I think they’ll be launching an ad tier of TV+, too. There was some news earlier this year about executive hirings that indicated that. They’ve needed to push the single tier high enough to allow for a non-free tier underneath it. Maybe $10 → $12 this fall and then they can do $7 with ads. Or $5-6 with ads and no increase to the price of the current single tier.
It seems like complete madness to me. Companies of all sorts are overdoing their marketing. It can’t be cost-effective. I see more ads these days than ever, but buy absolutely nothing based on the ads shown to me. At some point I think it has to burn itself out.
Subscriptions to rent our tech tools, paying for ad-free streaming that you are already paying for, self-service checkout so companies can hire less staff, self-serve at the gas stations, ads blaring from the pump, cars monitoring our every move, insurance companies using drones and other tech to determine if they will increase rates or terminate insurance, internet tracking, mobile phone tracking, and more examples of consumers being monitored and monetized through our technology than I could count or know about.
We need a 21st-century George Orwell to write another classic, but this time, it is Big Tech, not Big Brother.
There is a reason why the Bible says, “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”
The main takeaway from this thread is that we need to be aware and do what we can, limited as it is, to protect our privacy with the tech we use, reduce our spending on renting rather than owning our tools, and strive to shield ourselves from excessive advertising as much as possible. Knowledge is power—at least more power than ignorance—so the more we know about what tech companies are doing, the better equipped we are to limit our exposure and expense.
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There are two responses to that. Incidentally Freakonomics is, I have to say, getting on my nerves and has done for a while, too clever by half.
One response is that advertizing does work quite well.
The other one, that we might be living in an economy governed by very marginal differences. The stock market is now sensitive to delays of microseconds regarding bids. And, yes, I think it is dangerous and absurd too.
It might well be that adverts serve some other function of course altogether and that is understood at some level. Selling the dream as it were? Myself I think ithey dowork and very very well too and we still prefer to think they don’t.
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Depending on your understanding of eschatology, monitoring will only get worst.
eschatology
It may be best that I not go there. That would certainly take us off topic. 
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The book Subprime attention crisis takes on this subject, mostly from a financial bubble comparison perspective.
It’s a good read, even though it could have been shorter, like many non-fiction books.
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Another great reason to watch football (soccer). I can sit for 45 minutes an half and no ads, until they announce “Lexus stoppage time” or I notice the little advert next to the scorebug.
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My understanding of eschatology goes all the way back to when I just googled it, thank you very much.
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That subject is fraught with dangers. 
There are more perspectives on this matter than I can count! Getting one’s head around this issue requires a good working knowledge of Hebrew, Greek (Latin also helps), hermeneutics (the theory behind how we interpret texts), exegesis (the practice of interpreting texts), systematic theology, history, and a healthy dose of humility, good logic, and critical thinking.
If you think picking an app is hard, try picking an eschatology!
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It’s crazy. I was home the other weekend and the Mosque I grew up in has advertisements placed in the bathroom stalls! Fortunately, they are not video or interactive. But criminey. You can’t escape it digitally.
I thought I’d gotten around it on YouTube. I’ve subscribed and done Vinegar, but now they include advertisements in the middle of videos there too! I guess I don’t value many of those as much as I thought because my video consumption has gone down with the increase of obnoxious advertisements.
As a side hustle, I make YouTube videos. And even I’ve grown frustrated with the constant stream of commercials. In fact, just made this video: https://youtu.be/XB4RUIe1tsA
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@RichB That is an excellent video. I just subscribed to your channel.
That said, I understand the economics behind ads. As I said earlier, my beef is not ads per se. As you point out, we would not have much of the “free” content now available without ads. My beef is the sheer volume of ads and the tracking that intrudes upon our privacy. After watching your video, I’ll try to be more tolerant of the ads but remain frustrated with the volume and, in many cases, the sheer stupidity of many ads* and the intrusion into our privacy.
Thanks for sharing your video–well done, and I like your studio!
- Case in point, this irritating and dumb ad attempting to appeal to narcissistic impulses. I immediately hit mute when this ad comes on the TV.
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Often times in my life I have felt like I‘m already in some dystopian cyberpunk future. But this feeling has never been stronger as in the moment when I first encountered these:
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That screen is for … ads? You’ve got to be kidding?! 
Crazy times…
If that is what I’m confronted with, I’ll hold it!! Also, that post is dated 2017 so perhaps it is not going to happen after all. 
It is for ads and I encountered it in real life.
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Distractions like that could affect my aim 
. I’m glad I don’t have to clean them.
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i quit fockbook when ublock threw the white flag and ads could no longer be blocked in my feed.
Hulu figured out how to block ublock long before that. Now Disney gets all those hoovered crumbs – and we PAY them to collect it!!!
just got my awesome hong-kong-based gl.inet portable wifi router with built in adguard and vpn client (PIA) and loads of other stuff
i can’t speak to possible chinese backdoor malware on the device, but so far it’s awesome!
my apple devices can see each other (without each having its own VPN connection) and i get all the cool interop stuff that’s been out for years!
seriously guys, Brave browser with AGGRESSIVE fingerprint blocking. ublock. adguard.
Not to sound dismissive or optimistic but my opinion is that I don’t care about online ads. If I can, I will block them, but I’ve grown more permissive about that. I don’t do AdTech but I’ve had passing contact with it and all stuff I’ve seen in my professional career was careful about personally identifiable data either on the consulting side or the big platforms (Google, Meta). With 3rd party cookies being end-of-life and local tighter EU regulations this is even less of a concern: what was done in 2009 is unthinkable in 2024.
But what really infuriates me is the more pervasive presence of digital ads in the offline world. The lift at my building has this 9’’ screen that plays… well… elevator music, and displays the news and things like the weather. Fine enough until it began displaying more and more ads. And here’s the thing: the support service contract with OTIS, the manufacturer, is more expensive because of the screen, not cheaper. While my privacy is not impacted by these ads, I’m paying every year a couple of bucks just to see them!
Some times the ad pieces are pure gold. I cannot avoid watching the “Jimson, why are you naked!!?” ad from True Classic that keeps appearing on Instagram. Talk about “top of mind” and “brand awareness”!
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