All they need to do is introduce it progressively. Then it will be in most people's homes. The whole frog in a pot of boiling water thing has been working great for tech companies for the last 20 years.

If it becomes a market standard (due to ancillary revenues, reselling user data, etc), then the only choice consumers will have left are: (a) TV with ads or (b) no TV. "Voting with your wallet" has so many failure cases.

"That would never happen!"

Try buying a new car without touchscreen controls or software that controls the engine. It's still possible, but harder every year.

There is definitely a portion of the market that wants physical knobs, but one-size-fits-all is cheaper to make. Still, this seems like user segmentation that could present a commercial advantage, so I can't really explain this trend.

Related: Physical button on an Audi exists solely to upsell you on a software feature: https://www.thedrive.com/news/44967/audi-owner-finds-basic-h...

Welcome to the future.

AirBnB's and hotel chains who can now charge $5 less than their competitors (or pocket the $5) per guest because ad revenue is shared with them.

I mean YouTube forces you to sit through some ads (sometimes they let you skip them), I suspect lots of people would be happy to skip the unstoppable ones by muttering the company name.

All Hail Big Brand™

Yes they will. We will rationalise it. “It makes the TV cheaper”, “you get used to it”, “I don’t mind the ads”…

No, they don't think they will sell it. Filing for a patent does not mean they are going to do it.