| ▲ | boothby 6 hours ago |
| When the early adopters start pushing neural implants they'll be ad-free. Not long after your boss insists that everybody needs neural implants for the sake of productivity, they'll be ad-supported but moneyed developers will be able to opt out. The terms of the ad-free service will continue shifting, so nothing is ever really ad-free for long, and ads for better neural implants are promotions not ads right? But y'all are working on neural implants because if you don't, somebody else will, aren't you |
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| ▲ | loloquwowndueo 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| There’s a black mirror episode about this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_People_(Black_Mirror) |
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| ▲ | satvikpendem 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| And this is how it'll look like: https://vimeo.com/166807261 |
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| ▲ | ivraatiems 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think this was the plot of a Black Mirror episode? |
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| ▲ | boothby 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | When I started playing Shadowrun in the 90s, I thought neural implants were cool and I wanted to get one. Around the time Google started buying up ad companies, I realized that the hardware in my head would never be mine. But yes, I think Black Mirror has done an excellent job with these topics. | | |
| ▲ | lamasery 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | In the '90s I was ready to jack in. More computers, and getting me closer to them? Awesome. By the 20-teens I was repulsed by the idea and kinda hated computers. Today if you put a magic button in front of me that'd permanently un-invent the Internet, good odds I'd press it. |
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| ▲ | 0cf8612b2e1e 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This was a throwaway line in the 1995 novel The Diamond Age. The thug knew a guy who had a spinal implant(?) which got hacked and now the guy saw ads across the bottom of his vision for life. | |
| ▲ | loloquwowndueo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_People_(Black_Mirror) | |
| ▲ | lelanthran 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Futurama too (The Eye-Phone, or something). It's the plot of many a dystopian scifi story. | | |
| ▲ | nhubbard 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Correct, but they stylized it as "eyePhone" (from MomCorp, the all powerful, caring conglomerate), and that episode is the origin of the famous "Shut up and take my money!" meme. |
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| ▲ | AyyEye 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Neuralink and OpenAI were started months apart in the same tiny building. Draw your own conclusions. |
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| ▲ | ourmandave 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Blink twice to Accept the Terms and Conditions. |
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| ▲ | nextaccountic 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The real problem here is capitalism. The system needs consumers to spend more and more. A system where nobody profits from you consuming more of something wouldn't have this particular failure mode |
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| ▲ | mgraczyk 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Except this hasn't happened with electricity, cars, washing machines, smartphones, smart watches, Bluetooth headphones, ... Not all technology is bad |
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| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It has absolutely happened with those things. Cars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sceLsLkQf7A Fridges: https://fortune.com/2025/09/19/samsung-family-hub-refrigerat... I'm not aware of a smart watch doing first-party ads yet. | | |
| ▲ | mgraczyk 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I didn't list fridges because I've seen ads there, but these seem to have gone away in newer models (people don't like ads) | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | My washing machine's app (LG) has ads, recipes, rewards programs, etc. I think the main thing preventing it on the device itself is they haven't thus far needed a large screen to show them on. | | |
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| ▲ | DonsDiscountGas 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The existence of a single crappy car does not mean all cars are crappy | | |
| ▲ | monooso 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If only it was just a single crappy car. https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/arti... | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sure. But the existence of a single crappy car establishes very definitively that a crappy car can and does exist. Do you think Samsung's the only company that's gonna play with ads on their smart fridges? | | |
| ▲ | mgraczyk 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's not a good reason to be skeptical about cars as a technology (and by analogy brain computer interfaces) | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think it's pretty solid evidence profit-driven orgs will shove ads anywhere they can, regardless of how good that is for users. |
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| ▲ | mrweasel 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | True, but you can't affort the none crappy one eventually. Basically everything in modern society trends towards either cheap, but shitty, or excellent, but insanely expensive. Our problem is that the used to be a huge middle segment, where you'd pay extra, but you got better quality. That middle segment has more or less disappeared, because it requires a fair bit of volume to be sustainable. Initially we, as in society, got lured in by cheaper prices, and reasonable quality, supported by savings in running super markets vs. a butcher, efficiency gains or subsidizes, maybe in the form of an ad here or there. Once we started expecting lower prices, quality started to go down, but restarting the "pay a little more, for better quality" segment isn't easy. |
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| ▲ | dgrin91 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Electricity I don't know how you could deliver ads through, but if someone could think of a way I bet they would. If everyone knew Morris code I bet they would make the lights flicker in Morris code for a discount. Modern cars with connected infotainment systems are always trying to upsell you Washing machines I dont know of anything at the moment, but I wouldnt count it out. Smartphones/watches? Aren't those just ad delivery mechanisms? Not to mention tracking? Its a core foundation of modern ad technology Headphones are not thank god, I hope it stays that way | | |
| ▲ | jdeibele 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's a great Freudian slip. Morse code - dots and dashes for characters via light or telegraph or radio Morris code - Robert Morris wrote the first internet worm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm | |
| ▲ | pc86 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Electricity I don't know how you could deliver ads through Even if you could, electricity is a utility with laws against disconnecting it in certain circumstances, even for nonpayment, and the internet isn't. So unless someone is going to make the argument that neural implants are utilities, ads injected into them seems like a pretty fair bet unless there is legislation not only making it illegal to do so, but making it illegal to make an implant even capable of receiving or displaying one. At least with that even if they repealed the law you'd be safe if you already had the implant. | |
| ▲ | daheza 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Alright let me put on my evil corpo hat. Wait it was already on. Headphones that inject ads is a great idea but we need to make that a better proposition. Lets say that these headphones have an AI integration which parses all sound and converts it to text, then we can run it through our AI to give helpful comments. We may even wait until no sound is playing to inject them (for now). We can add ads later once it becomes helpful. Imagine you are listening to a podcast / youtube video then you get a helpful voice give additional research and ideas. Like a friendly research agent on your shoulder. | | |
| ▲ | mysterydip 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Also more subtly, we can detect what music is playing and “slightly modify” the tunes of bands not part of a label owned by a Trusted Partner to sound worse. |
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| ▲ | mgraczyk 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I've never seen an ad delivered through any of these things. On smartphones I mean the phone/OS itself It would be very easy to deliver ads via electricity. The utility could require you watch an ad before using more | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Or via your smart thermostat. https://sense.com/consumer-blog/with-your-permission-utiliti... (Morse code messages via your flickering lights would be a hilarious app, and I'm somewhat reluctant to mention it here before someone gets VC funding to actually try it.) | |
| ▲ | recursive 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > It would be very easy to deliver ads via electricity. The utility could require you watch an ad before using more. That does not sound very easy to me. That sounds barely possible. |
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| ▲ | monooso 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Modern cars gather a truly shocking amount of data about their "users", which is then sold to all and sundry, including those wishing to sell you products. | |
| ▲ | TYPE_FASTER 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | My LG dryer was using wifi to advertise an extended warranty for itself. Then it broke, maybe I should have bought the warranty? I bought a simpler model without wifi this time. | | |
| ▲ | mgraczyk 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | What are you talking about, in what way is this supposed to be an argument about ads? It sounds like your dryer broke |
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| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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