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Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

nytimes.com

41–50 of 361 posts

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#41

It's like a creeping cancer that cannot be stopped. Back around 1981, advertisers would take a certain percentage of ad pages in each newspaper or magazine and consider it a reasonable deal. These days, they absolutely will not accept this unless they get a lot more space, obnoxious animations, force-play videos, and overlays that you have to click through, and often various registration walls, cross-site tracking, e…

> With ML, eventually this will become pervasive, even into the physical world. (My VR goggles will gray out billboards, etc.) Will your glasses grey out James Bond's Aston Martin in Goldfinger?

No, because it will be smart enough to know that I enjoy seeing that.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#42
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason you can block ads on the web is because there was a small window where the idealistic academics that built the internet and the web were able to keep commercial interests out so they were able to use open universal protocols. The same will not be true for VR.

It’s already not true on mobile generally. No view source, no extensions, no user injected scripts. You get the page the server wants you to see.

Safari has robust ad-blocking support built in and good ad blockers even have inspectors to let you block custom elements.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#43
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. HULU still shows ads, even with "No Ads" version. From their website: Hulu (No Ads) Get First Month Free then $11.99/month A few excluded shows play with ads. [from here https://signup.hulu.com/plans ] That last line kills me. It's like H2G2, you can't have Tea and No Tea unless you remove your common sense particle.

I mean, you're not wrong, but it's only for three shows, and there are no ads during the shows, only before and after. It was 7 when it first launched, so it doesn't seem like any other shows or new content will ever have ads. But hey, if you watch Agents of Shield, Grey's Anatomy, or How to Get Away with Murder, that surely does suck.

Huh. Thanks for figuring out what shows have ads!

Yeah, I guess that isn't as bad as it seems if there are just a few. I didn't bother to look up what "excluded" meant.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#44
The market is big enough for ad-free options.

HBO built a business providing ad-free TV entertainment. The Economist built a business selling ad-free news periodicals. YouTube provides a paid ad-free option.

You could look at the Web and say “it’s littered with ads” or you could look at the Web and say “it’s the largest collection of free information on the planet.”

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#45
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s a chance it will be different: at least now there is the potential to offer customers an ad-free package for an extra cost. Some services like Hulu already do this (offering cheaper plan with ads and a slightly pricier plan with no ads). I think with cable this would have been difficult or impossible to achieve. One nice thing about this is it makes plain how much the networks make from showing ads to…

Not true. HULU still shows ads, even with "No Ads" version. From their website: Hulu (No Ads) Get First Month Free then $11.99/month A few excluded shows play with ads. [from here https://signup.hulu.com/plans ] That last line kills me. It's like H2G2, you can't have Tea and No Tea unless you remove your common sense particle.

This is why Hulu is a nonstarter for me. If I'm paying, no ads, period.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#46

I will bet a lot that Netflix is headed this way too. Once Netflix stops growing, it will need to find additional growth, and advertisement will be the way to additional profit.

Possibly. But with original content it may just be through syndication as well.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#47
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you're not wrong, but it's only for three shows, and there are no ads during the shows, only before and after. It was 7 when it first launched, so it doesn't seem like any other shows or new content will ever have ads. But hey, if you watch Agents of Shield, Grey's Anatomy, or How to Get Away with Murder, that surely does suck.

Huh. Thanks for figuring out what shows have ads! Yeah, I guess that isn't as bad as it seems if there are just a few. I didn't bother to look up what "excluded" meant.

I mean, it said that in the "Learn More..." Link, so I was just going by that :)

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#48

It's like a creeping cancer that cannot be stopped. Back around 1981, advertisers would take a certain percentage of ad pages in each newspaper or magazine and consider it a reasonable deal. These days, they absolutely will not accept this unless they get a lot more space, obnoxious animations, force-play videos, and overlays that you have to click through, and often various registration walls, cross-site tracking, e…

The only reason you can block ads on the web is because there was a small window where the idealistic academics that built the internet and the web were able to keep commercial interests out so they were able to use open universal protocols. The same will not be true for VR.

Totally agree. Bromite is a patched chrome with privacy enhancements and ad blocking. It used to provide a system webview engine that allowed all that for apps's integrated webviews... So its technically possible but Google doesnt like that feature

https://github.com/bromite/bromite/wiki/Installing-SystemWeb...

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#49
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason you can block ads on the web is because there was a small window where the idealistic academics that built the internet and the web were able to keep commercial interests out so they were able to use open universal protocols. The same will not be true for VR.

It’s already not true on mobile generally. No view source, no extensions, no user injected scripts. You get the page the server wants you to see.

You can view source with Firefox on Android. You can also use add-ons to block ads. I haven't tried anything like GreaseMonley for userscripts though.
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