[HN Gopher] Nearly a third of TV ads play to empty rooms
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Nearly a third of TV ads play to empty rooms
Author : caaqil
Score : 256 points
Date : 2022-02-12 05:51 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.cornell.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.cornell.edu)
| Animats wrote:
| I'm surprised that streaming boxes don't pause the stream when no
| one is looking, so the consumer has to watch the ads to continue
| play. This could be marketed as a feature.
| mormegil wrote:
| In the Czech Republic, one of the major TV broadcasters now
| leads a dispute against the IPTV providers, requesting them to
| disallow the customers skipping ads when watching past programs
| from the archive. Some of the providers now disallow fast
| forward for the channels, others are implementing a streaming-
| like feature where you can navigate as you like, but the
| receiver will insert appropriate ads automatically. (And one of
| the biggest providers removed the broadcaster completely for
| the time.)
|
| Some English-language (probably machine-translated) article:
| https://www.archyworldys.com/prima-will-not-back-down-televi...
| chrisandchris wrote:
| Oh, Switzerland is already there. Beginning with 2022 IPTV
| providers are advised to reduce replay functionality to 7
| days and you can't skip all ads anymore. [1]
|
| I wonder whether this will be the beginning of the end of the
| classic TV.
|
| [1] (in German):
| https://www.luzernerzeitung.ch/wirtschaft/neue-regelung-
| fern...
| ako wrote:
| They should use it the other way around, if people are not
| watching, muting or fast forwarding they're not interested in
| what your selling. No need to force your ad to them. But you
| could ask for a discount on the cost of showing the ad, just
| like with paying for the actual clicks on a web-ad.
| imiric wrote:
| > No need to force your ad to them.
|
| Oh, there is a need, alright. If they claim they're not
| interested, it's time to shift strategies[1]. After all,
| nobody's immune to advertising[2]. I'm sure there are more
| relevant studies that prove even ad-averse individuals are
| still susceptible to them. It's just a matter of finding the
| right _kind_ of advertising to reach them. Doing this
| effectively is what gets you promoted in adtech.
|
| Advertising is a cancer on society.[3]
|
| [1]: https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/the-psychology-
| behind-why...
|
| [2]: https://knowledge.insead.edu/marketing/think-youre-
| immune-to...
|
| [3]: https://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-
| cancer.html
| tdeck wrote:
| If they haven't seen that episode of Black Mirror let's not
| give them any ideas.
| tobr wrote:
| They seem more than capable of coming up with terrible ideas
| themselves.
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/90185994/sony-files-patent-to-
| ma...
| webmobdev wrote:
| You are an evil genius - I hope you always suffer with ads in
| your dreams.
| friedturkey wrote:
| I'm always fearful of posting my tech nightmares on HN because
| so many people here work in industries that exist just to fry
| brains with ads. Probably most are rolling their eyes saying
| "We're not that evil." But somebody is thinking "Hmmm."
| Teever wrote:
| I've always thought about the double-edged sword of
| proactively patenting garbage like this.
|
| On the one hand you prevent anyone else from using it for a
| period of time, but on the other hand you give them ideas
| that they might not have had.
| jrockway wrote:
| I think it's a really good idea to patent evil inventions,
| so that nobody can ever use them. Something to consider.
| dahart wrote:
| The purpose of patents is to encourage the complete
| disclosure of inventions so they can be used & improved
| later by others (or even worked around with better
| inventions now), in return for temporary exclusive
| rights. Patenting evil inventions might be a way to
| advertise and accelerate the proliferation of evil
| ideas...
| eru wrote:
| > [...], so that nobody can ever use them.
|
| Well, for 20 years, not forever.
| hawski wrote:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US8246454?oq=8246454 look
| at image 10
| grujicd wrote:
| If they watched Black Mirror they already have that idea.
| And we already know what a nightmare that would be.
| elcapitan wrote:
| "We're not that evil. This is actually something people
| want!"
| gumby wrote:
| In case elcapitan's comment appears sarcastic: this is
| quite often how advertisers feel.
|
| I don't know if it's narcissism or a human way of
| justifying their actions. For humanity's sake I hope the
| latter.
| jackjeff wrote:
| Yeah. It's like Google explaining how they help us by
| having "relevant ads". The only ad that's relevant to me
| is the one that I don't see. I must be in a minority
| though, considered how successful ad businesses are.
| dahart wrote:
| I think you're in the majority with the rest of us. Like
| you I hate most ads, and I suspect most people do too.
|
| That said, one way to look at it from an advertiser's
| perspective is that if you spend money on _anything_ ,
| then relevant ads must exist, and they will continue to
| try to find them. If they can't find them, they'll still
| continue to spam us with irrelevant ads because they
| still work a little; statistically, a few people will buy
| the product for every million people who see the ad.
|
| I spend money, and I even sometimes spend significant
| amounts of time trying to figure out what to buy when I
| need something I don't know a lot about. I also spend far
| more time than I want to trying to ignore ads I don't
| care about on the internet and YouTube, just like I used
| to with TV.
|
| Those are two separate time sucks, and I'd love to have
| ads at least be teaching me impartial information about
| whatever it is I'm shopping for, and help me figure out
| what I need. It would save me time if I could merge ad
| watching time with shopping research time. Google and
| advertisers would love that too. But the level of
| invasive privacy compromise that would bring would be a
| million times worse than the bad situation we already
| have, I'm not willing to accept it.
| gumby wrote:
| Back when magazines were printed on paper there were
| whole genres of magazines that 95+% ads with essentially
| no articles at all. Fashion, and, in the 90s, computing
| were examples of this. There were lots of them on the
| newsstand.
|
| And "advertorial" is not a web-era idea; the travel,
| sports, entertainment etc sections of the newspaper, and
| most of local television news, looked like news but were
| essentially all paid content one way or another.
| ComradePhil wrote:
| Yes, advertisers are people too. They would love that.
| laurent92 wrote:
| On the computer, the website of my national TV channel suspends
| the ads if you switch windows. You can't let them play in the
| background.
| andrewl-hn wrote:
| Thankfully there are browser plugins that block this
| behavior.
| Lammy wrote:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US20130125161A1/en is fun too
|
| "The viewing behaviors may include the viewer [108] watching an
| item of linear video content, or watching a combination of
| items of linear video content. Additionally, the viewing
| behavior may include an action performable by the viewer [108]
| and detectable by one or more sensors [106], such as a depth
| camera."
|
| "However, in some embodiments, physical awards may be granted.
| Such physical awards may include coupons, products, etc., given
| to the user. To grant a physical award, an entity associated
| with the user-viewing goal, such as a user-viewing goal
| creator, may be notified in order to grant the award. In other
| embodiments, a remote computing device which stores user
| profile information, such as the digital media delivery
| service, may be notified to grant the award."
| travisgriggs wrote:
| I'd just take a 4 minute video of me staring at the TV, and
| post it on loop on a cheap screen across the room.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Only a very small fraction of people would even try to bypass
| it like that. It would still be a big improvement to reducing
| the rate of ads displayed to no one.
| lordnacho wrote:
| There should be a quiz about the ad that you have to answer
| correctly to be allowed to continue the show:
|
| Where is the nearest Prodafanilexicol store?
|
| When does the sale end?
|
| How many satisfied customers does Megacorp have?
|
| Ok, enough people have answered correctly now, we will tell the
| players to come out for the 2nd quarter.
| jackjeff wrote:
| If that ever happens, the next thing that would pop up is a
| crowd source website with all the answers.
| lordnacho wrote:
| The questions can be personalized according to where you
| live, age, number of kids you have, credit history, etc.
| And a slightly smart AI can ask them in a way that's hard
| to look up. It just needs to be hard enough that your best
| solution is to actually watch the ad.
| joconde wrote:
| I think we should shut HN down now before someone
| actually gives ad companies new ideas.
| shakna wrote:
| That's the plan for the new Moviepass. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.vice.com/en/article/akvnba/moviepass-20-wants-
| to...
| Animats wrote:
| And it has NFTs!
| seanwilson wrote:
| A less subtle idea from a patent by Sony:
|
| https://fortune.com/2013/04/30/sony-patent-is-hilarious-terr...
|
| > a user is watching a television program which is interrupted
| by an ad. The ad instructs the user to say the word
| "McDonald's" (MCD) to speed things along.
| zootboy wrote:
| Drink a verification can to continue...
| piceas wrote:
| Select all the bridges to continue.
| nkrisc wrote:
| A feature for whom? Any streaming box that does this in my
| house is getting chucked straight into the trash.
| javajosh wrote:
| I don't imagine you're the first to think of this. It's a sign
| of a healthy market it hasn't been tried, probably because
| subscription streaming, with minimal ads (not "no ads" if you
| include skippable previews as an ad, which I do), is a good
| deal and if ad-only streamers (like Roku, I guess?) implemented
| the feature they'd get even less audience than they have now.
| You'd have to be pretty desperate if that small amount of money
| could make a difference. It feels like the move a monopoly
| would make to squeeze the absolute last drop of value out of
| the position.
|
| (It seems to be a battle of content, with all sides fighting
| for all that long-term MRR, and no-one really has a monopoly on
| great content. Which is actually pretty great! Of course local
| stations don't have great content because their sample size is
| too small.)
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Youtube already does that, right ?
|
| At least on desktop, when letting background tabs play some
| youtube playlist it will stop after a while with a "are you
| still watching ?" popup.
| tifik wrote:
| There are browser plugins that automatically dismiss that
| dialog for you. YT with that and ublock origin is a
| completely different experience.
| Jerry2 wrote:
| > YT with that and ublock origin is a completely different
| experience.
|
| SponsorBlock. It changed how I consume YT. It has saved me
| a ton of time.
| sunjester wrote:
| So according to a statistics website, on Google, says the
| television industry is going to profit 80+ billions dollars but
| Cornell says the ads play to mostly empty rooms.
|
| It should be.. A 1/3 of ads played for TVision's audience plays
| to an empty room.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Wait for Chrome to get volume control access permissions so
| YouTube ads can pause if you muted them.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| YouTube is a strange outlier in that they still tolerate
| adblockers despite them being very easy to block (at least in
| the 99% case), so I don't think they'll be the first to
| implement this.
| kzrdude wrote:
| It seems like Twitch really managed to avoid adblockers being
| effective. And their ads are mostly not insane (game or
| cinema related mostly).
| jessaustin wrote:
| One suspects that those who run youtube also use it...
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Nah, I'd expect the entire YouTube team to have premium
| accounts.
| lamontcg wrote:
| A lot of this is due to many services doing autoplay with no way
| to turn it off (YouTubeTV, ESPN+ on Roku, etc). There's a utility
| to autoplay for the consumer when they are binge watching a
| particular series. But when autoplay is picking random other
| shows to "simulate linear TV" then really its the service
| scamming advertisers taking advantage of this playing ads to an
| empty room effect just to get more impressions. I don't
| understand how advertisers don't bust them for it.
| iamstupidsimple wrote:
| Advertisers measure outcomes, not raw impressions. Because
| everything is auction based there's a natural market correction
| based on this, so impressions could e.g. be worth 1/3 less come
| bidding time.
| jarek83 wrote:
| I wonder always whether the ad buyers genuinely believe that
| someone is up there to watch an ad, or actually even with
| extremely low return ratio per money spent they still manage to
| get measurable more sales in return.
|
| Maybe few times in my life I was remotely considering buying
| something because of an ad, while 99,99% of them make me switch
| channels, or mute the TV/radio until they end. I'm ad blind on
| social media, not to mention I use ad-blockers wherever I can.
|
| To me it's like buying thin air, and how this market is able to
| get serious companies spent millions on it is beyond me.
| DarylZero wrote:
| It takes years to get hardened to advertising and stop spending
| money based on it. There is a sucker born every minute.
| joelthelion wrote:
| Because contrary to your assumption, it does work. Not everyone
| behaves like you. And simply hearing about a brand influences
| our collective decisions, even if no single ad convinces you.
| theduder99 wrote:
| yeah I think ads can also serve as a reminder. for example
| I'll typically get a pizza once a month. if i see a little
| caesars ad on tv it will remind me 'oh yeah I like pizza and
| havent one in awhile' so the task moves closer to the front
| of the queue. I may not end up going to little caesars
| specifically to get my pizza fix but I might..
| jarek83 wrote:
| So you are commenting that ads work under an article that
| just gives some insight that people don't even watch them?
| Where your assumption comes from?
| Lamad123 wrote:
| Probably 2 3'rds of internet ads play yo sleeping gamers, bots or
| people taking toilet breaks.
| hendersoon wrote:
| I haven't watched an advertisement since 1999, when I bought my
| first TiVo.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| The greatest invention on a television surely has to be the mute
| button on the infrared remote control. When commercials are muted
| then you realize how stupid they generally are and how they think
| people are idiots.
| tonyoconnell wrote:
| Nearly 80% of emails are unopened
| TheChaplain wrote:
| Considering how technology develops, I could very well see a
| future where we are forced to watch/acknowledge ads before the
| actual content continues.
|
| I think there was a movie with something like that, if the guy
| closed his eyes, the ad would pause and wait until he looked
| again.
|
| I hope I am too cynical...
| grishka wrote:
| People will then find a way to hack it. You can't enforce this
| kind of thing on a general-purpose device like a computer or a
| phone.
|
| Remember: on general-purpose devices, all code is mutable.
| ComradePhil wrote:
| Say that to iPhone users who can't install anything that is
| not approved by Apple.
| grishka wrote:
| Android has around two thirds of market share worldwide
| iirc, and up to 90% in some countries. The Default HN
| Country (US) is pretty much an outlier with its 50/50
| split.
| DarylZero wrote:
| Yeah and Android gets more and more locked down and user-
| hostile every year.
|
| Once they deny root to the user it's all a matter of
| degree not principle.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| > general-purpose device like a computer or a phone.
|
| Most smartphones sold today wouldn't qualify as a general
| purpose computer.
| grishka wrote:
| Android ones would. Even without root, you're able to use
| apps like Termux, AIDE, and various emulators.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| > NOTICE: Termux is broken on Android 12. Android OS will
| kill any (phantom) processes greater than 32 (limit is
| for all apps combined) and also kill any processes using
| excessive CPU. You may get [Process completed (signal 9)
| - press Enter] message in the terminal without actually
| exiting the shell process yourself.
|
| https://github.com/termux/termux-app
| DarylZero wrote:
| Termux has whatever permissions Android gives it. No
| direct access to audio, video, etc.
| grishka wrote:
| What do you mean by direct access? You'll need to build a
| separate app to access these things because they are only
| accessible via APIs that are only exposed in the java
| land. But you _can_ build an Android app right on your
| Android phone. AIDE allows you to do just that, and I
| believe you can install the raw SDK in Termux and use it
| as well.
|
| In other words, you can use an Android phone on its own,
| unmodified, to program it to do arbitrary things. Yes
| it's awkward and yes you have to jump through some hoops
| to get it set up. Nevertheless, this fits my definition
| of a general-purpose computing device.
|
| You could technically do the same on iOS. The only
| problem here is that Apple would never approve an app
| that gives a user this much control over their own
| device. It's not a technical issue, but rather an
| organizational one.
| DarylZero wrote:
| E.g. read this:
| https://github.com/OxygenCobalt/Auxio/issues/38
|
| "Parsing music metadata is actually really fast, it's the
| process of getting a file handle from the android system
| thats the real bottleneck. MediaStore is a system-level
| daemon, so it doesn't have that restriction, but I do.
| This is why Vanilla and VLC take so long to load media,
| not because the metadata indexer is slow but because
| reading files is slow. Google prefers this as it furthers
| their quest to kill the filesystem, so there's nothing I
| can do about it."
| Beaver117 wrote:
| I think we're reaching the end of that road. Look at Denuvo,
| sure it's still hackable but takes several magnitudes more
| time and effort than in the past. Eventually we'll reach a
| point where consumers have no choice but to comply
| izzydata wrote:
| I'd never watch digital content ever again. I would only ever
| read books from that point forward.
| Un1corn wrote:
| It was in Black Mirror. IIRC he was surrounded with screens in
| his room and was forced to watch ads
| danuker wrote:
| If that happens, I'll stop watching said content.
| ghaff wrote:
| People seem to forget that if you make watching content too
| painful, opting out is always an option.
| robert_dipaolo wrote:
| There was a Black Mirror episode 15 Million Merits [1] where
| you either had to watch the ads (actually look at the screen)
| or pay to skip them!
|
| 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
| swalls wrote:
| Good news, Sony already patented it. [0]
|
| [0] https://fortune.com/2013/04/30/sony-patent-is-hilarious-
| terr...
| alexb_ wrote:
| Everyone always brings this patent up while forgetting that
| large companies will literally patent every single idea that
| comes up just in case. Doesn't mean it's ever going to
| actually happen. See also: Amazon's Wage Cage (though,
| looking at Amazon, they might actually do that one)
| albert_e wrote:
| under-screen selfie cameras on phones will eventually take us
| there
|
| put 4 or 6 cameras and analyze your gaze to figure out what
| part of screen you are paying attention to and if your pupils
| dilate when you see a product/model picture
|
| I wonder if some UI and navigation can become interactive based
| on gaze too
|
| obviously it will be ruined just like pop-ups and modals
| freeflight wrote:
| _> I could very well see a future where we are forced to watch
| /acknowledge ads before the actual content continues._
|
| I wonder if skipping YouTube ads is already used in a similar
| way?
|
| Pressing that small "skip" button is a user interaction that
| acknowledges the users attention to the ad, and there is
| usually a minimum time the ad has to run before it can even be
| triggered.
|
| So having an ad run for 5-10 seconds, with a manual skip, might
| possibly be a more impactful "impression" then the ads just
| running trough, without a skip, as most likely nobody is paying
| attention to them in the very first place.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I have suspected this for a while now. It's also a chance to
| advertise subliminally to sleeping people, sometimes if you
| don't skip the ad it will play what we used to call an
| infomercial. In practice it just punishes people that lost
| the remote, or are unable to easily move.
| tempodox wrote:
| > I hope I am too cynical...
|
| Nope, this will definitely come to pass. As long as there's
| munition left to be fired, or new one invented, the arms race
| will continue.
| Macha wrote:
| We've got anti-AdBlock tech, mandatory tracking consent for
| site usage, and even mobile games with mandatory ads that don't
| progress if the device volume is too low. Many people on HN
| would even support the first two. I think the lack of existence
| of this tech is not due to ethics concerns, but due to it being
| noticeable in the TV return window, rather than patched in
| years later like many smart TV's most obnoxious ad slots.
| nottorp wrote:
| ... and nearly a third of TV shows play to a sleeping audience.
| ultramegachurch wrote:
| Tangentially related - there's a certain sublimity to watching
| cable tv commercials in 2022. I'm completely converted to
| streaming, so the only time I see tv commercials is at my parents
| house. And in that context, I find myself enjoying them? Perhaps
| it's nostalgia - they remind me of media when I was growing up.
| There's also an element of escapism. Everybody in commercials is
| beautiful and happy. And then there's the hyper capitalism Alice-
| in-wonderland spectacle of it all. Commercials are strange and
| ridiculous. I enjoy the absurdity of it.
|
| I don't miss cable television commercials. But they provide a
| unique lens into how strange it is to be a person at all.
| eru wrote:
| Might be similar to what many people experience when they
| browse through old magazines and newspapers?
| ncpa-cpl wrote:
| With so many ads and modal boxes in newspaper websites, I've
| recently find the paper newspaper a better experience
| recently.
| melling wrote:
| Yeah, and when I don't head out for a 3 minute commercial break,
| I have the mute button ready next to me.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| The sad thing is I can just hear a marketing execs response to
| this revelation:
|
| "Sooo... I guess we'll need to up our air time by a third, huh?"
| tromp wrote:
| To compensate for losing a third, you'd need to up it by a
| half: (1+1/2) * 2/3 = 1.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| And the marketing exec would just stare at you with a glazed
| eye when that was your response.
| original_idea wrote:
| hahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha _gasp_
| hahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahah
| rawland wrote:
| For this research, the co-authors worked with TVision
| Insights, a TV performance metrics company that developed
| innovative technology to passively monitor who's in the
| room and whether they're actually looking at what's on
| the TV screen, while respecting viewer privacy.
|
| Sure... the whole setup is very privacy respecting.
|
| "Research" like this makes me wonder how the subject of economics
| ever entered the halls of academe. While writing this I'm
| wondering if the Frankfurt school of thought or Chomsky might
| have explained this actually already.
| nerdponx wrote:
| What does this have to do with economics as a field?
| withinboredom wrote:
| If I were a kid and my parents signed up for something like
| that, I'd set up a "fake human" so the camera would think
| someone was always watching. Or sit off to the side.
| taylorius wrote:
| It's almost as if, despite the millions spent on engaging their
| audience, no-one wants to watch their crap emissions.
| [deleted]
| rabuse wrote:
| The last time I watched TV (awhile back), it was an NFL game, and
| the ads were absolutely unbearable. I'm shocked people still pay
| for cable.
| ghaff wrote:
| I think you answered your own question. A lot of people want
| the ability to watch sports. (And, while they're paying for it
| anyway many like the TV as background.)
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Only half of all advertising actually works, the problem is no
| one knows which half.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I am always amazed, amongst the shrinking group of people who
| still watch broadcast TV, how many of them don't reflexively hit
| Mute when the ads come on.
|
| I've done it my entire life.
| ako wrote:
| Never done the mute thing, but would record everything with a
| humax recorder, and just start viewing late. This way you can
| just skip the ads completely. Unfortunately this doesn't work
| with tv apps on the Apple TV. So mostly stopped watching tv.
| Ads completely ruin tv watching.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| how about the dentist office, playing a traditional over-the-
| air radio station featuring your favorite Sting song and an ad
| for car audio system, instead of an ad-free streaming service.
|
| Called out my dentist on this and he listened.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I mute ads too. I don't understand why anyone would actually
| want to listen to this noise.
| spullara wrote:
| Most of the people still watching broadcast TV are older than
| people that have had a mute button their entire life.
| prawn wrote:
| Went around to friends' place for dinner the other month and
| they had TV news and ads blaring in the background the entire
| time, no one paying attention. I can't stand TV or radio ads
| and it was like chalkboard fingernails all evening.
| mrweasel wrote:
| When you are not exposed to ads constantly it become clear
| just how obnoxious they are.
|
| I think advertisers have been dialing up the attention
| grabbing features over the years, and those constantly
| exposed don't notice. Those who haven't been watching now
| experience being exposed to the equivalent of ten babies
| crying for your attention. It's truly and attack on your
| senses and sanity, but you have to remove yourself from it
| for a time to see how bad it is.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| I find it weird and disturbing that my kids pay more attention
| to commercials -- not even kid commercials -- than the actual
| show.
| gumby wrote:
| Back when I used to travel for business I would watch the tv
| sometimes in the hotel. I just watched the ads, because they
| had the high production value. While a 30-minute (really 22
| minutes) show might cost $3MM an episode, a 30 second ad
| could easily cost a million to make. And in that 30 seconds
| was a perfect short story: a crisis, a bit of character
| development, then a resolution and a denouement. I could
| watch a bunch of them, usually about products I'd never seen
| before, and skip the crappy show.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| Id dream of a raspberry pie plugin that has a mic & IR
| transmitter that just listens to ads or any semblance of it and
| just hits mute the moment the confidence interval goes beyond
| 90% based on the rise in ampltitude. False positives would be
| straining though, and finding the moment to un-mute is also a
| bit difficult perhaps. But given that all ads have their
| loudness dialed up to 11 in relation to the actual program, it
| might be easy enough to just listen to a large drop in
| amplitude across the frequency spectrum to hit un-mute. This
| can be completely off-the-grid with incidental updates if so
| desired.
|
| Could even put some federated learning into the bag for a
| slight dystopian flavour - and that sweet VC allure - to also
| listen to people hitting mute & unmute as a semi-reliable
| labelling feature. Just sample the time window recording of the
| frequency spectrum and it may be good enough already.
|
| It wouldn't be foolproof but just good enough I guess. I'd be
| willing to pay 200$ for a ad silencing IR transmitter with >90%
| recall.
| jaycar wrote:
| you should fork sponsorblock.
| horsestaple wrote:
| Would be pretty easy to do in this eastern EU country. We
| have laws that require stations to separate ads from content,
| so there is always a short animation announcing the start and
| end of ads.
| stonogo wrote:
| Have at it: https://circuitcellar.com/research-design-
| hub/projects/build...
|
| The device you would pay $200 for used to cost $40:
| https://bgr.com/general/mute-tv-commercials-automatically-
| ho...
| eru wrote:
| I think the ads don't really have the absolute loudness
| dialed up, but use a lot of dynamic compression instead.
|
| That's what (used to?) happen to music during the so-called
| loudness war. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
| lazyeye wrote:
| Id also want a visual "mute" where the picture shrinks to
| tiny square in a corner of the screen whilst the main screen
| is either blank or shows something pleasant and relaxing
| squarefoot wrote:
| AI could come to help: a powerful enough dedicated hardware
| could decode HDMI signals, match the audio/video with the
| known fingerprint of an ad, substitute it with say a tropical
| beach or some mountains with a soft jazz music background and
| a small countdown in a corner "ads end in: mm:ss", then
| resume the program at the predicted end. The fingerprint
| would be taken by the users by pushing a button to mark each
| spot start and end so that the AI can recognize it and upload
| to a central server that would aggregate all data. The system
| should have a buffer long enough to allow watchers to rewind
| to the exact start and end of the spot, and to allow the AI
| to analyze the data before showing it to the watchers,
| however a very long buffer could be even more handy to wait
| for the entire program to end, then process it so that every
| ad is removed and the program joined back together with no
| interruptions. Doable? Yes, but would need a lot of work and
| some money for the hardware. Probably also overkill since
| pretty much all programs are already available ads free on
| decentralized torrent swarms.
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| Sinilarly, this is the only "AR" I ever want in my life:
| glasses that detect billboards/subway/bus ads and either
| "magic erase" them or just replace them with images of my
| choice.
| badestrand wrote:
| You don't need AI for that. 20 years ago my neighbors had a
| small device that would automatically mute the TV whenever
| the ads started playing and unmuted when they finished. No
| idea how it worked but for sure it didn't have a fancy
| neural network inside.
| squarefoot wrote:
| That device sensed the higher average sound levels at
| which ads are usually broadcasted, and it's also easy to
| build. The problem is those ads that have or start with
| lower sound levels which would be impossible to spot
| without matching them with a known audio/video pattern.
| ComradePhil wrote:
| It looks in the video signal for the TV channel logo. No
| logo means ads.
| withinboredom wrote:
| MythTV (open source DVR) would skip commercials in the
| recording. So I'd just watch my shows an hour later without
| commercials.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| > _federated learning_
|
| One approach that occurred to me is to take advantage of the
| fact that same ads are played in different TV shows.
|
| Suppose you record hundreds or thousands of hours of TV
| video/audio, then compare it to your program guide data.
|
| In theory, you should be able to detect that some segments of
| the video/audio correlate very strongly with what show you're
| watching (occurring only there), whereas other segments of
| video/audio appear all over the place in different programs.
|
| And use fingerprinting to avoid having to store/transmit all
| that video/audio data.
|
| This is not that different from what Shazam does with music
| recognition, although their job is easier because their audio
| data is naturally segmented into songs, whereas for ad
| detection you have to find segments. But I bet there are
| algorithms to efficiently find common sub-sequences (maybe
| from DNA bioinformatics?).
|
| Once you have fingerprints of commercials, you distribute a
| database of these to viewers, and their device uses it to
| detect commercials while watching.
|
| ---
|
| For programs that air more than once, you could invert this
| and look for segments of video/audio that are common between
| the airings. The rest is more likely to be commercials,
| especially if you've got a movie that airs on different
| networks.
|
| Or if you can see a show/movie through on-demand, maybe
| you'll get different commercials on repeated viewings.
|
| ---
|
| Another approach is facial recognition. If you see Flo from
| Progressive, it's probably an ad. You can maybe even
| recognize new, unknown ads this way.
|
| If you want to go really crazy, mine IMDB for TV/movie
| titles, the cast that appear in each, and their photos, then
| recognize non-ad video footage based on who you know is
| supposed to be in that episode.
| rcarmo wrote:
| I think Douglas Adams wrote about something very much like
| that, but I can't place it. Maybe it was Philip K. Dick?
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > based on the rise in ampltitude
|
| The apparent rise in amplitude is horribly annoying; but I
| understand that _actually_ increasing the volume during ad-
| breaks is forbidden (at least in the UK). Instead, they
| tailor the audio spectrum to create psycho-acoustically the
| _impression_ of increased loudness.
|
| Automated ad-filtering on broadcast TV seems to be a hard
| problem. Some filters look for the channel logo screen at the
| start and end of the ad-break; but (a) you have to set up
| each channel; (b) "sponsors" now book slots at the start and
| end of the break, before and after the channel-logo screen.
|
| The best solution I've found is to record anything I want to
| watch in advance; then to skip forward 5 minutes when the
| break starts, and FF/RW if I land in the wrong place. I'm a
| bit surprised that so many people seem to be buying big-
| screen TVs, but apparently not STBs with hard-disk recorders.
| plasticchris wrote:
| I used to have a DVR that would auto skip commercials on
| recorded shows but that was probably using metadata. It was
| annoying that it didn't do the same live.
| williamtrask wrote:
| This is a really nice federated learning usecase. I work with
| an open source FL community. Will add it to the list.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| How do you know when the ads are finished so you can unmute?
| Lev1a wrote:
| Sometimes the ads are interrupted by a TV show or a movie.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Which means you either need to pay active attention to the
| muted ads--something that sounds worse than having them on
| in the background, imo--or you run a risk of missing part
| of whatever film/tv show you're watching--again, I'd rather
| just make the sacrifice of having the ads on and not paying
| attention to them.
| emodendroket wrote:
| How will I know the game's back on if I do that?
| gumby wrote:
| As long as you don't check your phone you could use a TiVo-
| ish delay, so you could just jump over the ads and continue
| emodendroket wrote:
| Given how many ads there are that'd have to be a pretty
| substantial delay
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I haven't done it my entire life. When I was a kid, TVs didn't
| have mute buttons or remote controls.
|
| Therefore, I got very good at mentally tuning ads out. I can
| watch an ad 100 times yet not be able to tell you what they
| said, what happened in it, or what product it's for.
|
| Sometimes I mute now, but only when the ad is top 10% annoying.
| It's often easier to just tune out the ads than to remember to
| unmute.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| I think to be a mute-ant you had to come of age in the
| 80s/90s after the remote and cable but before DVR and
| steaming. My wife didn't have cable so can't mute to save her
| life.
| chaircher wrote:
| My grandad used to do this! I thought he was the only one.
|
| My mother had a really obnoxious attitude towards the
| television. Probably because of this I don't have a TV at all
| and am always suprised by the amount of people who immediately
| notice when they visit my house.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| I had no broadcast TV for 25 years until a few years ago.
| Whenever I encountered TV watchers, I was also amazed that they
| didn't mute ads, but I still found the interruption extremely
| irritating.
|
| Now, here in The Netherlands with my KPN TV-over-fiber
| connection, I can skip around in a show, but I can't skip over
| ads on many channels. The device sometimes doesn't even let me
| mute during an ad! I can independently mute or switch video
| inputs, so it's basically forcing me to either hear or see an
| ad.
|
| I pay about the same for Netflix. So obnoxious.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| 90% of active ad watching in the US is probably from tourists
| watching with morbid fascination. I know it's one of the things
| I do when bored in a hotel room.
| vachina wrote:
| Haha you're not wrong. SlingTV is chock full of ads but
| sometimes I just sit through them because they're like a lens
| into American domestic culture.
| ncpa-cpl wrote:
| I'm probably one of them. Sometimes when I'm very bored I
| spend some minutes watching the ads from foreign channels.
| Every country does them slightly different.
| cookie_monsta wrote:
| I'm so glad this isn't just me. I especially enjoy the
| disclaimers at the end of pharmaceutical ads.
| Lev1a wrote:
| I wonder if it's the same as in German pharma ads, which
| end with a grey screen with the following text in white
| font:
|
| "Zu Risiken und Nebenwirkungen fragen Sie Ihren Arzt oder
| Apotheker."
|
| which translates to:
|
| "Concerning risks and side effects please ask your doctor
| or pharmacist."
| cookie_monsta wrote:
| Oh, no these things are hilarious. They actually name all
| the possible individual side effects (some of which sound
| much worse than the original condition) but it's done in
| a voiceover that's played at like 2x the original speed.
| Lev1a wrote:
| Oh wow, that's really just unnecessary.
| lolinder wrote:
| It's basically the same as cookie banners: regulators
| said they had to, so they comply in the most obnoxious
| and least helpful way possible.
| rolph wrote:
| we need a classification such as Malignant Compliance.
| buu700 wrote:
| And they inevitably end with "or death". I'm guessing
| they choose to list every vaguely possible side effect
| for CYA purposes, while simultaneously obscuring the
| actual risk profile by withholding information on the
| frequency of any given side effect.
|
| It's like pestering users with alerts. After a certain
| point, you can't really blame someone for tuning them out
| and just clicking OK.
| tomcatfish wrote:
| No, amusingly, it's a regulation thing. Health products
| are urged to list all negative outcomes seen in the
| experimental group, which can lead to some amusing
| outcomes
|
| https://metro.co.uk/2020/12/18/covid-vaccine-volunteer-
| struc...
|
| (Hard to find a nice source for this because there's a
| metaphor going around now about covid vaccines and
| lightning, but I saw it around more at the time. If
| anyone is better at search engines with date filtering or
| has a super reputable link, please share it below)
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| I don't think I watch anything that even has TV ads anymore. Live
| sports probably are the only thing.
|
| Netflix
|
| Plex
|
| Prime
|
| Disney Plus
|
| YouTube (I guess they have ads but not the same)
|
| Mobile game ads on the other hand... Urgh.
| listenallyall wrote:
| It's not a flex when you "avoid ads" (which you don't, what are
| the Netflix/Prime/Disney etc home pages except ads for more tv
| consumption) by committing to $60 per month of streaming.
| cookie_monsta wrote:
| Sure it's a flex. Avoiding ads isn't about saving money, it's
| about not having vacuous nonsense pumped into your brain
| uninvited.
| ghaff wrote:
| I rather like previews/trailers as long as there aren't too
| many of them.
|
| Paying to avoid ads and get more interesting programming
| seems like a perfectly valid flex. I'd probably do it more
| broadly if I could. Content costs money to produce. Someone
| has to pay for it somehow. And I pay less for streaming today
| than I paid for my cable TV subscription.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Can't help but notice that as soon as Web advertising made it
| feasible to see how much advertising led directly to purchase
| rates plummeted.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| In that sentence, What's the subject of the verb "plummeted"?
| Is "purchase rates" both acting as an object and a subject? I'm
| confused and can't parse your comment.
| everythingctl wrote:
| s/purchase/purchase,/
| emodendroket wrote:
| "rates"
|
| i.e., Once advertisers could measure how effective their ads
| were, they were no longer willing to pay as much
| endymi0n wrote:
| So what? 99% of print ads go to trashcans unread. That's factored
| in by everyone buying those as well.
|
| If anything the numbers should be "better" for TV these days: As
| when I was a kid, ad breaks were toilet and toothbrush breaks and
| I barely watched through any of them. These days modern midrolls
| are designed to be too short for that, but just long enough to be
| bearable.
| allenu wrote:
| I often sit through ads when watching sports on TV because I
| can't be bothered to reach for the remote to mute it. However,
| when I watch YouTube on my phone, I instantly mute the device and
| look away as soon as an ad plays. After a few seconds I look back
| at the device so I can hit the skip button. It always seems like
| a waste of bandwidth for them to play ads to me, but I assume my
| behavior isn't in the majority.
| tifik wrote:
| I stopped using the YT app and just use the website with ublock
| origin enabled. Didnt see a YT ad in years.
|
| Edit: typo
| freeflight wrote:
| I like watching YouTube stuff on my iPad to fall asleep, but
| at times the ads can make that real difficult, and I have yet
| to find a way to block them on the tablet.
|
| PiHole allegedly helps with that, but afaik PiHole is only a
| DNS blacklister, and I already have blocked Google adservers
| troguh my router, tho that does not seem to help with ads in
| the YouTube mobile/tablet app.
| ComradePhil wrote:
| YouTube premium is $12 per month. If there is one
| subscription worth getting, it is definitely this.
| aceki wrote:
| I know AdGuard[0] claims to have the ability of blocking
| YouTube ads in Safari, but I also believe it's behind an
| IAP. Alternatively, an Invidious instance[1] will play
| videos without ads. It doesn't work for music videos
| (thanks DRM!), and I believe you have to set the video
| quality to DASH in Invidious's settings for Safari to be
| able to play it. Not as convenient as YouTube, sure, but if
| you hate ads enough I think it's worth it.
|
| [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-adblock-
| privacy/id1047...
|
| [1] https://redirect.invidious.io
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| Youtube vanced works well for blocking ads. But you need an
| android device.
| christophilus wrote:
| Brave on iOS blocks YT ads.
| waffle_maniac wrote:
| I think Brave blocks YT ads on all platforms?
| withinboredom wrote:
| I've been bored and started using my phone a few times. As
| soon as an ad starts. I stop the app, start it again. Or just
| watch it in the thumbnail with cc.
| theGeatZhopa wrote:
| I use YouTube not as app, but in the browser on my mobile.
| There I have an AdBlock Plugin setup.
|
| Without that YouTube is unusable for me anymore. It's not about
| the video ads at all. Ads are part of the modern design of
| YouTube and are difficult to differentiate from, f.e. the
| comments, which are hidden by default - wtf?
| nelblu wrote:
| https://newpipe.net/
| nirui wrote:
| Man that sounded like a lots of work for watching YouTube.
|
| I watch YouTube usually because I have something else to do,
| and I needed something to make a sound + be my timer. If an ad
| starts to play, it will not effect my main task. 5 or 10
| seconds later the Skip button displays, I click/tap on it and
| continue my task, and the ad will be forgotten almost
| instantly.
|
| I don't think those ad makers knows how ads actually work: you
| only have certain amount of seconds to convert a client. After
| that, the ad will be forgotten. People who interested in your
| product will sign on after few encounters with the ad. And for
| those who didn't sign on, they don't care and pushing more ads
| will simply annoy them and makes them hate your product.
|
| For example, those 5 seconds TikTok ads are low quality and
| extremely annoying (, making me believe that ByteDance is using
| the strategy to downgrade the user experience of YouTube. Very
| clever indeed), I'll never sign on no matter how many times it
| plays.
|
| For me personally, I like to take my time to read the detail
| about a product, those video ads just can't cut it. The text +
| picture based ads displayed by Reddit catches me better.
| i67vw3 wrote:
| You can use newpipe, youtube vanced or youtube in a browser
| with adblock turned ON.
| [deleted]
| lukeholder wrote:
| I have always felt that legacy media; the TV, Magazines,
| Newspapers had massively over-stated eyeball numbers.
| pishpash wrote:
| Which begs the question, have advertisers ever actually
| measured effect scientifically, and whether the arms race of
| acquiring eyeballs for no net position change will collapse.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I've worked places that have paused ads for a few months to
| see what happens only to see nothing happen and stop their
| advertising spend. In both those places, revenue started
| declining within a year. So I imagine advertising has such a
| delayed effect that it's unmeasurable.
| spullara wrote:
| Not until now, which is why Facebook was making so much money
| before they got kneecapped.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Half my advertising spend is wasted; the trouble is, I don't
| know which half.
| derefr wrote:
| Then take half of your advertising spend and redirect it
| into market research. (I.e. add on the bottom of your
| purchase receipts, email marketing blasts, etc, something
| like "$10 coupon if you tell us something about yourself";
| where "something about yourself" = "which if any of these
| advertising campaigns did you actually see.")
| onion2k wrote:
| I think that's a clever quip made by a man who just wanted
| to keep his marketing budget without being asked to justify
| what he spent it on.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| It's repeated often enough I think it's well grounded in
| reality.
| onion2k wrote:
| Clever quotes are often repeated. That doesn't make them
| true _for every context_ though.
|
| When John Wanamaker said what he said I think he was
| talking about print ads for department stores in an era
| before ad metrics, large scale market research, etc. It
| was probably true then to be fair, but that doesn't make
| it useful now, or applicable to all advertising. For
| example, if I used this quote when I was talking about
| Internet adverts I'd just be wrong. It's trivial to track
| the effectiveness of an online ad
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of tech people have this rather Dilbert-esque view
| of marketing. In practice any halfway sophisticated
| marketing/advertising/paid search/etc. is a lot more
| quantitative and data-driven than they probably think.
| jessaustin wrote:
| I sort of admire marketers. They get so passionate about
| it! I can barely muster that sort of excitement for
| actually interesting topics.
| listenallyall wrote:
| For items/services purchased online. Offline, not so
| much.
| charcircuit wrote:
| You can put a phone number on your infomercial and measure
| how many calls / conversions you get from people calling that
| number shortly after the ad plays.
| kerneloftruth wrote:
| That's what "promo codes" are all about, too. Direct
| feedback as to which ads worked.
| fortyseven wrote:
| Oh no.
| COil wrote:
| Not only empty rooms, but also without sound.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Often put on various Cat TV channels from YouTube on before
| leaving for work. They are usually like 8 hour long shots of
| birds and squirrels eating nuts someone left on log, the cats
| love it and will watch diligently. They are monetized channels
| often enough, and its just funny to me knowing that every once in
| a while the cats, who are otherwise alone in the house, are being
| treated to a commercial for some sports betting service, or for
| profit college experience. This entire edifice of targeted ads
| being directed to two cats who suddenly experience a very human
| moment in this absurd context. Can't help but feel like they
| sense it, that they are suddenly interpolated into this thing,
| subjects to the streams of money and incentived attention.
| brought down into our inferior world of commodities and money.
| Have been close to getting the premium YouTube just for their
| sake, and of course for the sake of the nice people making the
| videos.
| rvba wrote:
| As much as I like cats, this is incredibly wasteful for the
| whole world - lots of carbon footprint.
|
| Cant you just buy some other toys for your cats?
| mastax wrote:
| Last I checked YouTube premium doesn't pay out for your views
| like ads do. It goes into a single pot that is split amongst
| creators based on their views or ad revenue (can't remember).
| andrewxdiamond wrote:
| Premium views pay out part of your subscription to the
| creator you watched. A normal ad view is worth fractions of a
| fraction of a penny, but YouTube premium views pay out much
| more.
| srg0 wrote:
| That's interesting. Do you have an idea what fraction of
| the YouTube premium fee goes to the content creators?
| sfe22 wrote:
| Cant be ad revenue, it would be stupid. But going into a pot
| Spotify style is also evil and not fair.
| thrownblown wrote:
| Your monthly subscription fee minus a little off the top is
| split by your watch time amongst those you watch.
| mastax wrote:
| > Currently, new revenue from YouTube Premium membership
| fees is distributed to video creators based on how much
| members watch your content. As with our advertising
| business, most of the revenue will go to creators
|
| https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#z
| ipp...
|
| It's pretty vague, but my reading of this is that it's
| paid out of a single pool based on the watch time of all
| YouTube Premium Members. So e.g. if you only watch one
| video a month, that creator doesn't get all of your
| money.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| Turns out Scrooged was visionary in more ways than I thought!
| https://youtu.be/0Oa5yEq2qvM?t=30s
| jameshart wrote:
| I mean, with broadcast TV, ads play regardless, and they play to
| everyone - to receivers that aren't even turned on, or are tuned
| to a different channel. That seems little different to having the
| ad make it through but only to a TV in an empty room to me.
| Borrible wrote:
| Yes, but compare that with the two-thirds TV content that is
| empty.
|
| If the commercials were of better quality (script, directing and
| so on), the problem would solve itself.
| drewcoo wrote:
| Isn't that why they're so loud? At least I assume they still are.
| andhuman wrote:
| Exactly, this isn't really news to the media companies.
| barrystaes wrote:
| Shit, they found out?
| jurmous wrote:
| It is always funny to see how watching TV can be so differently
| culturally. With my Spanish in-law family the TV is on almost the
| whole day in the background, even during big family dinners as
| background sound. With often news, sports or game shows. With
| their late dinner times of 9pm they often watch series and movies
| even later. And here in the Netherlands it is with many a sin to
| have the TV on in the background if there are visitors and should
| only be on if you watch something together.
| kerneloftruth wrote:
| I use TVs as though they're aquariums... on for background
| ambience, and an audio-visual "optional distraction". I mostly
| keep it on Turner classic movies as they have no ads. I'm more
| likely to be interested, or at least pleased, by whatever I
| happen to engage with.
| brnt wrote:
| I think it's generational. My Dutch parents also have the TV on
| all evening (although, much less so since retirement). I would
| always make sure the first thing I did was mute the thing when
| I visit, because I simply can't have a conversation with a TV
| shouting over everything.
|
| My generation, few even have a TV. We're one of the few with
| one in the living room (hooked up to a laptop though), and I
| think I haven't turned it on in a month now?
| bojan wrote:
| Agree for the generational thing. At my dad's place the TV is
| always on, at ours only if we're watching something.
|
| But if you don't turn your TV on at all, I have to ask -
| where do you watch Netflix et al? Or you simply don't?
| Fnoord wrote:
| Netflix on smartphone, second monitor, and my daughter
| watches it on TV (via an Nvidia Shield TV so arguable a
| computer).
| brnt wrote:
| We've a laptop in our bedroom, which is very intentionally
| a small screen. It's pretty variable how much we watch
| there.
| mantas wrote:
| I watch movies pretty much only at local film festivals.
| Pre-corona it was 2-3 movies twice a year since my city has
| sweet spring and late fall festivals. During corona
| festivals moved online and I watched a movie from each
| festival on laptop. Hopefully masks-in-cinemas will be over
| by the time spring festival rolls in!
|
| Last series I followed was Breaking Bad. Used to torrent it
| and watch on laptop screen.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I think it's just a semantic thing. Everyone watches TV,
| but a subset likes to describe themselves as not
| having/watching TV on an extremely pedantic technicality.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't have "TV" in the sense that I can't watch e.g.
| live sports. But I have a couple large screens in the
| house that I can use to stream e.g. Netflix (or I can
| just watch it on a tablet or PC). I'm not sure it's
| really that pedantic. "No I won't be watching the game
| because I don't have TV." (Though if you had YouTube TV,
| that's getting into pedantic territory.)
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Right, if your response to "are you watching the game?"
| is "no, I can't watch it", fair enough. My scorn is more
| reserved for people who willingly volunteer the "I don't
| have a TV" information as some kind of 'badge of honour',
| yet they watch five hours of Netflix on their laptop
| every evening.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Especially when they do have a TV. In the Us at least TV
| refers to those large screens the broadcast system is
| referred to as cable or satellite, which it is true very
| few people have these days.
| ghaff wrote:
| Oh I agree. For me it was a purely financial decision of
| "Should I keep paying $100/month for this service I
| haven't used in weeks or should I put some of it towards
| another streaming service or two?" And, while I'd like to
| have it every now and then for live sports, that's not
| worth $1000/year to me.
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| Is the difference between making a website using
| Wordpress and building one using React/Node etc just a
| pedantic technicality on account of both groups building
| websites? No of course not, they are two very different
| processes that are only tangentially related.
|
| I watch tv shows on streaming services with no
| commercials, on demand when I want to, and only when it's
| an 'event' where we plan to focus on the story being
| delivered. My father watches broadcast television,
| flipping channels regularly, leaves the commercials on
| half the time, and always has the tv blaring in the
| background the entire time we are at his house even for
| hours at a time and during a holiday gathering.
|
| You can be negative and try to classify the difference
| between us as a pedantic technicality or you can join the
| conversation about this interesting and seemingly
| generational difference in what it means to "watch tv".
| nunez wrote:
| lol @ "everyone"
|
| i don't watch TV on my own accord. usually with my wife
| (when she wants to watch something) or when i'm forced to
| while at a bar or restaurant (many bars, especially
| around here in southwest Texas, have MANY TVs, almost all
| of them tuned to some variant of sportsball). when i
| travel by myself, the tv in the hotel room never turns
| on, for example.
|
| sorry if this comes off as me being vain; I never tell
| anyone and having a soapbox to finally talk about it is
| awesome!
|
| i've only been to Europe once so far (Barcelona) and
| restaurants and bars without TV was one of my favorite
| things ever. this experience only exists in big cities.
|
| however, netflix, hulu, and youtube premium probably
| think differently of me lol (i pay for these services but
| my wife consumes them)
| lariati wrote:
| I am 50 and have never owned a television myself.
|
| I have never had a Netflix account.
|
| At this point, I have been offered pretty nice TVs for
| free more than once.
|
| If you really get use to living without a TV though it
| feels like it has negative value to have one IMO. Even
| more now with Netflix and long binge watch series with
| disappointing endings.
|
| Of course, I don't get to participate in the
| conversations about how much show X ending sucked after
| wasting a week of my life on it.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Forgive me if I put no stock in your opinions on tv
| quality when you don't watch any.
| klyrs wrote:
| Before I had a smartphone and a TV, I was much more
| physically active and got a lot more done on hobby
| projects. The 'quality' of TV programming is inarguable;
| if that's a net positive is debatable. The quality of
| carfentanyl is _amazing_ , from what I hear...
| asiachick wrote:
| Owning a "TV" is really irrelevant. I know plenty of
| people that only own a iPhone. Yet they watch hours of
| Netflix, AppleTV, YouTube on it.
|
| If you don't watch anything on whatever you're using to
| post your messages to HN then fine but if you do then
| you're still "watching TV" for all intents and purposes.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Have you ever watched a YouTube video?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Curious how you fill your time without TV. Also, do you
| consider others to be wasting their time for making a
| different choice?
| nunez wrote:
| not the OP, but I ride my bike (indoors or outdoors,
| mostly indoors now because riding outdoors around here is
| dangerous, even for me), lift weights, read Reddit (my
| front page is super curated; mostly niche subs, none of
| the huge ones), go to breweries/bars/restaurants, find
| things to do in the city, code, and write on my blog.
|
| i do think that TV is fine in moderation like everything
| else, but, like social media and video games,
| overconsumption is socially normalized. putting off work
| and keeping yourself healthy for shows or endless
| scrolling isn't okay IMO.
| brnt wrote:
| He he, the only reason I have a TV in the first place
| (plus two in storage) is because my dad keeps replacing
| his (because of some tiny new feature) and I find it a
| waste to throw out a perfectly good panel.
| barrkel wrote:
| TV is changing meaning.
|
| It used to be synchronous broadcast on a schedule, on a
| channel chosen from a small selection. If you watched TV,
| you could be reasonably expected to talk about the thing
| that was on last night.
|
| With on demand, scheduled releases etc. it's much less
| well defined. If you only watch movies on Netflix, it's
| probably not "TV" as a cultural artifact, but if you're
| watching the latest Star Wars or Marvel series on Disney,
| then probably you are, despite there being little
| difference in technology.
| mantas wrote:
| If I listen to podcast videos (in car or video hidden),
| do I still watch TV or listen to radio? And if those are
| niche podcasts that wouldn't make it to broadcast
| services.
| brnt wrote:
| There's TV the device and TV the specific way and content
| to watch. Of friends our age, precisely zero have the
| latter. The device about half have I think. Which is very
| different from our parents generation, where everyone has
| both.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Yeah, maybe I'm closer to your parents' generation, maybe
| broadcast TV is still better enough in the UK that it's
| worth watching -- I still do. Obviously, I recognise your
| point about younger people watching less broadcast.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Where is the "pedantic technicality" though? Looks more
| like a _continuum_ to me.
|
| Consider, here are some activities I do, which of them
| are you sure is "watching TV" and which aren't? Is it
| such a clear bright line?
|
| * I watch "Only Connect" - a very difficult BBC Two quiz
| show - on the iPlayer web site. There aren't any adverts
| of course because it's the BBC, but this was made to be
| shown on a broadcast TV channel even if I haven't watched
| it that way for years.
|
| * I watch the Two Ronnies "Mastermind" sketch on Youtube.
| Once again this was made to be shown on broadcast TV,
| decades ago, as part of an episodic show - but now this
| is just one sketch
|
| * I re-watch the final sale decision scene from The Big
| Short on Youtube. The Big Short is a movie, this was
| never made for broadcast TV, and all I'm watching is one
| clip from a much longer work.
|
| * I watch previews of a friend's review of the entire
| Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Most of these were
| movies. (but there is a TV series) and he doesn't include
| clips but he does talk about them. This will eventually
| be a Youtube video, but I'm watching the preview.
|
| * I watch an SC2 AI Arena playback of a match that
| happened recently between two AIs. It's video, at least
| by the time it reaches me, but it was never intended to
| be broadcast anywhere, many of these videos are never
| watched by anyone they're generated automatically so why
| not.
|
| * I play a video game with an FMV cut scene, such as
| Command & Conquer: Red Alert.
|
| * I play another video game with a cut scene but it's in-
| engine using the game's 3D assets, such as GTA3.
|
| * I join a Teams call with colleagues to discuss progress
| on our main Project
|
| * I watch a rather hypnotic screensaver of overlapping
| fractal shapes.
|
| * I read a web page with some simple animated multi-step
| tutorials. Is it important whether they're animated with
| Javascript, GIFs or MPEG video?
|
| * I read this comment on Hacker News.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I guess the specific "pedantic technicality" I was
| thinking of was the "I watch Netflix on a big screen in
| the corner of my room, but I don't have TV". I get why,
| in a very limited number of scenarios, that might be
| useful or interesting information, but a huge amount of
| the time it isn't.
| chalupaman wrote:
| See, I think the pedantic technicality is the other way
| around -- that is, saying "Well you're watching this
| movie on Netflix on a big screen, so that counts as TV."
| It feels a bit like mocking someone for claiming that the
| New York Times isn't a novel when they're both things you
| read off folded paper in your living room. When people
| say that watching Netflix on a big screen in the corner
| of their room isn't TV, they're using 'TV' to refer to a
| medium defined by a fixed programme of highly-scheduled
| and localized broadcasts. I think that's a much more
| useful definition than "TV is what you watch on a big
| screen in your room", because that medium has very unique
| and distinct features, frequently contains very different
| types of content, shapes its content differently, and is
| often consumed very differently. Why isn't going to the
| movies or playing Charlie Got My Finger on your phone
| counted as watching TV? Is it the screen size? The
| location? Or the difference between playing a specific
| video you've requested and tuning into a schedule of
| programs being broadcast to the entire region?
| ghaff wrote:
| I agree with that. Watching YouTube TV on your phone
| feels a lot closer to watching TV than playing streaming
| or DVD movies on a big screen.
| tonguez wrote:
| "Everyone watches TV"
|
| No
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| It's amazing how normalized tv watching is for some
| people. It's as expected as the sun rising or setting. My
| kid broke the family tv out of anger 4-5 years ago. We
| simply never replaced it as a natural consequence. We
| also stopped watching broadcast television sometime
| shortly after Lost's imfamously poor ending.
|
| There are some situations where I come in contact with
| televisions today. They make me feel frustrated because
| they sap away my attention. I read more, I do hobbies,
| and I spend more time with people and have better
| relationships. It feels like an easy trade-off.
| nunez wrote:
| i've gotten scolded by my parents for not wanting to
| watch TV with them. my dad and siblings usually insisted
| on having the TV on while eating dinner, much to my mom's
| frustration.
|
| i remember one time specifically when my family was all
| watching "House" (super popular TV show on FOX back in
| 2004-ish?). I think I wanted to use my laptop or
| something; don't remember. My parents got really mad at
| me, insisting that I watch with them. Ended up doing so,
| begrudgingly. I get why they did that (family time) but I
| didn't like that our family time was spent in front of a
| screen.
|
| > There are some situations where I come in contact with
| televisions today. They make me feel frustrated because
| they sap away my attention.
|
| YES! I can hate watching TV and be angrily fixated on it
| when at a bar at the same time. My wife doesn't get it
| lol
| brewdad wrote:
| Sorry, I find this funny though I can relate. Not wanting
| to spend "family time" in front of a screen when your
| preferred alternative is to work/play in front of a
| screen.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > But if you don't turn your TV on at all, I have to ask -
| where do you watch Netflix et al? Or you simply don't?
|
| Don't even own a TV. I own a projector / home cinema. I
| think it beats the shit out of a TV big times. I much
| prefer the "feel" of a projector compared to these 4K TVs
| or whatnots. When we turn the projector on, it's to really
| watch something, not as background noise.
| distances wrote:
| Same for me, but it's still in the continuum of TV
| watching like the other person said. I don't have TV the
| device, or broadcast receiving capability, but I still
| watch TV shows not that much unlike the normal definition
| of TV use.
| sdpy wrote:
| > But if you don't turn your TV on at all, I have to ask -
| where do you watch Netflix et al?
|
| I watch video content on my 15.6" laptop with a retina
| display. The picture is subjectively larger, brighter, and
| sharper than on a TV because it's closer to my eyes. It's
| like in a movie theater but with lots of privacy. So I
| prefer it this way. I would turn on a TV only if I'd want
| to watch something with another person, I guess.
| nefitty wrote:
| I'm 30 and have a tv and Bluetooth speaker in every room.
| Both me and my wife get anxious in silence. We do retreat to
| the bedroom if we need silence though. Our puppy seemed to
| have figured out the same... We used to think she did it when
| she was sick, but it became a pattern and seems to be her way
| to tune out the world.
|
| The best way I can describe the effect of silence is like
| what brains do in extreme sensory deprivation: they begin
| imagining and hallucinating external stimulus. Silence makes
| my internal stream of consciousness stark. It is severe to
| the point of causing me decades of insomnia. As soon as I lay
| in bed, if I don't have white noise or otherwise, the
| recursive nature of my thoughts spirals immediately into
| existential panic.
|
| Anyways, I love TV.
| crehn wrote:
| Depending on TVs to save you from existential panic doesn't
| seem like a sustainable solution.
| nefitty wrote:
| If you have a sustainable solution to provide you'll be
| rich. I default to squelching thoughts of my mortality.
| That is at the top of the list of mental frames that have
| improved my life. I otherwise lived in constant
| existential panic from the ages of 12 to 25. Thanks a lot
| Nietzsche...
| tyfon wrote:
| I had the same issue I think, struggled with it up to
| around 25 when a doctor asked me to try melatonin.
|
| It actually changed my life, now I can sleep and be like
| a normal person. I used to joke that I was a C-type
| person (instead of A/B) when it comes to sleep.
| ungamed wrote:
| Active stoicism worked for me. I think only ryan holiday
| is getting rich from it though.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Have you tried psilocybin? The dissociative state could
| help you realize that are more than your ego.
|
| You are not one but many, and the ego is truly the only
| thing that dies in death we fear.
| nefitty wrote:
| Several trips. Microdosing for weeks. It helped me
| understand Alan Watts. No real impact on the existential
| terror thing.
| achenet wrote:
| You may want to experiment with your diet.
|
| I have a thing where I get weird anxiety ~18hr after I
| eat pasta, maybe you get something similar.
|
| If your anxeity has a biological cause (ie excess
| cortisol or something), then modulating what you put into
| your body may help.
|
| Or maybe you just need to accept that every moment might
| be your last and try to enjoy it. :)
| nprateem wrote:
| Meditation
| nefitty wrote:
| I thought so too. I have at least 150 hrs of meditation
| under my belt. I can't say I'm worse or better, just
| another silly thing for my ego to carry around.
|
| Take it from me. Ignoring your mortality is a lot easier.
| 3np wrote:
| 150 hours over how long time? Those who aren't "naturals"
| may need more than that to "get it" and start seeing
| benefits (coming from someone who after several attempts
| in various forms finally "broke through", in lack of
| better words, on day ~6 of a 10 day Goenka-Vipassana
| retreat. That'd be ~10 h / day during that time).
|
| After that I was able to do 30-60 minute sittings at home
| and experience the associated change. If you're also a
| very cerebral person you may also need a similarly
| concentrated "boot camp" or similar to get to some base
| level.
|
| In a similar vein, if someone has extremely weak
| physique, it's not really convincing when they claim that
| physical exercise doesn't work for them, as they did
| spend 150h at the gym machines ;)
| nefitty wrote:
| That's a great point. I guess hype made my expectations
| unrealistic. I have it on my to-do list to get the habit
| going again. I'll try this weekend!
|
| I've wanted to do a retreat very badly. I would need to
| work to organize my current world to fit it in but it's
| something I have in the back of my mind.
| [deleted]
| HPsquared wrote:
| What works for me is negative visualization. Thinking of
| the worst possible thing that can happen, and how I'd
| feel in that situation. It's kind of like exposure
| therapy.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_visualization
| navjack27 wrote:
| Try meditating. Learn to let the thoughts wash over you.
| klyrs wrote:
| That's not always good advice, particularly for folks who
| experience depression and anxiety...
|
| https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-
| medici...
| brnt wrote:
| I get anxious with noise around, especially TV. My brain
| generates plenty of stimuli all on its own, no need to add
| more ;)
| brewdad wrote:
| I have the opposite problem and need some background
| noise in order to stay focused. That said, I can't use TV
| as background noise unless it is something I have zero
| interest in. The visual component is too distracting, so
| I tend to use music instead.
|
| Brains are weird.
| bluecatswim wrote:
| That's funny, I've always hated it when someone turned on
| the TV or put on some music in the same room as me because
| it disturbed my inner monologue.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| My inner monologue is only there to say disturbing
| things, so it's nice to drown it out.
| pkorzeniewski wrote:
| I'm in my 30s and I went through the phase of watching a
| lot of TV as a teen, then not watching at all in my 20s and
| not owning a TV for many years, and now I'm back at
| moderately watching TV everyday. There're several pros of
| TV compared to streaming: you turn it on and there's
| immediately something playing, if it's not interesting you
| just change the channel (I hate scrolling through stuff on
| a streaming service and getting stressed that I can't find
| anything interesting and just wasting time), there're many
| movies I would never watch otherwise but sometimes you just
| leave something on because "there's nothing better to
| watch" and it turns out to be a great movie, there's also
| many classic movies and TV series that are hard to find
| online, even "trash" daytime TV shows sometimes are fun to
| watch if you just want to "reset" your mind :-)
| nefitty wrote:
| Yes. I missed putting on the History channel and just
| letting it run all day and night. Pluto TV made that
| possible again and it's free. RiffTrax, MST3K, Pluto
| History, Pluto Science, and on and on. I hat the stress
| of trying to figure out what to watch on demand.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Mid-40s, British family, living in the US since the 80s. We
| had the TV on most afternoons/evenings, lots of evening news,
| then sitcoms. But, it went off for dinner (as a family at the
| kitchen table), off for homework, off at bed (and no TV in
| rooms), and definitely off if guests were visiting (and not
| there for a big game).
| irrational wrote:
| It seems to be generational in the USA too. My parents and
| in-laws have the TV on in the background constantly. We, and
| our friends, never have it on unless specifically watching
| something. But, we are on our phones constantly. I feel like
| we've replaced one background media/entertainment device with
| a different one.
| grishka wrote:
| Yeah I feel like it differs by generation in Russia as well.
| My parents' generation and older would often have either TV
| or radio on in the background most of the time. My generation
| mostly considers the mere act of watching broadcast
| television a sin because of how much propaganda there is and
| how much more useful content, available on demand, is out
| there on the internet anyway. Those who do own a TV often use
| it as a big display for streaming/torrented movies and/or
| console games, with the antenna cable often not even
| connected.
| VladimirGolovin wrote:
| It's the same in my family, with one exception. We
| sometimes do have TV on in the background, but the only
| permitted channel is TV Kultura -- news about art, museums,
| exhibitions, theatre, humanities, arthouse cinema, etc.
| nhoughto wrote:
| It is interesting to me that TV off is the norm (for me and
| people I know) except! If there is a live sporting event on
| that someone cares about, then it would be rude not to have it
| on and is expected. Weird. Makes no sense at all, humans are
| weird.
| mongol wrote:
| Is it cultural? I see those differences within my own family.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Depending on how you define cultural, it's entirely possible
| that TV watching culture varies _within_ your family.
| permalac wrote:
| My family is also Spanish/catalan and the TV is always off,
| only turned on when seeing something together.
|
| Mi wife family, just some km away, they have the TV on during
| all they long, it freaks me out. My toddler is the one that
| shuts it down for them, because he 'can not hear them' if TV
| is on.
| anthomtb wrote:
| I spent my entire childhood in the USA. Every friends house
| seemed to have different TV habits. No TV at all, TV always
| on, TV on but commercials muted. I don't think it's a
| cultural phenomenon at all.
| jdkjs wrote:
| Spaniard here and I confirm. TV always on even at a low volume
| is a given no matter the circumstances. I think we'd all feel
| weird if that background noise wasn't there. I've always
| imagined it's the same everywhere in the world, but perhaps I'm
| wrong.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I find the difference most amusing during special events, eg.
| new years eve, even with similar-ish cultures.
|
| In slovenia, NY eve means a few movies on some channels, maybe
| even a movie marathon (home alone 1-5, etc.), and on one
| channel, from about 23h->00:30 the next day/year some "funny"
| show, with a few songs, a host+guests talking about stuff and a
| countdown. So basically stuff that you have to watch and listen
| to in whole.
|
| In serbia for example, the show lasts for 6h+, and it's
| basically 99.9% music, except for a joke or two inbetween songs
| and a countdown with happy wishes for new year, and it's
| designed to be played "in the background", where noone really
| cares about the show, unless it's a song they really really
| like and turn the volume even higher. example:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ9-w8qlpEY
| skerit wrote:
| I'm from Belgium, I hate it when I'm at a friend and the TV
| goes on (or someone starts to show a youtube video, lol)
| glogla wrote:
| Same here. My mother always used to have TV on as a
| background when I was a kid, but I never had one after I
| moved out. Now TV a running TV completely destroys my ability
| to concentrate on anything else and I am also utterly
| disgusted by all the ads.
| mrspeaker wrote:
| Oh boy, I dread when someone goes to show me something on
| their phone! (Here, let me show you a youtube video about it
| xD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9EWf-wXQ3o).
| ghaff wrote:
| Back when I would take group trips and maybe have a roommate in
| a hotel room, one of the things that would annoy me was when
| they'd make a beeline to the TV and turn it on as background.
| My brother pretty much does the same thing in his house. It is
| very rare that I turn a hotel TV on unless there's some
| specific sports game I want to watch.
| brnt wrote:
| I would pay extra for hotels offering no TV. I especially
| dislike it when someone else has it on so loud the walls
| resonate.
| [deleted]
| jtvjan wrote:
| >And here in the Netherlands it is with many a sin to have the
| TV on in the background
|
| Yes. Background noise is the radio's job. Why waste energy
| keeping a panel on if nobody's gonna look at it?
| slim wrote:
| and the content is fit for this purpose
| Larrikin wrote:
| As awful and prevalent as TV commercials have become the only
| thing I can think of with more commercials in between content
| are YouTube left on in the background and radio.
|
| With YouTube some body decided during the pandemic to cram
| commercials in the middle of videos now, so music sets are
| ruined and all comedic timing as well. Anything I plan to
| watch more than once I use ytdlp because of the huge number
| of ads they've started cramming in to the start middle and
| end.
|
| In the car the radio is only bearable if you have atleast
| three stations in your area that play genres that are
| enjoyable or you get lucky and you happen to be in the car
| when a live DJ is on, usually at some point during the rush
| hour commute or a weekend night.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| I think this is common knowledge. Its always puzzled me why
| advertisers expect the unbelievably detailed metrics and proof of
| effectiveness for online ads and only want to pay pennies. Yet
| they are happy to toss millions into the void for TV
| advertisements. I guess since there is no way to know if the ads
| work its just "we've always done it that way.
| dessant wrote:
| Some TVs now come with a camera, brace for a camera-based
| presence detection API to show up in web standards and TV
| operating systems.
|
| https://electronics.sony.com/tv-video/televisions/all-tvs/p/...
|
| https://electronics.sony.com/tv-video/televisions/television...
| jsrcout wrote:
| That second one gave me a flashback to childhood. "You're
| sitting too close to the TV! You'll ruin your eyes!"
|
| > Proximity Alert allows you to set an adequate viewing
| distance for your child and displays an overlay notification if
| they get too close to the TV.2
|
| Let's not talk about how strong my glasses prescription is,
| some decades later lol.
| ComradePhil wrote:
| If you want a camera for your TV, Xiaomi makes one.
| brnt wrote:
| > If you want a camera for your TV
|
| I guess large swaths of people never actually read 1984.
| [deleted]
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| I would actually love a good raspberry pi/webcam setup in
| my living room for comfy video calls. Sadly I don't trust
| any of the standard commercial offerings (smart tvs are the
| least trustworthy devices I know; home assistants and
| Facebook devices don't even count as devices since they're
| pure spyware).
| ComradePhil wrote:
| Oh I did.
|
| So you think having a camera on the TV is worse than having
| a device with a camera and a bunch of others sensors with
| you at all times?
|
| Orwell couldn't imagine a portable device, so obviously
| it's the TVs with cameras that are bad... not any of the
| actual devices used for mass survelliance.
| brnt wrote:
| What makes you think I think that's worse than a phone?
|
| Being weary of TVs with cameras does not proclude me from
| beating weary of phones. I very much am.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Sony amusingly also owns the patent on the famous "Say
| 'McDonald's' to end commercial" patent:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US8246454B2/en
| genewitch wrote:
| I just did a search for mountain dew | mt dew | mtn dew | xbox
| patent/meme and i have discovered that the internet is broken.
| Couldn't find it. Weird, DDG uses bing, so maybe that's why it
| isn't the first result...
| 8192kjshad09- wrote:
| I can find it all over, try googling "Please drink a
| verification can"
| voldacar wrote:
| the meme, for those who haven't seen it
|
| https://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png
| tomcatfish wrote:
| God, this dumb post gets me every time. I just really enjoy
| the imagery in it.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| There's at least one potentially positive use of that.
|
| In an ideal world, broadcasters would use this data to become
| aware of which ads are so loathsome that they drive away
| viewers.
|
| Ad revenue is a win. But if a particular ad (more than others)
| causes people to leave the room or change channels, the
| following ads will get less views, and that could be a loss.
|
| If you actually know when that happens, you could charge
| advertisers extra if their commercials are too annoying. Or
| just not even air those ads.
| theGeatZhopa wrote:
| This is truly horrible and dystopian the Sony-Ericsson K800 was
| the last thing I bought from Sony. Even didn't bought the
| PlayStation.
|
| They need to go down.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| It is horrible but definitely not exclusive to Sony.
|
| Microsoft's Kinect, the always-on 3D camera/mic that could
| have been used to read people's facial expressions while
| watching ads. I'm glad it failed.
|
| Google speakers which have a microphone array they use to
| measure the shape and size of your room. Definitely only for
| acoustic purposes of course...
|
| And some people pay money for that, which makes me fear this
| might become standard in all kinds of devices. Those things
| aren't even that great in terms of features. In movies like
| "I, robot" the machine overlords were at least useful for
| cooking.
| userbinator wrote:
| It's like the old Soviet Russia joke. Except, it's not a
| joke...
| danuker wrote:
| To anyone curious: search for "Russian reversal"
| Galaxeblaffer wrote:
| Yes, blame communism, very clever comment.
| nabeelam wrote:
| That...isn't the point?
|
| See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Soviet_Russia
| Lvl999Noob wrote:
| The comment isn't blaming communism though. There's a meme
| that goes like "In the world, <completely normal thing>, In
| Soviet Russia, <the opposite of it>". So here it would go,
| "In the world, you watch the TV. In Soviet Russia, the TV
| watches you." Except that it wouldn't just be in Soviet
| Russia.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| Given that Soviet Russia wasn't a technology monopoly, it
| actually fits better if you turn it around (IMO):
|
| > In Soviet Russia, you watch TV. In modern world, TV
| watches you.
| IMSAI8080 wrote:
| Black Mirror. The ads pause if you're not paying attention.
| awestroke wrote:
| Spotify ads pause if you turn down the volume
| tomsmeding wrote:
| On the PC, it doesn't notice if you turn down the system
| volume instead of Spotify volume.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| Didn't Spotify also have extremely loud ads?
| [deleted]
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| How long until they start torturing us with loud noise as
| punishment for having the audacity to ignore our corporate
| overlords?
| toss1 wrote:
| They've done that for decades
|
| They increase the volume of the adverts in comparison to
| the show. Often it is not subtle. Aside from the abysmal
| and declining information density of TV, it's a key reason
| I've not had antenna/cable for almost two decades now. The
| big screen is just a big monitor.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Its not increased that has been illegal for a long time.
| They found a way around it though and of course nothing
| is being done. Its called dynamic range compression.
| Basically they cram the entire ad at the maximum legal
| volume level so it sounds lounder.
| chrisandchris wrote:
| Well, here in Switzerland, many channels (based on my
| subjective observations) lower the volume during the movie
| and increase it during ads.
|
| So it blows you away while ads run and you don't understand
| any word of the movie.
| pixl97 wrote:
| _BILLY MAYS HERE_
|
| Don't worry, we also do this in the US.
| conqueso wrote:
| That was common practice United States as well until it
| was made illegal around a decade ago with the Commercial
| Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act. However
| that only applies to TV and I believe we're now living
| with the same problem all over again with streaming
| platforms - when I stream a YouTube video to my TV it
| definitely seems like the interstitial ads are louder
| than the content.
| Habgdnv wrote:
| Black Mirror V2.0 At the end of the 15min break, you must
| pass a quick exam about the products in the ads if you want
| to continue watching your sports game.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| You must pass an exam by buying the products to prove the
| propaganda worked
| 0xmohit wrote:
| The TV places an order if you're paying attention.
| newsbinator wrote:
| We'll need a pi-hole like device, which does presence-detection
| to cut off electricity to the TV when you're not in the room,
| assuming that remains legal.
|
| The other day at midnight I was woken up by an Amber Alert for
| a somewhat nearby town. It's not possible to disable these
| notifications in this country, as far as I know.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's not possible to disable these notifications in this
| country, as far as I know.
|
| custom ROMs can work around that.
| dessant wrote:
| I think only presidential alerts are mandatory in most
| places, you may be able to turn off the alerts that are not
| important to you.
| rcarmo wrote:
| I think the advertising industry is well on its way to
| obsolescence in many ways. I pay zero attention to TV or YouTube
| commercials (I either skip them or am not watching linear TV in
| most of the time), adblock everything, and just look for
| something more interesting the moment I come across an ad.
|
| (and I seldom go back to anything, site, app or TV channel, that
| doesn't let me skip ads.)
|
| Then again I'm not in the US and am not a football fan (which I
| suspect is one of the drivers behind the timing of this article),
| but I believe we now have, worldwide, two entire generations of
| people who mentally blank out any form of advertising they come
| across. It just doesn't register unless it's fun or goes viral,
| and even then people recognize it for the outright manipulation
| that it really is.
|
| I can't wait for that bubble to burst.
| ghaff wrote:
| >I can't wait for that bubble to burst.
|
| If it does it will certainly have an affect on the media that's
| available for you to watch and/or require you to pay a lot more
| directly.
| rcarmo wrote:
| I don't mind. I pay for streaming and prefer it to linear TV.
| gcanyon wrote:
| TV ads? What are those? Joking aside, I literally don't remember
| how many years it's been since I last saw a TV ad (and it's not
| for not watching TV).
| zo1 wrote:
| I actually have fond memories of fun, musical or funny ads and
| watching them. We went down the wrond path somewhere, almost
| like we're stuck trying to optimize a local optima.
| gcanyon wrote:
| Yep, there were definitely some fun commercials. There might
| be now as well, but I'll never know :-)
| jtaft wrote:
| > tracked ad viewership using tools that, instead of just
| monitoring the television, measured actual viewer presence in the
| room, and focal attention on the screen
|
| What are these tools and how do they measure?
| cududa wrote:
| Something like a Kinect and commercial TOBII eye tracker could
| do it easily
| jtaft wrote:
| Maybe I misread the article. It sounded like they were
| tracking attention with ordinary TVs?
|
| Ie I wonder if they are relying on smart tv metrics , or
| tracking volume/people changing channels.
| simooooo wrote:
| jordanpg wrote:
| Ads, in whatever medium, are fundamentally bad UX. Not to mention
| utterly without value and a waste of precious human attention.
|
| It is always breathtaking to consider how much has been built on
| the back of advertising, I guess because there is no better
| option.
|
| But always remember that it is fundamentally bad UX: content
| providers forcing consumers to do something unpleasant, that they
| would rather not do, in exchange for the content.
|
| Nobel Peace Prize to the person or organization who figures out
| the business model to take us beyond this absurd paradigm.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| I suppose it's the original "if you're not paying, you're the
| product". Ads can be an excellent UX for the actual users of
| the service - the advertisers.
| hogrider wrote:
| Just let me pay with cash for the damn thing you're selling me
| with ads currently.
| amelius wrote:
| I'm waiting for an AI or collaborative system to turn off the
| sound/screen whenever ads are playing.
|
| Something like Shazam, but for ads, and with on/off control over
| my TV.
| bshep wrote:
| I rarely watch broadcast TV.
|
| I mainly watch streaming content with no ads. Whenever I do watch
| something over regular channel ( ex. my wife wanting to watch
| something thats not streamed ) the ads disgust me and the
| interruptions are super annoying, it just reminds me why i dont
| watch broadcast tv anymore and re-inforces my behavior.
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