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by shermantanktop 89 days ago
2040: a $30k neural interface becomes available.

2042: a $20 budget neural version hits the market but requires the user to watch a 15s ad every 5 minutes.

5 comments

We already live in Harrison Bergeron's world, for anyone forced to, say, watch the NBC broadcast of the Olympics' opening and closing ceremonies. "Don't go having unsanctioned thoughts about that artistry, or forgetting about our commercial sponsors!"
I remember the 2010 Olympics were aired on pre-enshittified Youtube (in a few countries). You could click on icons to go to a live stream of different events, zero ads, no cutting to studio announcers (stayed on the fields), zero fuss. It was glorious.

I feel like living in a country advertisers don't care about makes your digital life better. For example the NBA league pass is very cheap in my country, all teams. For an amount I'd be glad to pay per month, I can watch all games for all teams on demand, without blackouts. And during game breaks we either watch the stadium feed, an animated NBA logo, or highlights and countdowns of other games.

We would never force a user to watch a 15-second ad every 5 minutes.

We simply augment their content with a 15-second fully-immersive aesthetic and psychological experience which highlights the quality of our sponsor's product.

2041: a $30k neural interface that forces a user to watch a 15s ad every 30 minutes replaces previous version.

Every year after: interval decreases by a minute between ads

If the neural interface can filter other ads, that frequency would be a reduction for many people.
Filtering ads outright would never happen. They'd create a market where the device would replace the ads you see or hear with the ads of the highest bidder, and then insert new ads on top of that.
NeuraLink a year later: "Help your ad bubble to the top! Our BlueCheck ad partnership plan bypasses our filters for the paltry sum of 10% of conversion revenues!"
Let's be honest, they'd put ads in the pay version too.