26 Dec 2019

26.12.19 iTech mayhem!

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Thursday 26th 38F, calm start with the familiar, dark overcast. Yet more sunshine promised again. Yesterday we saw none at all.  It is becoming a habit. The sky is an exact copy of yesterday's. More grey than blue and zero sunshine. The only thing of note on my walk was a rather tame blackbird. Instead of hiding it just sat there and watched me walk past. The sky remained grey all day until it was nearly dark. Then cleared to cloudless.

I just clicked on New Post on my "cycling" blog. Google Advertising immediately opened a new page on another of my  blogs. Just as it did yesterday but [unfortunately] without my noticing. Do they do it deliberately? Why would they change to another blog when I already have one open? What could either of us possibly gain from the automatic change of blog? Is it, as I suspect, that the big, advertising monopolies can no longer keep up with the sheer workload of dealing with hundreds of millions or billions of users?

Netflix used to be much more interested in their viewer's habits. They even allowed a scale of enjoyment for the viewer to vote on each item. Presumably so they could show material likely to directly appeal to each viewer. Though that exercise was very short lived. Now they don't even bother to remove items which have been given a thumb's down. Their latest desperate bid to keep straying customers, as competition increases to a head, is an endless procession of Indian Bollywood[?] films! Give every single one a thumbs down and they completely ignore the customer's reaction! They put even more up!

We have frequently gone for well over a week without finding a single item worth watching on Netflix. Perhaps it is our habit of checking IMDB before we watch a film? Why invest an hour and half, or more, in yet another poorly scoring film? Netflix has so much dross that its catalogue looks just like the tatty, cardboard box full of cheap, used DVDs at a down at heel, flea market.

YouTube has obviously long exceeded its ability to cope with the burden of billions of viewers by a huge margin. It shows the same recommendations over and over again. Totally regardless of the viewer's responses. Or even if they have watched the video to the end. Do viewers habitually watch the same material again and again? It might happen, now and then, with a music video, but why list everything else day after day after day? Have all these advertising companies broken their algorithms with an intolerable workload? Or is it simply the weight of advertising which is completely destroying the Internet?


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