"I don't pay to get rid of ads, so I get bottom-of-the-barrel scam products hoisted at me. This is AI's fault, somehow, and not how the web has worked since nearly its inception."

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fsloth 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I can tell you - I've been around since Gopher days on freemium tier and boy it's _never_ been this bad. (predates www .. sorry, web)

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Lerc 5 hours ago | parent [-]

My first online scam attempt came via uucp. I think it has always been this bad. There have been waves of effectiveness in combatting it.

A comparatively few bad actors can have a disproportionate impact on the lives of many people. Prior to the internet we had https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_von_Braunhut, although that probably pales in comparison to Richard DeVos.

	▲	beej71 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		My first was Green Card Lawyers (edit: technically just spam, not a scam). The scale and sophistication of scams today is orders of magnitude higher than it was in the 90s.

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Liuser 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

False advertising is illegal. Not fair to blame the victim; maybe they’re fine with ads just not illegal ones.

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totallygeeky 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Paying to get rid of ads on Youtube (which keeps getting more expensive) doesn't negate that they're almost entirely scams now. He's commenting on what he's seeing. AI has supercharged scams and you know that.

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5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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