Setting The Mood

NEWS:
My new podcast Potter & Daughter is live now! You can download the first episode here or subscribe via RSS or iTunes. Fancy Patreon Patrons get each episode a week early!

HOODIES ARE STILL ON SALE! Use code 10offhoodies to get $10 off any and all hoodies in the HE store! Use it as many times as you like.

I will put up with pretty much anything to get a great service for free. I have ALLLLMOST pulled the trigger on Spotify Premium a dozen or so times, but I always end up asking myself, “Are the ads, that bad? Do I really need one more bill?” Turns out the ads aren’t so much “that bad” as they are often “innapropriate” for “trying to have” some of the “sex.” Hell, I JUST signed up for Amazon Prime after months of doing to the math to see how much I typically spend on shipping with Amazon each year. The answer was “none.” I spend none dollars on shipping with Amazon because I always opt for Free Super-Saver Shipping and the impossibly long wait that comes with it. Eventually you have to weight he cost/benefit of not having to wait two weeks for your new angled USB adapter to show up at your doorstep and NOT being coitally interrupted by rootin’ tootin’ car commercials. Treat yo’ self every once in a while.

COMMENTERS: What free service do you use that you still refuse to upgrade to the premium version? Is it the cost, or that you just don’t care enough about alleviating the minor inconveniences. What made you finally pull the trigger to the paid version?

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62 Comments

  1. I was using Crunchyroll for free anime streaming for a very long time. Won't play on my TV? just plug in the phone via an HDMI cable. Fixed.

    But then, somehow, I think they got wise to the fact because all of a sudden I was getting ads every time I tried to fast forward, or rewind, or accidentally nudged the phone the wrong way. And not just any ads. The same ads. Over. and over. and over again. The final straw came when I'd heard the annoying off-harmonies of kids singing in a children's claritin commercial for the 80,000th time and realized I had an offer for a month of free premium service. I never went back after that.

  2. Pretty much any ad-supported site that you can get ad free for a fee. That said though, its really starting to get to me, I feel like Im drowning in advertising lately, especially on YouTube. It doesnt help that it just repeats the same 5 stupid commercials over and over again, I'm starting to get panicked anxiety from it

      • You mean the Adblock Plus version? I haven't seen a Youtube ad in literally years. I don't know which of my rules block them, though.

        Seriously though, I watch Rooster Teeth videos A LOT on Youtube, and they're smart enough to do their own sponsors and preroll ads. Gus will do a couple actual old-timey-radio style ad reads on the podcasts. They do the RT video podcast and "The Patch" podcast about gaming.

        They vet the hell out of their sponsors, and I've actually started using Nature Box & Dollar Shave Club after hearing their ads, which is an absolute first for me.

        Back on topic: I'm soured on the "premium version" shit since I bought XM Radio *specifically* for ad-free radio music, then the goat fuckers STARTED PLAYING ADS. Mother. Fucker. I was so pissed, I used Mr. Hammer on my radio.

        • I have whitelisted HE but have to keep going back to blocking because randomly the website won't load at first or it won't load when I press next. I've yet to figure out WTF is causing it (if it's on my end, probably is) but enabling ad block fixes it.

          Sorry Joel 🙁

          But hey, at least I turn whitelisting back on and you're not really losing anything since I can't see the ads when the page doesn't load…

    • Then don't get Hulu Plus. You're paying $8 a month for the privilege of seeing the same half-dozen ads AT LEAST twice during the span of a half-hour comedy. Oh, and pressing "NO" on that "Was this ad useful to you in any way" button on the upper right? No matter how many times you click on it, and it tells you "Alright, we'll tailor your ads to reflect this!", you still end up seeing the same goddamn ad over and over again anyway.

      • Thank you for making my final decision easier.
        I've been rubbing my chin over whether to get it, or not.

        I work second shift and have to catch up on Hulu.
        The bonus is; I've timed the commercials almost perfectly to bathroom time. 🙂

      • Same with free Hulu, as well. Every time a shitty singing competition or Glee ad comes up, I click on "no" and they still come back! I'm thankful when I see the "ad couldn't be loaded" message because it doesn't interrupt the shows

      • Oh, man.

        I work for a cable Internet company up here in Canada that uses Yahoo servers for our (branded) emails. About a month ago (without any warning to us, so we got to find out what was happening right along with our irritated customers) Yahoo started putting banner ads at the top of the inbox, and even displaying them in actual emails when people were reading them. They said you could "opt out" of them showing the ads; but actually what they meant was that you could opt out of having the ads targeted at you; you'd still get random ads showing up in your inbox and emails, including what customers were describing as fairly suggestive dating site ads. But you could get rid of them completely–for a fee.

        We had a bunch of customers actually drop us as their Internet service provider over those stupid ads, so I guess our company complained loudly enough that Yahoo stopped doing those ads after about a week of them. Thank god, too; putting them right in line at the top of the inbox so they looked like they were another email, and then putting them actually IN people's emails, was really f***ing obnoxious. Had to take a lot of angry calls over those, I can tell you. Wow.

  3. I smell a new Patreon goal here Joel. A new milestone so you can get an ad free Spotify account and, you know, knock boots.

    • This wouldn't seem like such a douchey comment if you hadn't listed your email as nope@nope.com. You really blew my whole premise WIDE open by dissecting the minutia of my joke construction. You did it! You made everyone a little less happy! Good job, anonymous Internet dude!

    • Who cares? Folks still sell used cars. It's not like Mercurys atomized when the line was discontinued. There are no Mercury reservations where they just sit around and die. Your comment adds nothing to the discussion besides a useless factoid that nobody else cares about. Congratulations, you are a member of the Internet.

      • It would've been odd if they turned to dust when they announced that the line was discontinued instead of make a Steve Miller song make less sense

    • Nooooooooooooo, Not Mercury too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why does everything good have to end?

      First Comedy, then Tragedy. Don't you know what a "trigger warning" is for?

  5. We have a car dealership here that also has an insanely loud Spotify ad. I actually wouldn't mind it, if it didn't send me into a panic attack every time it played. I wonder why car dealerships think that pissing me off on a regular basis, is going to make me buy their cars?

    • Advertising isnt really about making you want the product in question, its about getting in your head, either by being memorable, or by being so loud and obnoxious that you cant turn it into background noise

      • The Energizer Bunny was really good at being loud and obnoxious and unforgettable, with the end result that I have deliberately avoided buying Energizer batteries since those bloody ads started back in the Eighties.

        Suck it, Bunny.

      • These car ads aren't run of the mill loud and obnoxious, though. They're actually adjusted so that when they play, it is like, 3x louder than any of the music you've been listening to. Have you ever been on YouTube, and someone's video was really quiet, so you turn up the volume, and then moved on to another that was adjusted REALLY LOUD, and get blasted out of your seat? These car ads are basically like that. It has assured that I will never, ever buy a car at this dealership.

    • Actually, if you want to talk about weird Spotify ads playing where they don't belong…trying being in a gay bath house when the Spotify ads come on inbetwixt EDM/booty-thumpin' music.

      There's a mood killer for ya.

  8. As a fellow resident of D/FW, I find that car dealer's adds distracting and annoying even when I'm not involved in sweaty snugglebunny hijinks. You have my sympathy.

    • What part of being a pointless pedant is criticism? You need lessons in both the definition of criticism and its execution. And listing your email (this time) as fuck@off.com REALLY doesn't paint the picture of someone whose "criticism" I would ever take seriously. Take your own supposed email address's advice.

    • But that was less "criticism" than focusing on irrelevant minutiae to the detriment of the larger statement, let alone considering that perhaps the idea that the sudden, unexpected, abrasively loud and jarring car dealership ad wasn't even providing accurate information may have been a subtle and deliberate point.

      Whether or not it actually was deliberate I certainly don't know, but absolutely nothing about Mercury being discontinued a few years ago impacts the rest of the comic in the slightest. Can't even say I read the ad that closely; it was just " BLARGH BLARGH COME AND BUY CARS FROM ME I'M A CAR DEALER THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF SEXY-TIMES SOUNDS BLARG!" to me, which I'm pretty sure was the point of the ad (and the strip), not which models were offered.

    • The line between criticism and an insult (or maybe just being needlessly pedantic) is whether or not you make a dick out of yourself when you deliver said criticism/ insult/ needlessly pedantic comment. I'm saying this because I'm not sure that you're aware of this fact, and hope that you're helped by this knowledge in the future.

      PS- I knew a guy who did nothing but sell classic car parts for a living. Cars don't just evaporate into the ether when their line is discontinued. Indeed, there's booming business around cars that aren't made anymore, specifically BECAUSE they aren't made anymore. And in terms of cars, four years isn't exactly antique. It'll probably be another four to eight years before they stop selling enough Mercury cars to consider a name change. Not only that, but lots of dealerships provide a repair and maintenance warranty of five years. If someone bought a Mercury in 2011, it would still be under a five year warranty, with the dealership. Even if you're not under warranty, you can often still get your work done at a large car dealership, which has its own mechanic shop. Therefore the dealership would still do mechanic work on Mercury cars, and would want to advertise the fact that they are still associated with Mercury cars. So in terms of criticism, you might want to think your comments through a little more, before you make them. Not only was it slightly on the rude side, but it was kind of wrong, and also irrelevant.

  10. Hulu. I won't go to Hulu Plus. Honestly, I should probably dump Time Warner Cable and do nothing but Hulu Plus, but I am not that smart.

    • Hulu Plus sucks. I paid $8 a month, yet still got inundated by 2-3 ads every 5-7 minutes. It was also supposed to let me view content via my PS3, yet half the stuff I wanted to see was locked out. And AdBlock doesn't help either – you'll just get a message telling you to remove ad blockers that goes on for 90 seconds and can't be skipped…and shows up at every commercial break, not just at the start. At least when I pay $8 a month for Netflix, i'm not being subjected to a dozen ads in the span of 20-25 minutes.

      • if you can access EU sites try wwwcouchtuner.eu i know i repped it earlier on another comment but seriously CT + Adblock = F(*^& Hulu

      • Yep, fuck Hulu with a dirty stick. If I'm paying you, don't show me ads. Simple, yeah? At that rate, you're just double-dipping and leaving slime trails of greed all up in my viewing experience. Besides, it's all stuff that comes on broadcast TV anyhow, for the most part. Go buy yourself a shiny PVR tuner for fifty bucks, invest in a fair capacity USB HDD and record what you want in stunning 1080p HD. That way, you can FF through all the ads to your heart's content.

        QED, Hulu is useless and frustrating. Decent idea, completely failed in execution. Drop the ads from behind the paywall and they might salvage it.

        • Exactly the double dipping is why I can't justify the money. "It costs as much as Netflix AND I get to keep watching the same 4 ads at least 6 times during a one hour show?! SIGN ME UUUUUUUUP!" The most infuriating part, which I gleaned during my 1 month free trial a while back, was seeing THE SAME ad 4-8 times during a single show. Yes, I get it. Your heartburn pill is the proverbial tits. Please try and sell me something else now. Dogfood perhaps.

          • Maybe it depends on where you are or what show you're watching. Hubby & I just watched an ep of S.H.I.E.L.D. last night and each ad was different. And I only saw 3 or 4 ads total for the whole 42-minute episode. This versus paying for cable

            • Okay, Intense Debate cut half my comment… anyway! This versus paying for cable which had ads from the start and everyone's accepted that, and it costs considerably more per month. I'm a cable-cutter going on 12 years now, so there's a premium type thing I won't pay for. If it makes a difference I access Hulu Plus via a Roku box.

              Premium thing I won't pay for: Amazon Prime. I don't mind waiting for the standard free delivery. I'm mostly home bound right now, so I order supplies via the 'net more than I'd like, but it is what it is. I just don't see added benefit to paying for Prime for me right now. Tangentially, I do find it funny when they break up an order or office supplies, so there's one large box of things like printer ink and copy paper etc, but then a separate delivery via UPS for a package containing nothing but paperclips.

  12. I had to pull the the trigger on Spotify Premium when I found myself at work listening to music at a work-environment-friendly level through my headphones and all of the sudden an AWFULLY loud and WILDLY inappropriate for work commercial for Trojan Condoms came blasting out haha

    Honestly – haven't turned back since then lol

  15. Rdio — still fewer ads than commercial radio plus I can pick songs. I do kind of hate that they have about 4 ads in high rotation, 3 of which are for rdio.

  16. As a fellow DFW inhabitant, I have to say, our dealership commercials are a bit…enthusiastic? Over-the-top? RIDICULOUSLY LOUD AND OBTRUSIVE WHEN TRYING TO FALL ASLEEP TO THE CALMING SOUNDS OF NEWBORN SUCKLING YAKS?! Yes.

    Halloween was even worse though, Pandora kept running that damn Strangling Bros haunted circus ad that just had a to start with a piercing scream
    -_-

  19. Clay Cooley is the Messiah.

    I fought The Tall Sexy One on paying for Spotify, but it has saved our asses a few times when asked to DJ some event that should totally have had an actual DJ in the first place and not some schmuck with Spotify. You really don't want Clay Cooley impeding your wedding guests' expression of their inability to lie about their opinion on big butts.

  20. The only thing I currently have the free version of that I won't upgrade is Dropbox. I just occasionally move camera uploads and other extra files that I no loner need in DB to my external hard drive to free up space.

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