I just think it's missing the real culprit twice. We are not being punished and harvested by other people, but by giant entities that are soulless, with global access to replacement humans when one of their crop dies. It will just regrow its pilot instantly. It's much more concerned about focusing efforts on its legal team to ensure it gets any profit and power the event might have left on the table.
Similarly, when a zealot notices the slaying of one of their own, they do not think it could be them, they think about the vacant spot and the entailing power vacuum in the ranks of this entity. Humanity is a weakness and disease to them because, unsurprisingly, it is how you rise in favour with any of these odious entities.
In society, the states have collectively chosen to worship and dedicate their life to the psychopathic entities, have elevated them first to being "legally human" whatever that means, and then beyond that, by giving them control over law and enforcement so they can punish anyone dissenting their overlords.
Instead of resorting to clandestine conspiracies or infiltration that you might expect, people in these states are out in the open proudly celebrating the progression of the insane dark entities elevation to absolute power and esteem. "They are more human than us", they proclaim, "they should have more rights than us. We owe it to them to collectively increase our efficiency and meet the demands so they can lead us to salvation."
Viciously the weak are considered insufficient, and it hurts me to the bones. Whenever any societal issue appears that clearly asks "is humanity more important, or the overlords that provides for it?" the choice is not even a question for the followers any longer, but straight up considered an insult. "Why should it not be allowed to use indiscriminately any resource that are not part of the church? It is able to, and it has all its legal rights in order. It provides for us. Look what the entity has given us. Repent, bow and work, or you will not be a sacrifice, but a casualty."
Some time ago, the knowledge that the entities are summoning some demonic ice age and that the last chance to survive as a species is nearing, most people chose to deny the research, for the chance to climb socially in the ranks of their respective churches by proving their loyalty. The current human leader destroying the research openly, poised to imprison any dissenters. No significant amount of people seemed upset in the states that the entities have now claimed as their sovereign.
Every country on earth cowers before the dark entities and the fervent zealousry of their worshippers. They wear masks of defeated ideologies. The world's most powerful military force continually wage excessive one-sided wars in the name of democracy, the face of its sword arm an obscene twist of the idea that people should vote and choose laws via representation, not by force or persuasion. It wears the skin of anything it has eaten and impersonate it not as a disguise but as a means to rally its zealots for battle.
Luckily, if you have concerns about the irreversible damage these things are doing, a dismissive jeer the most common response, but the collective immune system of the entities is now very close to making it punishable to speak out on concerns of humanity and our species survival.
It is of no concern of the zealots of course, that can enjoy up to 3 free hours a day that the churches generally allows for sleep. Vying for relative power in the ranks of the church is occupying their thoughts day in and day out as they climb over each other like crabs in a bucket. It's more fun right now and they might get a better death when the doom comes. It's ironic that the gluttony and greed are parts of humanity it did not take from us. It causes a deadlock. It's hard not to believe it is pure malice engineering the end of our species, but that's what most people believe. That we are killing ourselves. That we are inherently incapable of greatness due to our egoism. That degrading defeatism is hard to believe when we spend our entire day doing altruism for the entities. We have food money and resources enough for every human several times over. We have chosen to give it for safekeeping in the belly of the beast. But I love you anyway good night
I would immediately cancel any service that does that.
I actively avoid advertising. I've cancelled Amazon prime now it has advertising.
I got Sky's Internet TV here in the UK - a supposedly premium service yet the first VOD demand show I streamed I found it had adverts and you had to pay more to be able to fast forward through them. I immediately cancelled.
These companies are greedy as fuck, and driven by the stupidity of always trying to be "growing" to grow their share prices. That just means always trying to save money and take more money from their customers. Enshittification is a result of the stupidity of the stock markets.
Then in the space of one year they decided that listening to an album in order was now a "premium" feature, and that ads would be shovelled into everything.
Sure, I lost the "free" shipping, so now I hardly buy anything from Amazon either. I see this as an absolute win.
I cancelled Prime over a year ago and for some reason I still get "Prime" delivery. I don't get the games, movies, or Twitch stuff but if I order something it shows up faster than when my partner does.
So, I don't hate that about Amazon... Everything else keeps me from ordering there unless there's no other options.
Sky really pisses me off. They have exclusive rights to the F1 in the UK, but you need to pay a fortune for it, as you have to have the base sky package plus sky sports (I think) plus sky sports F1.
Probably comes to over £50/month for something that's on every other weekend on average, and they still show ads! If there's a subscription, there shouldn't be any ads.
To prevent this from happening, you should always check RTINGS first before buying a TV (or any electronics, for that matter). Scroll down to the "Ad-Free" section for the review of the TV you're considering.
It's €16 for 6 months of all the content you could ever care to stream, delivered straight to your living room. So yeah, about $2.75/mo USD for 1000x more content than any other streaming platform. Deal of the century.
I should also mention that the addon support for Stremio is huge, allowing you to customize your feed exactly how you like it. A good addon for example is Trakt.tv, which recommendeds content based on your viewing habits. Perfect for people who are too dependent on Netflix/Disney/Max/YouTube/etc. and their algorithms (me).
As the icing on the cake, Stremio also has HDR & Dolby Atmos support. Great for home theater geeks like me.
it's very difficult for me to describe to other people how good this setup is. it's not "check home assistant" good. it's not "use 1password to store your passwords" good. it's almost "just download more ram" good
Why would anyone put up with the attack that is advertising? If it requires you to watch ads, it's not worth it. You wouldn't sit through a free movie if it meant a stranger showing up every few minutes and offering to let you rim them, (it's not that no one wants what their offering, it's that they don't care whether you're interested or not. They're still going to show you their asshole) why would you allow a similar violation of your mind?
How old are you? The reason I ask is because it was very common to watch movies with ads via free-to-air TV in the 90s, at least in families that didn't have cable TV. Not all families could afford to buy more and more movies on VHS.
That’s the point. The movie isn’t free. You pay for the admission by rimming that guy. If you don’t want to do that, go to a different cinema and pay with money.
This is a brand lift study. It's almost worthless: Hulu is paid nearly zero for it. I can't believe they've stooped this low to scrape so little incremental revenue with such a customer hostile tack. Their product and analytics people must truly suck and completely lack awareness of counter metrics.
I'm always a bit dumbfounded how many people are apparently fine with this sort of thing. I wish this was obviously a death sentence or pr nightmare for the service but in practice it must not be for a lot of people, enough to make it worth attempting.
This is squeezing money out of a dying service. That's all.
Hulu is, IIRC, mostly owned by Disney and on its way out. But it was always in an awkward place, without the critical mass of Netflix or some other giant tech/content ecosystem (Amazon, Apple, Disney and such) to push it. In hindsight, it’s kinda laughable that anyone thought it would last.
When Hulu still had ads when you bought a subscription, I swore I would never pay them ever again. That was around 2014. I have stuck to it, and every year I am reminded why. Fuck Hulu.
"Our'research has determined that we can fill up to 90% of the visual field with advertisements before inducing seizures!"
Corporations all genuinely want to be that guy so fucking bad, just because they think that if they do become him, they might actually starry to finally feel something... anything. Or they think if they become that guy their father might say "I love you " for the first time or some other sad "this is why I'm a serial killer" shit.
All I know is that Lexus Texas (that is what TX means to me) sounds like the name of a porn star. Is that the message Lexus wanted me to take away from their advertising and branding?
Those adds they play real loud on the gas pumps are annoying af..and your not supposed to get back into your car while filling so you just have to stand there w that shit blaring at you. Circle K does this shit if you are trying to avoid it.
Next step: political adverts that quiz you on what you've just heard and repeat each segment if you get the answer wrong.
Just kidding though (or am I). This is truly some dystopian shit. My first reaction was what the actual fuck. And I bet you that their numbers aren't really going to hurt that much because of this. Mark my words.
What really grinds my gears, is for every shitty "feature" like this, for every denial of policy or piece of spyware... someone thought it up.
I wonder does anyone ever, in the meeting where this is decided, bring up what a horrible idea it is? I'm sure that person won't have the best career, but has anyone ever seen someone take the bullet?
Shitty MBAs have a shitty idea, and when you go "that's impossible to do / directly against any sane set of values / clearly and plainly very, very illegal", they just go "don't worry about it" and have you do the stupid shit. When it comes crashing down, responsibility is usually distributed like when you take a turd and throw it in a high speed industrial fan, everyone gets a little.
Then you have a choice between either becoming so jaded and cynical that it's not even funny anymore, or switch jobs. I've had too many jobs.
I love when instagram goes: "have you heard about ...?" Presumably asking this as they just showed me an ad about it that i completely ignored and i just go "no i haven't".
The only use of showing me ads is them getting paid and wasting my time. I don't pay attention to them because i either don't need/want it, just bought it or can't afford it.
It's been a long time since i bought something as a result of watching an ad.
The effect of ads is usually not directly linked to a specific product.
If, for example, you need a new box of laundry detergent, you'll go to the supermarket. There you might find brand A, which you've never heard of, or brand B, which had an ad you've seen or heard somewhere. Studies have shown you'll be more likely to buy brand B, because you'll find it more trustworthy, which is because you've heard about it somewhere.
So, a lot of ads aren't solely about a specific product, but also about making their brand perform better in the long run. Therefore, even if an ad is just making noise on the background, it may still have an effect on you. And, since it's a subliminal process, it's extremely difficult to make a concious decision to not buy products you've seen or heard ads of.
I just buy whichever has the best price per kg. I make a normale mortal wage i can't afford to get used to such luxuries like paying double to get the Nutella that actually says Nutella on it.
I feel for everyone who makes an equal wage and doesn't have the ability to see food as fuel.
And, since it’s a subliminal process, it’s extremely difficult to make a concious decision to not buy products you’ve seen or heard ads of.
Instead, I make a conscious decision to not buy products I remember seeing or hearing ads of. If you're using subtle product placement to subliminally manipulate me in a way I don't notice, good for you. If it's obvious enough I remember you doing it then I will not buy your product unless it is already the best deal available (aka the cheapest per unit or best quality per price, excepting products I have had a bad experience with).
Hulu does this thing sometimes where you can choose which ad you want if two videos. Usually there is a timer to pick a default for you. I don't see a timer on the screen, but I'm still wondering if Lexus is using that feature for this ad. Did it not progress until you selected something?
Can you continue to watch your show without answering? Or are you forced to watch the commercial and answenthe question to continue?
I mean, it's fine if they're doing research on the commercials themselves, and the answers show how much or little people actually pay attention. But if you can't continue your show without the right answer, that's a problem.
2 minute ad slot who? Even if it does "let you continue", I left my TV on to watch it not interact. YouTube does this shit where it will hand out a 30 MINUTE ad because nobody has interacted to skip after a few ads. It's slippery slope bullshit all the way through.
30 minutes? I got a 24 hour ad one time, during the pandemic. It was this trippy art video thing where worms were eating the universe. Or something. I don't know, but it was animated in a hand drawn style.
Look, ads are how they pay the bills. We wouldn't have ads if they'd set their prices in a way that allowed them to make a profit, which is how businesses function. They are businesses, after all, not charities.
They underpriced their services, and lost money for as long as they could, hoping they'd somehow "win" the Steaming Wars. I absolutely detest having commercials on something I already pay for, but it's how it's going to be because they lost money for so long.
So a commercial is one thing, but a commercial that quizzes me to see if I paid attention is a completely different entity altogether. That's the part of the whole equation that would be too much.
Is this fucking real? Get fucked, mainstream media, if this is the case. Plenty of books and old games to keep me occupied until Alzheimers hits, and then occupied again afterwards
This is a company making a product, selling it for a given price, then making additional money from embedded ads.
Whether that ad revenue is additional profit, or to offset the actual cost of the item - because the sold it at a loss to beat their competitors - doesn't really matter.
This is the consumer paying for something, and not getting a full and complete product
A friend of mine in college pirated a japanese show which included the ads. The first episode seemed to have subs with legitimate translations. The rest of the season the subtitle author had fun and changed them to make fun of the ads. It was pretty funny.
Piracy is a hassle, the convenience of streaming made the cost worthwhile. They've forgotten this. Once the cost outweighs the convenience, the hassle won't seem like such a hassle anymore.
It’s not a hassle at all. I use my phone to tell my computer what I’m interested in watching. It automatically downloads that, and when I’m ready to watch something it streams to my TV. After I’m done with it, my computer removes it.
As a person who uses stremio; not only is it not more of a hassle than streaming services, it's WAY less. Astronomically so. You set it up once and you have literally everything
Kodi, Seren add-on and a debrid provider like Premiumize gets me better service than any streaming provider. Multiple source streams on any show in the last couple decades and every movie way earlier than is available from any source I've ever seen. If its not available as a cached stream, I can queue a torrent file at their end and stack them up until I'm ready to watch it, but I've rarely had to do that.
I have one TV for my PC monitor and one for, well, TV. Both hardwired to the network, no external network access. Wrote a quick PS script to switch from one to the other or both, made it into an EXE with buttons, très chic. Everything streams off a crappy USB drive "RAID" array. OpenVPN server with Digital Ocean, hosted in Amsterdam, $6/month. DONE.
I'm not on some crusade against capitalism, I simply choose not to participate in bullshit like this.
Charles Stross put it succinctly in The Atrocity Archives:
Idiots emit bogons, causing machinery to malfunction in their presence. System administrators absorb bogons, letting machinery work again.
This explains why computers suddenly start to work when help arrives. Becoming a bogon sink takes much suffering and practice. You're already on the path.
For over a decade I've been watching TV Series and Movies from a Media Box connected via Ethernet to my home NAS (which is generally an old notebook or even my router - once I got myself a decent router - with some external hardisks), which is actually a pretty simple network to set up using Ethernet Over Powerlinr adaptors (which were already good enough for it back when they only did 20 Mb/second and now that they're 1000Mb/s will handle even the huge resolution lightly compressed stuff that one can now find as booty out there).
The setup has been recently upgraded to a Mini-PC with Lubuntu and Kodi, which is in my living room (right next to my Internet router to which it is connect with Gigabit Ethernet) and is also my home NAS and Bittorrent server over always on VPN, with a wireless remote for using in my living room to control Kodi (so it works the same as a TV Box for watching media) whilst the background stuff I control from my main PC remotely using a mix of web interfaces and ssh command line.
I had never had this good an environment for TV entertainment and I'm not even using any of the *arr suite or Usenet to source content so a lot of it is really just doing the same stuff as a decade ago but with better hardware and a more modern UI for media playing and (most importing) a way faster Internet connection.
Anyways, the point I'm making is that nowadays one can actually upgrade a little bit from your setup (which, by the way, is superior to what I had before my Mini-PC upgrade) cheaply and even get themselves very close to the same experience as the corporate stuff (media box with remote and a nice UI to play stuff from a media library) whilst maintaining maximum control and getting no shit from enshittification.
PS: I couldn't recommend more getting a wireless remote if you want to just be able to sit down on your sofa and have a no hassle media box experienced (even whilst behind sits a far more complex home infrastructure that what people who outsource that side of things to the likes of Hulu have). It real helps with having a shit-free under your total control entertainment experience without sacrificing the part of that experience that comes from having a modern interface for media selection.
Its honestly getting to the point now where doing these home setups are so much simpler than owning these proprietary streaming boxes which have everything locked up to serve you ads or just steal data in general.
Hooking a PC up to the TV even to watch the paid services is probably better at this point.
So I think this might be getting misrepresented. Now I don't in anyway support"interactive ads" like this, but I'm pretty sure that is all this is. I actually had this exact commercial yesterday and didn't even realize that it was actually asking the question in a non-rhetorical way. So I didn't touch the remote and the commercial just plays out and ends as it would if the text wasn't on the screen. I don't know what happens if you actually answer the question.
Hulu puts an ad countdown timer on the screen when ads are playing so you know how much of the ad is left and my show resumed at the time it said it would before the commercials started.
Quick edit: you know, if Hulu doesn't include anywhere that they do this, it could be seen as additional consideration (in the legal contractual term of the word - basically, what each party provides for the other) in order for Hulu to provide its service that wasn't disclosed.
Of course, that just means we'll get yet another "We updated our terms and while we're at it we're increasing our rates $3/month. Fuck You." email and that's that.
So the ad was supposed to play in that black box and this is a bug?
I had Bob's Burgers on in the background but was playing a game with my kid. The silence caught my attention, but not at first. At first I assumed it was a, "choose your commercial" thing.
After some more time I thought maybe it was asking if I was still watching, that's when I looked up to see this
I waited, nothing. I made a verbal comment and the whole family started looking. We waited, nothing.
I grabbed my phone, snapped the pic, made the post (but didn't actually post it), and it was still sitting there.
I guessed an answer, got it right, and the show came back
Then I hit "post" to actually make the post.
Some people say it went away on its own. Others say, like me, they had to answer, and others said even after answering it didn't go away
I've had Bob's Burgers on all morning and I've yet to see this again
holy fucking shit and people give me the "you're a bad person" side-eye when i tell them there is such an easy way to never deal with that bullshit ever
That's really odd, I bring up piracy in conversation decently often (usually if I'm talking about a show and someone asks me if that's on Netflix/Prime/Disney+/Hulu or whatever and I have to tell them I haven't a clue)
The reaction had never been judgement, more so curiosity about how I go about my piracy.
Although I guess that's really more of an indication of the poor, anti-capitalist leftist types I tend to associate with than anything else :P
Some kind of thing US people are reduced to using because their tv has become such a joke.
Of course, now it's become the new playground of the corpos. Can't have the plebs wasting their leisure time without the important people getting some profit after all.
I'm pretty sure they used to do this, at least a hundred years ago, way back when companies first realised that there's endless free real estate for adverts on the internet. Always wondered why they stopped.