Idiots live in debt by throwing money on bullshit all the time
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Nobody cares if you have money or not. It's about reaching a lot of users and finding one's that are willing to buy
Ive forgotten the actual terms of the purchasing funnel. Something like attention, awareness, interest, desire, action.
Edit: I looked it up
Credit card debt.
Ads make people believe that you need the product and not wish to have it. They show it so much that the brain literally thinks that it is a need and has to be bought even if it takess you go in debt.
There are plenty of idiots that get sucked into those ads. Well shit, the 2024 US election proves it too.
On the other hand, when the "product" is a F2P mobile game that also sustains itself through ads that are mostly F2P mobile games that sustain themselves through ads...
like, who is paying for all this?!?
(Turns out some of the games in ads are actually P2W. I've also decided to never play another F2P mobile game and start buying some again instead.)
There are free to play foss games with no ads. Feel free to contribute monetarily if you wish. Civ clone is a good time waster for long trips.
What you can, or cannot afford is irrelevant. You're a pair of eyeballs and they're paid for eyeballs.
They think you are stupid.
Enough people are.
That's the neat thing, they don't.
Marketing looks like it is there to make you buy products, but it's a well-known fact that this doesn't work, and online ads specifically allow performance measurements, and they show that it's not worth the money.
So what are ads actually there for then?
First, remember that the thing that marketing departments are best at is marketing their own importance to company management. They are really good at convincing their companies that if they stop marketing, everything will collapse. So in this way, marketing is there to finance the marketing department, and everyone's too scared to stop marketing, because if they do they will be seen as the biggest idiots ever.
Second, marketing is there to provide a small revenue stream to the platform where you see the ads, but more importantly to punish you for not paying premium. Youtube makes you watch a shitton of ads, not because they care about whether you buy anything from the ads, but to punish you for not paying premium and to get you to do so. A premium customer brings in orders of magnitude more money than an ad-only customer.
This is one of those fun conspiracy theories that is harmless, and can't be argued against because you can always just say "SEE THEY'VE CONVINCED YOU TOO!"
It's not, we can prove that marketing does in fact impact sales, but it's fun nonetheless.
I find it boss that ads don't make anymony. They seem to be driving the whole world economy.
They make money for those who sell ad space.
They are really good at convincing their companies that if they stop marketing, everything will collapse.
I hate that I’m going to defend marketing here, but if they do stop marketing then things will collapse (for many businesses). Do I like marketing, personally? No. That’s why I got out of marketing and am becoming an elementary school teacher to help others rather than spit propaganda but I digress…
Marketing isn’t always about generating a sale. Many times its reach and brand recall. We’re a global and digital economy now, so reach is massively important for survival. Stopping marketing limits who is exposed to your brand and the repetition makes your company synonymous with a product.
Why do we call tissues Kleenex? Why do we call cotton swabs a Qtip? Why do we call small sticky notepads Post-Its? Why do we call searching “Googling”? Why do we gravitate toward those brands even when cheaper and more generic options exist that are perfectly on par?
Making those brands the prime thing you think of when you use a specific thing so that no one thinks of using something else even when they have money. You want people to mention your product or think about it even if they aren’t buying it.
You’re drowning out the potential of your competition. That’s marketing, and if you stop then your competitor takes over or a small business won’t grow.
As an engineer who hated marketing, started my own business, which subsequently failed due to my lack of understanding for the importance and proper execution of the marketing mission.... I now have a deep respect, and appreciation of a well-run marketing function.
I have a great business name and word of mouth carries me.
I feel like if you need marketing it’s because you have too many competitors all doing the same thing ie: no one needs your business.
If a business can not sustain itself without marketing, then the product is possibly not worth having.
Yeah, everyone knows Coca-Cola. Nobody immediately goes out to buy some when they see the ad with Santa Clause and whatever, but the brand recognition is conditioned into pretty much everyone so you notice it in the store when you're thinking of grabbing a cool beverage from the fridge.
It's not even that good, but it's the default.
This video by Northridgefix always stuck with me because most of why his business grew is because he spent so much Google ads that he made enough money to then move to a strip mall by a major road all while making YouTube videos and taking mailed in work.
He has another video looking for new employees because he had too much business.
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Marketing is more than just advertising and promoting though. Marketing is an integral part of a business. If you research what your target audience likes, that's marketing. Researching where you should sell your products, marketing. Focus group testing, marketing. What price you should sell, marketing. Even if a business doesn't have a marketing department they still engage in marketing.
Yeah, it's a very broad umbrella term.
I'm an engineer on a team that designs new products and fixes old ones. I'm happy to joke about the advertising & sales departments being the dark side of marketing, but when it comes to creating a product that is useful for our end-users, other facets of marketing are absolutely essential. The ideal, after all, is to have whatever ticket I am working on be traceable back to a customer need.
Heck, the product is pretty niche so even when I am chatting with our service technician about whatever crazy stuff customers are seeing & doing in the field, you could justify calling that marketing. It's customer information making its way to future design decisions, even if that decision is actually being made by an engineer rather than the Product Manager.
the thing that marketing departments are best at is marketing their own importance to company management
That’s quite an interesting insight.
And a catchy one, but not really meaningful or correct.
The whole comment showcases how little they know about running a business. Marketing works. But of course we the consumer don't notice it works, because we think "Well I never click on an ad..." which also reflects on advertisement statistics.
But that's not the point of ads, at least not anymore. The point is you saw the brand. You saw what they do. Everytime you see the brand name or logo, everytime you see the product, your brain registers it. You might not realise it, but it does. And when the time comes you need a product like that, that's where the value of marketing shows. Because you'll browse, research, or whatever you do when you decide you need something. And you'll see the brand, and you'll see the name, and you'll think "Hmm I've heard of them before" and immediately place them higher in your mind than a competitor with 0 ad budget.
I’m sure it’s true that a lot of marketing departments are useless, but adept at marketing themselves. At the same time, you’re right that marketing also can and does work, and the marketing that works best is when you’re not even conscious of it. For example, most of us here are well-aware of the upcoming Steam Frame and Steam Machine. How so? Marketing. Most people here hate ads, but post a Valve press release about upcoming hardware and nobody here even cares that they’re being marketed to.
"Uhg, McDonalds again. These assholes always waste my time with the same ad over and over again. I just want to watch a video. I hate these idiots."
Yes, the brain registers. If a brand keeps annoying me over and over again with intrusive ads, the breain does register.
Ads are profitable, so they will continue, period
says the people profitting from selling ad space
Companies aren't stupid, they wouldn't dump money on ads without effects.
Companies are stupid, which is why they do things like demand return-to-office even though employees are more productive on average working from home with less micromanagement. And they're incredibly short-sighted.
Sometimes even if the person seeing it doesn't buy the product. Down the line if someone asks about something, that's a product they're likely to remember to respond with
You can't come up with $148.39 once a year?
That's for premium what?
Is it for my car to accelerate faster? I saw Mercedes listed that at
Monthly: $90/month
Yearly: $900/year
Lifetime of Vehicle: $2,950
And that's actually from Mercedes website, https://media.mbusa.com/releases/mercedes-benz-usa-announces-performance-acceleration-on-demand-upgrade-for-eqe-and-eqs-customers
YouTube premium $148.39 per year. And they no longer let us break it into monthly payments. I remember when YouTube cost nothing with no ads. And then I remember it cost $7.99 a month. Then it was $9.99 a month. Then for a few years it was $12.99 a month. And all of a sudden they're like $148.39 a year!
I don't have enough lifetime to expend on watching ads. Too time expensive
if anything, they should ADD ads to premium users because they have more money
If you don't have money for either product then you are not their target demographic, and thus, you being inconvenienced or delayed does not concern them in the slightest.
Their goal is to get money from the people who have money. How they affect people with no money is not a factor in their decisions, since no money will be acquired from them regardless.
get money from the people who have money.
The "whales" is the advertising business term for that.
I get that for stuff like billboards and tv/radio commercials.. But why does google and friends keep telling me about how they need my data to give me targeted ads? If they wanted to give me targeted ads, shouldn't they first figure out how much I'm willing to pay, then get mad at me because I can't pay for anything and maybe offer ads for mental health services?
I mean obviously the answer is that they just want the data for control and whatnot. But they should just drop the whole pretending to do targeted advertising. I would probably appreciate their honesty if they just told me that they need my data to grow their business, instead of giving me the "we care about your data" and targeted ads bullshit lol
But anyway, doesn't really matter for me personally since I use ad blockers, if I can't use ad blockers, I'll stop using the service and go read a book.
Because you still have to be inconvenienced for not paying the premium.
Don't have money? Time to increase your debt!!
Why do you think some of the most advertised things are... predatory loans and gambling.
Honestly for me the worse of it is, basically on linkedin and similar, people pretending to be recruiters, opening with a fake job posting and asking for your resume, then to follow it up with "Hey you know I don't think this resume is going to get by, can I put you in contact with my resume company, they will sharpen up your resume for $300. Umm... so yeah, don't know if you guessed this, but I have no clue when my next paycheck is coming in, this isn't the time to ask me to drop a large amount of money on something that may not do anything.
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