On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 21:26:28 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 10/7/2011 20:42, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> What's going to get me to buy them (as I did yesterday) is that I have
>> a need for them.  Then I'm going to look for something that fits my
>> needs.
> 
> That fails for things that you didn't know about.  New TV shows
> advertised on TV. 

I have friends to tell me about those things.

> Games on sale on Steam. 

I don't use Steam.  No Linux support. ;)

> Trailers for movies when
> you're at the movies. Etc.

I rarely go to the movies (we use Netflix a lot - right now, it's the 
primary source of video entertainment for us; no job means no cable as 
it's too expensive, and trips to the movies are also pretty rare for us 
as we have a home theater).  But if I want to see what's coming out in 
theaters, I go to imdb.com, go to the playstation video store and see 
what trailers are up, or friends tell me about them. 

>> Coupons are a bit different to me - if they're for stores I shop at.  I
>> don't mind getting Costco coupons, for example, because we have a
>> membership there and we spend a fair amount of money there.  So it's
>> good to know what's on sale and what's going to be on sale (since they
>> actually will tend to ring the coupons regardless of whether or not you
>> bring them in or not).
> 
> And that's what I'm saying. For you, the effort of looking thru the
> coupons for stuff you don't want is outweighed by the slight likelihood
> that you'll get a coupon for something you do want. It's less than $1
> cost to find the $1 off coupon.

But it's for things that I'm actually planning to buy.  I don't peruse 
the Costco coupon catalog and go "oh, I didn't know about that, I must 
have it!"

>> But in general, I'm in the camp of "I hate all forms of advertising".
>> :)
> 
> I dislike most of it, to the point where I stopped watching TV for many
> years, and even now watch maybe one or two shows a week sometimes. That
> doesn't mean I consider it "spam" instead of advertising.

The "official" definition of spam (in this context) is unsolicited bulk e-
mail.  But I also tend to browse the web with adblock enabled as well 
(there are a few sites that I visit where I do disable it because I know 
it's the only source of income for the author - and I do occasionally 
click on the ads to generate some revenue, but it's not because I'm 
actually interested in ChristianMingle <barf>.  It's because I want the 
site operator to get some income to pay for what they provide me.)

Jim

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