Yeah the irony is the auto-play video that annoys us on Every Single Page of this very website. I have always said, and clearly the writer agrees -- along with Google, ever since AdSense took over the internet by eschewing animated blinking flash interstitials with laser-gun audio tracks hawking mortgage scams for plain text-based ads that were Actually Somewhat Targeted -- that advertising is only annoying to audiences when its done *badly*. People complain to the FTC about Viagra spam, but happily click on facebook ads that align closely to their interests. In the case of Tom's here, we're all computer geeks -- if the damn auto-play Video Ad was a high quality video production, with NO sound, showcasing sexy Gaming Cases with windows and neon lights inside, CPU fly-by's, dual-fan full-length GPU video cards, and liquid-cooled bitcoin miners, we'd all be drooling and clicking on them like the mad gearheads that we are... but instead we always see (not hear, since we have our sound off) the same talking-head knucklehead, in the same cheap suit (oh wait, that's not Tom is it? whoops!) yammering on about something else, every single time. It's beyond annoying. Why would a publisher punish their audience by forcing us to interrupt our enjoyment of their story in order to stop and (good luck!) finding and actually clicking on the itty-bitty tiny stop button that ends the annoying sales shill, and then discourages us from liking their site *again* as we scroll down to continue to read the rest of the (otherwise excellent) content, only to see the same jerk again (again, my apologies if the jerk is you, Tom. -- wait, no. sorry, not sorry) reappearing in the right column to victimize us some more! WTH? Makes me see red every g*d*m*d time, and now in this right column incarnation of the devil, the close button is entirely intentionally UN-marked -- like we're supposed to believe *that* was an accident. When marketing insults the prospect's intelligence, it deserves to be blocked. Making that dweeb's face slide down the page, staring at me even after I've tried in vain to shut him up is Just Bad Advertising. Its the hallmark of low quality, bottom-feeding, greedy clickbait sites and I'm disappointed Tom's features such low-quality advertising. Especially when us hardware nerds are so easily convinced to part with our money if you simply market TO us, selling us the things you know we love, without shoving bad ads AT us in such a pushy, insulting way. Funny, Best Buy does the same thing -- they lure us in with shiny tech and blinking lights, then chase us out with loud, push sales people. Guess that's what happens when the writers and editors (and gear heads and nerds) lose control of the organization they made great, and cede control to the marketing scum, the former used car salesmen whose been recently Peter-Principled to Director of Online Sales, who's wearing his signature bright green neon pants and impressing upon everyone his new epiphany that yelling louder and talking faster is the key to making more money.
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