Pesterware

The first pesterware was advertising on TV.   I understand the purpose of advertising and to some extent I even embrace it.  It pays for some or all of the desired programming or at least makes it less expensive--which enables production of more.  Once in a rare while, I even see something in an ad that I want to buy.

TV advertising has crossed the line in several ways.  When they run the same ad over and over and over and over and over, I initially get bored, but before long I get irritated.  A little repetition is understandable: people miss the beginning of the show, go to the toilet during ads, etc.  I skip as many as I can with a Digital Video Recorder (or its predecessor a VCR).  But at some point it becomes so annoying that I no longer watch the channel.  SciFi and FX are both in this category for me. These guys break up the show into such short slots that I am constantly cursing them--a 90 minute movie extended to 3 hours, in 5 minute spurts,  often with substantial parts of the movie cut out.  No thanks.

Another way they irritate me is by putting a bug, splash or crawl over the screen.    A typical example:  a news program will show some video with a banner over it: KWTF BREAKING NEWS!!!  and the critical thing will be hidden by the banner.  Sometimes they get the banner out of the way, but rarely.  A bug or bottom of screen crawl would have been better.  (why do they put it away from the bottom, ever?  Back in the days of rounded screens, the bottom was a moving target, so I understand why they moved it up then.  But since the '70s, screens have been relatively rectangular and technology has eliminated sync and size issues completely.  But they're still doing this.)   Recently a few channels have been putting a moving bug in the corner, occasionally with an accompanying noise, often loud enough to obscure the programming.  Sheesh.

Once upon a time, the government put a limit to advertising on the airwaves: 16 minutes per hour.  This is no longer the case but many channels still stick to it.

Computer pesterware has never had such a limitation.  Virtually all browsers have a popup blocker and virtually all users have it enabled.  So websites have implemented their own popups.  The best of them do things in a way that don't interfere and have a little X in the upper right to dismiss them.  But many of them can't be dismissed without giving the offender some of your personal data.  I boycott such sites.   I also run an ad blocker.  Many advertisers have figured out how to detect that the blocker is running and a few badger you about it.

In my view, unintrusive advertising is acceptable.   If it prevents the content I wanted from being accessed, it is intrusive.  If it keeps badgering me, even after I have attempted to dismiss it, it is intrusive.  If it makes spurious noises or flashes, it is intrusive.  If it takes more than two seconds to figure out how to dismiss it, it is intrusive.  If it consumes consequential amounts of network bandwidth, or any other resource on my computer, it is worse than intrusive.

Advertising doesn't have to be pesterware.  But when it is, we need to stop it.