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(The Internet) - Banner ads have been with many of us for as long as we have been on the internet. To most of us, they are, at worst, annoying and, at best, a diversion, inviting us to waste a few minutes or dollars on something we did not previously know we wanted or needed. Some noise has been made about whether or not user agreements to social media platforms have become nefarious incursions from capitalists, exploiting human nature to accrue vast sums of wealth.
"So what we were wondering was simply this: could we make a browser extension that makes banner ads work for you, the person browsing web pages or checking your e-mail?" asked Hank Szmanski. "What if we made the banner ad's power to distract a positive experience?"
Ostrych, a new browser extension from Szmanski's company PurCatory, promises to make the internet a more comfortable place for people who do not want to hear about the death and destruction so rampant in the news of late. Instead, it uses targeted marketing advertisements to cover up stories that the reader may find uncomfortable.
"Imagine, instead of hearing about another worker's strike being put down at the end of a truncheon, you get to see the stuff the workers were working on. Maybe, if you, the consumer, bought more things, they'd raise the wages of the workers. So, I like to think of this as a win-win. I mean, who wants to hear about a heatwave killing people off when you can learn about another documentary about the Fyre festival? We are consumers of information, and we don't want a stomach ache," commented the venture capitalist.
Critics of the idea have already taken to message boards. They had this to say:
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