When I'm filling my gas tank and the screen on the pump is blaring ads at me I want to smash it. Car companies, please don't also make us want to smash our dash-boards.
Those gas station ads are so offensive to the senses. I want so desperately for them to stop.
I used to live near Cupertino, and the Valero station on De Anza and Prospect always played the local classical radio station. Driving a car is pretty tiring, and to take a break and have loud ads projected at you only adds to the stress. To instead step out of your car to modestly amplified classical music is really much better. I always made a point to stop at that specific station for gas. We really need to be more mindful of the world we create for one another.
What we really need is to stop praising CEO and marketing idiots who do that and normalize punching bad people in the face. There’s too much of them in the world who do bad things consciously and cover behind ignorance and inaccessibility. Atrocious interactions by technical means should be considered misdemeanors and treated respectively. There’s no difference between a flashing ads screen and a street sales guy buzzing in your ear, a car playing ads at you and a guy knocking on your window selling nonsense. Voting with your money doesn’t work when you normalize screaming at you with no consequences.
The other gas stations don't play pop, they play ads. The point is this business made a choice not to bombard people with ads, and I wish more places did that.
Whether you think it is bad or not is typically a question of your personal politics. My point is not to litigate that but to mention that the gas station isn't playing it because they want you to have a better day, but for the same reason why they might blast an ad: because they see is as a solution to a problem that they solve independently of you.
Is it immoral to, for instance, design a "planned city" to be as boring as possible in order to not attract thrill-seekers?
Now, mind you, I'm asking solely about design. There would be no enforcement of any kind. No "we don't want your kind here". Nothing like in the opening to First Blood.
Just boring AF. Everything closes at 8pm excluding a few bars and restaurants. Lots of playgrounds, good schools, and walking paths to attract a population of young families with children.
Good news for EV makers: they take longer to refill than ICE vehicles, so there will be even more opportunities to "monetise" the drivers while they wait.
Many have a mute button: the unmarked, flat, square buttons at the edges of screen, usually 2nd on top right. If not that one, try the others; not like you will break it. Some newer designs have hidden it somewhere or removed it.
This used to work. But it has not worked at any gas station in my area for a couple years now.
They all stopped working at about the same time (different brands and locations). I imagine there's a common vendor for at-pump entertainment systems, and that vendor decided to scrape the last fractional percent of ad revenue.
Jesus, what?!? Never seen anything like that, but I guess it’s just a matter of time for all the "innovations" to diffuse from the land of the free to this side of the pond.
