The next to last paragraph makes a good point. Currently the state of the game seems to be: we don't care about you, as long as you aren't one of the most immoral actors.

Let's admit it, we just want to see the pictures and compare them to ourselves.

I incorrectly assumed the word coder denotes a male programmer.

The bias is very strong and real.

Anyway, judging from the website, I would say there are only males.

There are women in the calendar.

I was mildly surprised when John Carmack retweeted the original tweet. https://twitter.com/smashingmag/status/675624576630571009

The state of the image (jpeg artifacts), was a dead giveaway that the comparison is worthless.

> a dead giveaway that the comparison is worthless.

Worthless to anyone who understand both how the NES and JPEGs work, but pretty worthwhile to someone who's just learning about it.

Yea, and the reference links were interesting too. The LZSS youtube video was an enjoyable watch.

To be fair, the original tweet references "website weight" which is dependent on generic image formats, as the author here addresses. Being limited to generic image formats does add a lot of weight to sites, but also means all browsers can view them.

Yes, the article is essentially quote mining the movies.

But back in the real world, are the news networks doing much different from that?

It is becoming more and more current and relevant. I'm assuming you saw the current 19th season. If you didn't see it, or at least the last three episodes that form a "trilogy" or sorts, and talk about online ads and ad-blockers.

I think they mostly see the ads (read: products) as things that will influence their life positively. While this is true in the short term, brief entertainment in compensation for their money, it makes the life less significant in the long term, because their time was wasted not improving themselves. You are not the car you drive, you are not the contents of you wallet... Most people are short sighted.

(I'm not pretending that this fully answers the question.)

Star Citizen employs microtransaction, you just pay them in advance. There are also whales, like the guy who paid 30000$, and many more who pay between 100$ and 1000$. In comparison with other mentions it is even worse, because this game isn't even completed yet. It fits in the narrative.

And why not?

There are cases over the world where advertising was banned with success.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5338

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1125...

This is just the first step.

Random related question then; how do smaller companies and individuals starting out in business for the first time compete? Because as much as advertising and marketing can be sleazy in its execution, it's also potentially a way that smaller companies can compete with incumbents. Remove that, and what's left? Brand recognition and word of mouth. The former is great for multinational corporations, but kind of bad for anyone trying to dethrone them. The latter can be good for smaller companies and individuals, but can take decades to become effective.

Banning certain types of advertising is a good idea, but trying to ban all of it would kill competition.