The ocean is a vast and beautiful natural wonder. So, naturally, some companies decided to block beachgoers' views of the ocean with giant floating advertisements.
Photos of the giant billboards sitting on the backs of barges were posted to the r/LateStageCapitalism subreddit with the caption, "Floating billboards at Florida beaches."
The billboards feature massive ads for a Miami food hall and a food delivery app startup — surely, exactly what the people who headed down for a relaxing day at the beach were hoping would dominate the skyline.
The members of the subreddit were not particularly pleased.
One person wrote, "This should not be allowed."
"Name something that is legal but needs to be illegal," said another one.
"What a great way to make me loathe your product," wrote a third user.
"But god forbid we use offshore wind turbines. They're so ugly!" wrote another commenter, pointing out that offshore wind farms — which provide the genuinely useful function of generating clean energy and reducing pollution from oil and gas, and are far less visually obtrusive than these billboards, sometimes receive backlash on the grounds that they are blocking ocean views.
Advertising is, of course, an unavoidable part of modern life. But being bombarded with constant ads while you are on your phone or watching a TV show is one thing — having it shoved in front of your face while you are trying to enjoy the great outdoors is quite another. Ads like these, which seem to view the act of staring at the ocean as equivalent to a long commercial break, left the members of the subreddit wondering if there was anywhere in the world they could go without being asked if they were "hangry" by a food delivery app.
The app in question, since the photos were taken, has been fined $6.2 million by the state of Massachusetts for mistreating its workers and subsequently laid off around 1,750 employees. So, it seems that maybe the floating billboards were not very effective in the first place.
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