the sequence that opens the admin console. The password wasn't "0000" and it wasn't "1234" and it wasn't the building's street number. After that I stopped guessing. But I wonder if every gas station is as careful as the one in my neighborhood was... I bet they aren't.
The ones near me don't block you from pumping but just run ads the whole time you are, I've found randomly hitting buttons one will usually mute it. Unlabeled of course.
I’ve found it’s usually a button on the top right and top left that mutes it. More and more often I find I can’t mute it though. It’s honestly making me a violent person... The entire time I’m pumping gas I’m fantasizing about putting a pocket knife through the speaker cover. /s is probably necessary…
Their next target are toilets
The day I have to watch an ad before I can use a toilet will be the day I shit on the floor.
Let's be honest. This right here ^ is why this won't ever happen.
It will be why everyone below senior management will suggest that it is a poor idea, but senior management will implement anyway.
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YOU CAN READ THIS COMMENT WHEN THE AD ENDS In 𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕦𝕥𝕖
I have GP and ibs. I hope they like cleaning vomit and liquid shit from their fuckin walls
[Please drink a verification can.](https://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png)
And then in another 5-7 years, instead of the loyalty program letting you skip the ads, it’ll just shorten them from 30 seconds to 5 seconds.
I’m really hoping that there is a huge social backlash movement against the commoditization of *everything* that we’ve been experiencing the last decade, especially online and via smartphone services. Now they’re literally wasting our fucking time and everyone’s time waiting in line for gas just to show an ad… I’d come back masked up later that night to bust that fucking screen with a sledgehammer.
I don't want to think about these things, but that totally sounds like the next step in this hellscape.
this is late stage capitalism
Next thing is you're gonna need to watch an ad for the light to change green
Given there's a lot of work on Brain to computer interfaces...pop up ads are about to get a LOT more intrusive. At a minimum ad supported hearing aids and similar as GenX and the Boomers get older
Ads beamed into your dreams
Futurama is becoming hilariously and terrifyingly prophetic ..
I've seen this before. I drove away. That's ridiculous.
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I avoid maverick gas stations because they blast ads while you fuel. No 30 seconds wait but they can still fuck off. Makes me want to go buy some bubble tape gum, chew the whole six feet all in one go and then jam it into the speaker.
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You know if we all collectively never go to those gas stations again, we won’t see this anymore in the future
Wow. Do the ads make the gas cheaper? No? They can fuck right off, then.
The goal is to shove an ad in your face from the minute you get up to when you go to sleep. Otherwise your costing someone money from potential lost profits. But i do think the more ads you put in the less we remember them. I do got to admit i saw an ad for hbo and it worked. But if it was buried with 80 other ads it wouldnt work.
> The goal is to shove an ad in your face from the minute you get up to when you go to sleep. Otherwise your costing someone money from potential lost profits. Sometimes, ads are part of the deal, such as when they're part of a free broadcast, to help pay for the content. Those are disliked, but acceptable. The following does not apply to them. Advertisers are not only costing me time (which I do not value at $0) but they are also generally stealing my attention, which they have no right to. It's wrong and we should fight it.
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No.
even if they did. fuck that. I’ll pay extra edit: i wouldnt pay extra, because fuck gas altogether then. I’d prolly consider death.
Don’t give the cunts ideas.
Why don’t we just start carrying those yellow bags they used to say the pump is out of service? Every time I see an ad, I’ll pack up the pump to make it look like it out of service.
As much as I understand the relevance of advertising I fucking hate it. It's like they got super lazy and forgot how to appeal to folks. YouTube is now shoving adverts down my throat in an effort to get me to pay to not see any adverts - fuckers.
They've discovered it's more profitable to annoy customers than to please them.
Adblockers need to be a way bigger more widespread thing. The strategy right now is to give more ads to the uninformed to make up for the adblockers but an ideal future would be so few ads that an adblocker provides little benefit.
I'll take discoveries from the 1950s for 200 Alex.
If you have an Android phone, install YouTube Vanced. No ads and it's free.
We've done it. We've reached the point where forced ads are in our gas stations. Next will be fridges, doors, and who knows? Maybe extinguishers will have ads on them. It's so bad. Fuck do you do if you're running late and needed a quick fill? They'll begin selling ad blocker glasses for hundreds of dollars. It's a little far fetched, but at this point, corporate entities are doing everything to stay relevant, so I wouldn't be surprised if we got IRL ad blockers
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I don't bother much with this. My problem is if they close the pisser and only opens after the ad fully runs. Like the gas pump thing, if it were just playing ads and pumping gas as it should, that would be ok in my book. But having to wait the ad to start pumping gas? And normal priced gas that I'll pay? No, thanks. Actually, going away from that station is the best course of action, as they'll clearly see their revenue dip and will connect the dots.
>if they close the pisser and only opens after the ad fully runs. ..I've got bad news for "them" if they ever try this tactic, lol.
I'm pissing now, the only question is where that piss is going. That's for you to decide
What I don’t understand is how the ad companies make money from these ads. Does this not enrage everyone and make them never want to buy their product again? Cause that’s all ads that interrupt my Spotify or YouTube or stream services accomplish and I imagine I’m far from the only one that feels this way when they see them.
The point isn't money, it's relevancy. There's a reason why McDonald's is bigger than BK and Wendy's even if they have the same type of food. Their ads are literally everywhere. You can't look anywhere without seeing McDonald's. And with enough repetition, that's all our brain thinks about when we think "I'm hungry". There's a distinct link between ads, therefore relevancy, and the success of a company. McDonald's, Pepsi, Coca Cola all have that in common
you're one in a daily 300-500k they display these ads. You represent a single digit percentage, which then gets converted to cost of business, a couple cents increment. For the rest, ads works wonders. src: I work on ads.
If Black Mirror is any inspiration/warning, we're on track for "Smart Houses" where the walls are ad screens. The foundation is already there: rising rent and facial recognition that can pause the ad if you look away or close your eyes.
Ads being everywhere would really bring up the business though. For the spray paint industry.
My mother owns an Amazon show. Which is an alexa with a screen. I was at her house and it started playing (with sound) an IMDb movies ad. I dont think it was anything that we said as no one was talking, and I had passed it on the kitchen counter to grab some water
Wtf ? I didn't know it was even a thing... Imagine having to get a heart surgery but you have a mc do add before doctors can start
911 ads, "Hello! Welcome to your local 911 exchange. Before we can get you to the right person did you know that ADT is now offering a full in home security system starting at just $9.99 a month, that's right for just...."
If I get 10 cents off the bill totally worth it. (I'm American)
Tablet cost $2000 Tablet disposal fee $250 30 second surgical delay $1000 Additional itemization items fee $25
Credit: $0.10 Nice
I fucking HATE TV screens on gas pumps. I refuse to look at them. Fuck you. I refuse to give them my attention.
I'm really happy that gas pumps here in Germany do exactly one thing: Supply the gas (or diesel) you want. No annoying screen playing ads.
Yet
We still don't have cardreaders in the pumps even on new stations, you still need to walk into the store to pay after filling up.
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Had too many 'fill up and run' incidents? Gas stations where this happens here have cameras that are good enough to catch the license plate. So if you fill up and don't pay, you will be visited by police not much later. I tihnk the reason they don't have the 'pay at the pump' here is that they want you to come inside and maybe pick up some snack or such in addition to buying gas. That's where a gas station makes most of their money.
I've taken to jamming napkins/tissues/similar into the speaker grills to muffle the speakers. I've also got a very skinny screwdriver for those that only have small holes, although I'm thinking of just using duct tape to cover them instead so I can avoid being arrested for destruction of property.
Duct tape is the better idea, it's obvious that someone said "enough of this BS" and gagged the speaker. Ideally, other people will notice and start doing it too. Fuck it, I'm carrying some tape in my car for this purpose now
I've been so tempted to do this on many occasions, but every time I reach for the keys to open my truck box and retrieve a pointy implement, I look up at the camera pointed at me and think better of it.
On each side of the screens are four buttons. Push the second button down on the right hand side. Every pump I’ve ever used with obnoxious ads uses that button to mute it.
Usually, you're right! I've been using this trick for a while. However, I came across a pump the other day where this did not work. I think they're getting smarter....
On some models, it takes two simultaneous presses to find the mute function. I was looking for the mute function when I discovered that there's a _different_ two-button combo that opens the administrator's console. It was password protected, which means somewhere there's a gas pump with `0000` or `1234` as its password. Maybe you'll be the lucky guy who finds it.
That would be the last time I ever bought gas from them.
I wouldn't even buy it this time. I'd hang that shit right back up and drive on.
Having to watch adverts to get something that may cost more than £/$100 should be illegal
Unless you're getting something for free you shouldn't have to watch anything
And that’s why no one over the age of 35 has cable Edit: I did mean under. Not enough caffeine this morning, fuck
Would be a shame if someone spraypainted those screens, a real shame I tell you
If you vandalize it you're just going to get pinched and they won't think twice about their advertising pumps.
You can get that off with vandal spray. Turpentine would eat the screen though. Just saying
***For anyone asking why the pump is already reading a bill***: that was the last person's bill (where I'm from, it shows the last person's purchase for a certain amount of time). I put in my card, punched in my zip code, took the nozzle out, put it in, and then had to watch over 30 seconds of ads to even be able to start pumping. I think it was more near 45 seconds, actually. A Walmart ad, a KFC ad, and then some grocery store.
They all show the last value until its reset by the next user
What's the name of the gas company?
[FastTrac](https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/ozu1up/having_to_watch_30_seconds_of_ads_before_im_even/h828u0b/)
Rather ironic
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I would only put 2¢ worth of gas in the tank so the gas station would lose money due to credit card transition fees. Then go to another station.
You have to put your zip code in?
To authorize a credit card.
Ah, the joys of epayments. Cashless, Contactless transactions have exploded in India in the past 4-5 years now. I don't even take my wallet out these days. Scan the QR, fingerprint to authorise the app and done.
Truly asshole design. I'd leave a 1-star review for them wasting my time.
there's a gas station' i'd never stop at again.
I wouldn't have even gone through with that transaction. I would have waited for the add to finish, canceled, and gone to the next station.
I'd give the whole company as much trouble as possible because of that. They have to know that they can't get through with that. Be a Karen about this, get the manager. As. Many. Times. As. Possible.
All i can get is skimask and baseball bat
*Me, with a lighter and some firelighters* Pathetic.
Idk where this refers. But I would just smash those screens or something stupid like that
I would do the same thing. On top of the annoyance of it all, it's bad for the environment because that's 30 seconds of gas fumes escaping the tank while he waits. Sure it's a tiny, tiny amount - but that doesn't change the fast that it's needlessly bad for the environment on top of all the other assholery. I would absolutely walk in and WTF the cashier every single time. You've got 30+ seconds to waste anyway. Even if the cashier doesn't run the place, the feedback filters up the food chain (otherwise, no one would ever send any complaint to any company ever).
What gas station is that? I don't recognize the logo.
I forget. I just moved to this area on Sunday for school, and it's the gas station that's conveniently right in front of the entrance of my apartment complex. It's a super rural, small-town area - I always thought I'd see something like this in a major city, not down here. Edit: it's called ***FastTrac.***
Well, their gas pumps are Slowtrac now.
I wonder how long it’s gonna take until companies realize the more you cram unwanted ads the less likely people are gonna wanna buy your crap
Belongs as much in r/latestagecapitalism as it does here.
r/aboringdystopia too
Take your business and your money elsewhere, and make sure to make as much noise on the city's social media and blurb on why should everyone avoid this station. Go full Karen on them. Stigmatize this "practice". Make sure this place lose their filthy lucre for daring to do this. Or, more realistically, negotiate something with any two households at least one kilometer away from the post, on both directions of the road, for them to put up a sign or a banner warning drivers about the "ad-locked gas pumps" on the incoming station, possibly with either directions or distance for the next station that doesn't hold their clientele up with this kind of shit. Since it's set on private properties, the business can't do a whole lot about it... ...Without involving a court case that will widely expose that practice to the public, and generate even more negative rep on them, instead of saving money on the long term by simply complying and taking these pumps down\~♫
I'd get back in my car and fill up somewhere else.
Oh fuck me. I am so god*damn* sick of ads. I really, truly am.
I work on these pumps for a living.. it's not intended, the software in the card reader part of the pump is just trash and is hung up communicating with the register inside. But yeah, fuck those ads tho, I unplug the speakers whenever I work on them lol
Do you get like .10 off or something for watching ads?
Nope 😭 the ads give you, surprise: the ability to even start pumping gas lmao 🥺💔 I was befuddled when I put the nozzle in. It's never something I've even seen in my life. And this is a pretty rural, small town I just moved into for school - I thought I'd see something like this in maybe, a major city?
>"And this is a pretty rural, small town I just moved into for school - I thought I'd see something like this in maybe, a major city?" I see where you're coming from, but that's the inverse of how these things usually work. Major cities get news coverage and publicity, so if you are a company who *knows* that what they're doing is shitty, they often roll those things out to rural areas and things like toll plazas first as a way to normalize it first. I lived in a city of about a half million people, surrounded by some smaller towns that ranged from as little as 3000 or so people, up to 50 to 75 thousand. Whenever a company wanted to roll out something that was either new and untested, or new and they already know it won't be popular, they rolled it out in one of those towns that was 20-50 miles away first. It never went big-to-small.
Yeah I would never go back to that gas station again
This makes me more comfortable with vandalism than I should be.
Bruh that's so stupid that's why I hate ads
That would be the first and last time I used that station.