Know what I hate the most about RMT spam?

[Delsus]

Honestly, it seems counter productive.

Is the plan to annoy people into submission? Somehow getting people angry with you will make them want to pay you money on a super risky transaction?
Who would be dumb enough to fall for that?

It's just like any advertising, getting people to know a company name, do we get annoyed at most TV shows being interrupted by adverts? Do we get annoyed when we go to the cinema and watch half an hour of adverts? Do we get annoyed when a webpage is full of ads? What about smartphone apps? They show fullscreen ads every time you open them. We just accept it as the norm in a capitalist system where all people care about is the aquisition of wealth. It's just the same spam spam spam and hope people buy.

[Gramul]

It's just like any advertising, getting people to know a company name, do we get annoyed at most TV shows being interrupted by adverts? Do we get annoyed when we go to the cinema and watch half an hour of adverts? Do we get annoyed when a webpage is full of ads? What about smartphone apps? They show fullscreen ads every time you open them. We just accept it as the norm in a capitalist system where all people care about is the aquisition of wealth. It's just the same spam spam spam and hope people buy.

Hell yeah I get annoyed.
It's why I DVR and use adblock.
The very audacity people have to suggest I might use my money to trade for something they tell me about in tiny segments, often unrelated to what I was doing...sickening.

[Itseotle]

It's just like any advertising, getting people to know a company name, do we get annoyed at most TV shows being interrupted by adverts?

yup, thats why Tivo/DVR and VOD are great. I also use ad blocker on youtube.

Do we get annoyed when we go to the cinema and watch half an hour of adverts?

Yup thats why I don't show up super early and have to sit there watching ads. I paid for a movie.

Do we get annoyed when a webpage is full of ads?

Yup. Adblocker.

What about smartphone apps? They show fullscreen ads every time you open them.

Super annoying. Its why I don't use apps unless there critical (and stock)

We just accept it as the norm in a capitalist system where all people care about is the aquisition of wealth. It's just the same spam spam spam and hope people buy.

Not everyone accepts it though. People find ads annoying, especially when they are thrown in your face like RMT, and your examples. Thats why there are tools to block them in some places.

[Elusana_Celah]

Yeah ok. Think you misunderstand something. We as consumers are only accepting the advertisements we can't do anything about and we seek alternatives to things that annoy us. Do you ever wonder why online youtubing movie watching has rose in popularity? One of the reasons is because for a long time it was 100% commercial free and, in fact, it still feels a lot less intrusive (other reasons include variety of entertainment, convenience and what not). It is known in the advertisement world that there is a thing as going too far with intrusive advertising and companies are warned to be careful of such tactics as it can cause consumers to relate feelings of negativity and hatred towards their brands. Receiving a constant barrage of /tells that are seemingly endless every single time I log on FFXIV is an example of poor advertising as it makes us hate these groups and when we hate them, we will create a riot on the forums until SE is forced to exterminate them. But if they weren't irritating us like this, we may just accept they exist and get on with our lives.

I'm not playing FFXIV cuz I'm all CAPITALISM **** YEAH!!111 I want to get the hell away from all this crap I gotta deal with in my real life and the constant reminder of 'wealth and profiteering' is one of those things I really don't want to be constantly reminded about when I'm sitting in my MMO world.

[Delsus]

Yeah ok. Think you misunderstand something. We as consumers are only accepting the advertisements we can't do anything about and we seek alternatives to things that annoy us. Do you ever wonder why online youtubing movie watching has rose in popularity? One of the reasons is because for a long time it was 100% commercial free and, in fact, it still feels a lot less intrusive (other reasons include variety of entertainment, convenience and what not). It is known in the advertisement world that there is a thing as going too far with intrusive advertising and companies are warned to be careful of such tactics as it can cause consumers to relate feelings of negativity and hatred towards their brands. Receiving a constant barrage of /tells that are seemingly endless every single time I log on FFXIV is an example of poor advertising as it makes us hate these groups and when we hate them, we will create a riot on the forums until SE is forced to exterminate them. But if they weren't irritating us like this, we may just accept they exist and get on with our lives.

I'm not playing FFXIV cuz I'm all CAPITALISM **** YEAH!!111 I want to get the hell away from all this crap I gotta deal with in my real life and the constant reminder of 'wealth and profiteering' is one of those things I really don't want to be constantly reminded about when I'm sitting in my MMO world.

We can do something about it, companies spend millions, (potentially billions) a year on advertising, why? because it works. An advert that costs thousands on prime time TV ultimately makes a lot of money, if there was no evidence they wouldn't bother. If it really annoyed people so much they would start showing their frustration with their wallets, they would say they would boycott a certain brand, if enough people did that this advertising would start to decline. Rather it has massively increased, just one year ago advertising on Youtube wasn't too bad, but now alot more videos start with an ad.

If it annoys people so much use for example supermarket own brands, but as people are not doing this the mass advertising is widely accepted, we can do something about it if it really bothers us. Same with RMT if people stop buying gil, there will be no market, no market = no advertising, therefore RMT dies. It's all exactly the same.

Also if there is nothing we can do about advertisements, what you are really saying is companies have much much more power than democratic governments, many times people have voiced opposition to government policies, and they have been blocked, yet we can't stop intrusive advertising outside PVRs and adblocks?

[Elusana_Celah]

...

Gil buying is against terms of service. The advertisement spam from gil sellers is beyond tolerable limits and has reached harassment levels. I am sorry but I fail to see how this can be relative to real life advertising practices. We also have no control over who is buying the gil and you should understand that. It could be like 5% of my server is buying gil and that's enough to bring in a legion of bot spammers to our /tells and the other 95% of us can't do a damn thing about it.

Consumers will move away from products or services that they find annoying and annoying/intrusive advertisements will trigger this consumer reaction. We stay in FFXIV cuz we know gil buying is against terms of service and hold faith that SE will do something about it. So we complain about it here rather than just dealing with it until we've had enough and we uninstall the game and cancel our subscriptions.

Never forget the basics of advertisement: Do not annoy the consumer. Mobile apps that have an ad that pops up when you open it is fine cuz once it's open there's either no adds anymore or the adds are out of the way and we can still use the app while ignoring them. TV commercials DO annoy people and people are moving towards other forms of entertainment such as internet videos where they can avoid commercials... it's a slow transition but the transition is definitely happening. I haven't watched TV in 13 years... I used to be all into TV too but I got sick of commercials all the time. Now I only watch what I can watch without being bothered by advertisements I don't care about.

Skype added some advertisements to it but they are out of the way and I can still enjoy my chat without it bothering me. Now what if Skype advertisements were like FFXIV gil sellers? What if every 1 minute 3-5 advertisements were thrown into your conversation with the people you are talking to? And it happened all day? How long do you think that will last before people move on to a new chat service all together?

This isn't about people hating advertisement or about the effectiveness of advertising, this is about understanding good and bad forms of advertising so people can accept the advertisements as being there without feeling like the advertisement is ruining their activities and invading their lives.

[Viridiana]

If it annoys people so much use for example supermarket own brands, but as people are not doing this the mass advertising is widely accepted, we can do something about it if it really bothers us.

Except, unfortunately, it's not as binary as "Do they advertise? Yes/No." There are a good deal of other factors to consider, such as quality of product. Often those supermarket brands are inferior, which takes you back to buying from people who are advertising.

Personally, though, I don't get annoyed at individual advertisers. I get annoyed that there is advertising at all. Everyone in this thread is annoyed by RMT spam, but how many of us are actually reading the spam? I don't know about the rest of you, but I just see gibberish and /blist. At no point could I tell you what they're saying, what site they're from, or what rates they're offering. Same with commercials in other media. I blank it out until I can skip it, for the most part.

[Viridiana]

do we get annoyed at most TV shows being interrupted by adverts? Do we get annoyed when we go to the cinema and watch half an hour of adverts? Do we get annoyed when a webpage is full of ads? What about smartphone apps? They show fullscreen ads every time you open them. We just accept it as the norm in a capitalist system where all people care about is the aquisition of wealth. It's just the same spam spam spam and hope people buy.

Yes, especially because it ruins the flow and mood of the show if the show is at all dramatic. What's that? Character you like is in danger? Here, have a cutesy toilet paper commercial with cartoon bears!

In my experience, people ignore adds before movies and just use that time to settle it and wrap up any conversations they were having.

I use noscript to block most adds. The ones that get through are extremely annoying, yes.

If any of my apps started displaying adds every time I opened them, I would stop using them.