There's also a long history of tragic events happening precisely because everyone was preparing for them (see: WWI) and of course, of horribly wrong choices getting prepared for things that never happened.
WW1 wasn’t “started by preparation”. In fact it was the continuation of about 100 years of war, and the war continued for nearly 100 years afterward. Europe had been at war nearly continuously from Napoleon to 2000 .
It’s more like drugs in that they will be less effective , but not completely, so we will continue to get more exposures as advertisers compete for attention
I'm no prude, but I'm finding horror, pharma & sex ads to be incredibly disturbing in how they are presented. Google TV takes over my wall with moderately graphic horror movie ads. My family members aren't comfortable with horror and they have no way to use the TV otherwise. It's unsetting in the middle of the night. And graphic pharma ads for stomach turning skin disorders and other inappropriate disorders play even during casual, family content. And most of the sexual content is not family friendly -- even I find it awkward to have on the wall, especially when my parents visit.
These devices used to be ours with some level of control, and now they are all remotely managed to present awful content at all hours
At least with the pharma commercials they don't get "real" about living with a given disease. It's like stock footage of old people canoeing in slow motion and stuff.
You're right that most pharma are generic korean karaoke parlor videos, but a few of them show really gross sores, rashes that I don't want burned into my brain by an 85'' screen
The timing is just unsettling like i'm having a laugh and then subliminally the next frame is a raw skin lesion
Google TV showing ads on the home screen convinced me to buy an Apple TV. Had to go back to a set-top box - to use the same apps I have built into the TV - just because Apple won't spam me with this shit.
It's a good tip, I may end up doing that. I'm hoping that Apple has better standards for third party streaming apps (just yesterday I made a Ask HN post about how terrible they are)
in general yes, but there is still lost opportunity.
This is true for nearly any business until the scales tip in the other direction.
"People come to mcdonalds for the burgers not the bathrooms" until eventually enough pain points (bathrooms, service, punctuality, traffic etc) make them stop coming
revenues don't reveal anything because they are the sum of thousands of noisy vectors. that's why surveys, reviews, customer studies, NPS etc are all done to try to figure out retention.
i agree with the high level (budget, corner cutting), but I'm curious about deliberate decisions to build things so awfully. some of these decisions take more work to do wrong than right (android keeps activities resident, for example -- unloading ads layers is trivial)
I am sure there are also deals where I can get a monthly anal probe with a cactus. I won’t be doing that either. Actually it’s a toss up as far as which one is worse.
The last time I watched broadcast TV, I had a DirectTV box with first TiVo and later their own pretty good DVR. I think I had my first DirectTivo in 2003. It’s been over two decades since I sat through commercials regularly outside of the occasional big event sports as social gatherings or award shows we watch live to discuss with friends on social media
reply