Comment by thesuperbigfrog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thesuperbigfrog | Hacker News Reader

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thesuperbigfrog

'YouTube on connected (smart) televisions is adding 30-second "non-skips." These unskippable ads will appear on YouTube Select content, which is what the company deems to be the top videos. This longer format allows marketers to "use existing assets in front of the most-streamed content."'

'The second big announcement are ads that appear "when people pause a video." What you’re watching will shrink and an advertisement will appear next to that window. In the example provided, we see an "Ad" that’s labeled with some text and a QR code. There’s a "Dismiss" button at the bottom to presumably return to the normal fullscreen pause screen, or you can just hit play again to resume.'

We are quickly approaching the "drink verification can"-level of ad injection and user hostility: https://i.redd.it/t9hsu8y6cts11.png

Sony wants users to play an "ad game": https://patents.google.com/patent/US8246454B2/en

Google wants you to acknowledge an ad to unpause a video.

> "drink verification can"

This reminds me ...

There was a video ad many many years ago (2004 or older) that showed a future with strict authentication and access controls ... where employee has to "submit a DNA sample to continue" when they log into a workstation.

The ad shows a bald man first running his hand over a completely bald head deviod of any hair, then opening a couple of buttons of his shirt only to find his chest is also completely hairless (presumably already used for previous logins) then he finally sighs and starts to unzip ... ad cuts to black.

I have never been able to locate this again nor recollect what product / service / brand the ad was for. It was probably some cybersecurity or consulting firm.

Anyone here remembers?

Reminds me of a more mundane version in an excellent sci-fi TV series, Incorporated (cancelled for $deity knows why, while lesser series continued). IIRC, it featured login authorization by DNA sample, with a neat-looking circular device that would stick a needle in your finger to draw blood.

Another interesting concept from that show was NDAs being treated quite literally - per the agreement, if you're to quit or get fired, you'll be put in a device that wipes all covered corporate secrets from your memory. The process wasn't perfect, and could result in a total memory wipe, removing all your memories from the employment period. Allegedly. It's not like there are people who remember it happening.

The memory-wiping thing was also the premise of Paycheck.

I doubt it was for a security product, but unfortunately I saw it exactly once and I don't remember what it was about.

I seem to remember that a colleague shows up briefly, also bald. But search engines have been aggressively unhelpful.

Edit: your comment is now the Google top result for searches on this ad. Congratulations?

I do remember this, why do you ask?

Great! I would like to know which brand or service it was for.

Curious to know what they ridiculed as the absurd future -- and how far/close actual biometric security has come in these two decades since.

Sorry it is off-topic, just my curiosity.

So looking forward to pausing a video on the TV to answer the phone / talk to someone in the room, only for said TV to start blaring an advert at a stupid volume, as I assume the horrible audio level mixing on regular TV will be present here.

Don't you worry. Most (all?) companies in smart TV space are also making their own mobile phones, so of course they'll offer you a special service that mutes the ads when it detects you're close to the TV and are picking up a phone call.

There is no problem adtech creates, that cannot be solved by more invasive telemetry.

> so of course they'll offer you a special service that mutes the ads when it detects you're close to the TV and are picking up a phone call.

But only when YOUR phone gets the call.

Also the TV won't come with a remote. You'll be expected to pair with your phone using an app that spies on everything. And if you want other users to be able to control the TV with their phones, well, that's gonna cost you extra on a monthly subscription. But hey, that's what the "family" plan is for!

EDIT: Just you wait. They'll add "notification" support to TVs, and next thing you know, your TV will be turning itself on to display ads when you're not even watching it.

> and next thing you know, your TV will be turning itself on to display ads when you're not even watching it.

Oh no no, that would be wasting advertiser money. Not fair. The opposite will happen - the TV will come equipped with a suite of sensors, including "structured light" cameras, which, combined with telemetry from the TV app on your phone, will allow the TV to power down the screen when no one is looking at it, and power down the speakers when no one is within earshot.

This will be advertised as eco-aware, planet-and-wallet-saving Intelligent Smart feature.

> There is no problem adtech creates, that cannot be solved by more invasive telemetry.

Well, except for the "invasive telemetry", of course.

There's also the silver lining that eavesdropping on the call would be complicated by ad audio.

Exactly. This sounds like Hell.

As a person with a low tolerance for ads, I work hard to avoid them in all contexts. So it's absolutely wild to me what people will put up with. There seems to be some sort of unholy alliance between "number must go up" and "cooking the frog slowly" that means things are going to keep getting worse. I figure there must be a breaking point somewhere, but I would have expected it to come years ago, so I genuinely wonder how bad it can get.

Half the time when I pause a video, it's to have a better look at something on the screen. The related videos that pop up on pause are annoying enough, but at least I can close that panel.

Drives me crazy

I mean, obviously more ads are annoying, but I don't see how this is functionally worse than TV ads. You can't skip those either, and unlike with YouTube there's not even an option to pay to get rid of them.

unlike with YouTube there's not even an option to pay to get rid of them.

That was one of the big selling points of cable TV when it started: because you were paying for the service, there was no need for commercials.

I remember when cable started adding channels with commercials. "Who's going to pay to watch that?" smarty pants people said.

Yet, here we are.

Just wait until ads start popping up on the paid YouTube service. The greed is just too strong.

1) people use youtube to not have to see TV ads 2) tv ads of today are wildly different that TV ads of years ago; they (ads) are simply getting more aggressive every year 3) electronic DRMs means an AD company knows exactly which microseconds were watched and by whom; many folks do not want to be tracked like that (and more folks simply "dont care" and offer "logic" along the lines "everybody poops, who cares if they know when i go poop", ect

> 1) people use youtube to not have to see TV ads

Then the good news is they still can by paying for YouTube Premium. The service has to be paid for somehow and Google gives you two choices, your eyeballs or a subscription.

The way Google acts makes you resent them enough to never want to pay them.

Yes. I just don’t trust Google to not add some ads even for Premium users at some point.

Luckily YouTube Premium isn't a life long commitment. If Google starts injecting ads for YouTube Premium users just quit.

The way Google acts may make you not want to give them money but not me. I pay for YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, Google One, and Google Play Pass.

this is like saying: i pay for TV, and yet i still am provided ads; why do I see ads when I pay for TV?

We are talking about YouTube not TV. If you pay for YouTube Premium Google doesn't inject any ads. If the videos of the independent creator you chose to watch on YouTube includes sponsored content that is an issue to raise with the creator not Google.

Many of us don't watch terrestrial TV because of the ads.

Write a small essay on the advantages of capitalism to skip this ad.

The world is really turning into an episode of Black Mirror.

And with LLMs we now would actually have the ability to automatically verify such an essay. The future is gonna be fun ...

And with LLMs we also have the ability to automatically write it... the background running adblocking process in the future and just going to be AI battlegrounds

To unpause an ad. But who is pausing ads anyway unless they're really interested in the ad?

> Google wants you to acknowledge an ad to unpause a video.

You can just press play as normal

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