this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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If the gas pumps have those unlabeled buttons around a screen, try pressing all of em. The pumps around here (nebraska) will mute the audio when you press one of the buttons, it just isn’t labeled. I’ve taken to writing “mute” on the magic-button with a sharpie whenever I pump my gas.
Wait, the thing about ads while fueling your car is real?
WTF?!
Yep. Just shell stations around here (so far at least)
They’re super loud and in my experience usually political, think local office smear ads and oil lobbyist propaganda.
Well yeah how else are they supposed to make money? /s
Yeah no it’s real and it’s bullshit. They also have ad signage, but that’s been around my whole life, it just keeps getting worse constantly. I remember boycotting the first company to have gas ads, now I don’t have a no ad choice
Years ago I was talking to some engineers at one of the main gas pump manufacturers. They were venting about their company’s partnership with Verifone. While they used to handle credit card reading themselves in the magnetic stripe days, the switch to chip credit cards and readers in the U.S. meant they were going to partner with an established card reader company and Verifone (at least at the time) was the largest and most established in the new chip technology. Verifone was dominating the partnership and making life difficult for the gas pump company, insisting on all sorts of changes to the devices that weren’t necessary for the gas pump but were going to let them do things like run ads at the gas pump. If the pump manufacturer didn’t go along with it, Verifone seemed to have a very credible threat that they were just going to leave and go to the other main gas pump manufacturer. The gas pump companies needed the card reader a lot more than the other way around.
So, these ads have been a long time coming, but it wasn’t the pump manufacturer that had the idea or wanted to do it.
One of my local gas stations had that to where it was so loud you can hear them in the car. A few weeks after they installed them, someone came by with a hand drill and drilled out all of the speakers. Not sure what happened to that hero but we need more people like them.
While I never condone audio speaker violence, I do want to cheer/salute the activism of the person who did the work.
I've tried pressing every button at every pump I've used in my area and this trick doesn't work. I want to epoxy the speakers and screen and glitter-bomb the entire thing.
I won't. But I want to.
Sometimes it’s multiple presses. Around here for example I find that at my local Shell station it’s the second button down on the right side, two or three times.
At the 76 here its also the second down from the right but only needs a single press.
I was trying to figure out how to shut the one at my local grocery store up and discovered that you can get into the administrative menu if you push two buttons at the same time.
You should install Doom on it.
If there's an exposed speaker hole, a long enough push pin or coat hangar wire can probably ruin the cone and coil.
I really can't afford to commit a crime by damaging the pumps, but if I found a way to temporarily disable them I'd be all for it.
I reckon you could kill it with a pin in a casual enough way, maybe make it look like you’re just putting a hand there to lean? Also you have like 4 other people come throughout the day and get gas at that same pump, and they do a similar casual hand movement around the speaker.
You’d be safe as houses, probably!
Appreciate the response, but I will stick to my non-criminal protest against the ad industry.
Definitely had to resist the urge myself a few times to jam my keys into the speaker when the mute button method didn’t work.
Right side, second button down?
Left side, second from the bottom iirc
You’re doin god’s work, sir
Maybe try jamming something in too so it stays forever pressed and muted
♥️