If your job was to come up with greater enshittification for society, what would you do?

My ideas:

  1. Rental apartments where every wall has a screen with ads 24/7. You can pay cheaper rent to live with ads in every wall or you can pay a monthly subscription to turn off the ads (you don’t get to use the screens for anything else tho). After people get used to it we can start adding a little bit of ads even for the subscription users, just a little less.

  2. Movie theaters. This one is obvious, why did anyone think it was ok to give people access to uninterrupted movies just because they paid a couple bucks? We should include some ads in the middle of movies in the cinema duh.

  3. Water and electricity. Private utility providers should be able to require you to watch a certain amount of ads on their apps in order to deliver their services to you every month (you still also pay normally ofc).

  4. Alarm clocks. Smartphones should delete the option to pick a custom sound for alarm and instead wake you up with loud ads. Installing any custom alarm app should require root and we should lobby government to ban devices with alarm clocks which are not smart.

  5. Unified ad-watching score. Similar to credit score, you will gain points by not skipping ads, having the selfie camera turned on while watching an ad (to make sure you looking), having the microphone on to make sure it isn’t muted, etc. Every platform contributes to your score. They can use your ad-watching score to give you benefits or punish you as they please.

  •  Hamartiogonic   ( @Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz ) 
    12·
    2 years ago

    Remember those mobile games where you can watch ads to get some gold and diamonds or simply pay for them with real money? Well, I can imagine a dystopian future where that logic has been applied to everything.

    Wanna press an elevator button? Pay with shopping center diamonds or watch this quick ad.

    Wanna try on this shirt before buying it? Ads. Is this made of cotton? Ads.

    Take the escalator to the next floor? Ads.

    Wanna check the info screen to figure out where you can find a restaurant in this shopping center? Ads.

    Wanna unlock different parts of the menu? Ads. Wanna see the prices too? Ads. Allergens? Ads again.

    Need to go to the toilet? Ads. Want some toilet paper? More ads.

    If you encounter this literally every 30 seconds, spending some money on those shopping center diamonds suddenly becomes a very appealing idea.

    On the outside of the mall you see a punk looking guy with a Molotov cocktail in his hand. You feel a sudden urge to join in whatever he is up to.

    Anyway, if you want some more suffering and sadness, simply dump the first lines to GPT and ask it to take this dystopia to its logical conclusion. It could get pretty wild.

  •  Mossy Feathers (She/Her)   ( @MossyFeathers@pawb.social ) 
    10·
    2 years ago

    A typing game like Mario Teaches Typing or Typing of the Dead except all the sentences are ad slogans or brand names.

    Emergency phone lines have ads at the beginning of the call to help pay for emergency services (because the government won’t pay for them).

    Revoke regulation that requires disclaimers on paid endorsements (in other words, you have no idea if someone is endorsing a product because they like it, or because they were paid to talk about it).

    Digital piracy is now a felony on par with drug felonies.

    Ad blocking is now digital piracy.

    Copyright is now indefinite, applied retroactively. An agency is formed to pursue copyright infringement on behalf of deceased rights holders and defunct companies.

    Criticism is no longer considered free speech if it leads to direct or indirect economic damage (“your rights end where mine begin!”)

    Referencing or speaking about a copy-protected work in-depth constitutes copyright infringement. However, enforcement is up to the rights holder except in the case of deceased individuals or defunct companies.

    The last three may seem tangential, but together it means companies can take action against you for talking negatively about their advertisements and products, regardless of how old they are. Now companies like Disney can use copyright to permanently erase things like The Song of the South or Walt Disney’s Nazi boner.

    Advertising is allowed on voter ballots (the voting process can be expensive after all).

    Politicians must publicly endorse companies which endorse them (it’s only fair). Failing to do so is considered a form of ad blocking.

    Public schools may include advertisements in their curriculum to augment teacher salaries. There are no restrictions on how many advertisements are presented, how they are presented, or the extent of their presentation. Choosing not to present an advertisement that is part of the curriculum is considered a form of ad blocking. "You have to pay teachers somehow, and I’ll be damned if it comes out of my pocket".

    I could probably come up with more, but this is making me depressed.

  •  kinttach   ( @kinttach@lemm.ee ) English
    10·
    2 years ago

    Ad-based apps on your phone.

    It’s been done already, you say? Not like this: the front-facing camera is used to detect eye gaze. A counter on the screen starts at 30 seconds and only counts down while you are looking at the screen. If you look away, the counter, and the ad, pauses. The app doesn’t continue until you’ve watched the entire ad.

  •  rmuk   ( @rmuk@feddit.uk ) English
    8·
    2 years ago

    Two videos for you to watch:

    Hyper-Reality, a PoV short film featuring an overqualified gig worker in a world of ubiquitous, ad-laden and heavily enshittified AR. https://youtu.be/YJg02ivYzSs

    This Euro-News article which features a Murdoch-owned advertising agency trying to get train windows turned into bone-conducting acoustic transmitters so weary travellers are forced to listen to ads as they resr their heads. https://youtu.be/1KZATgg7bJo

  •  livus   ( @livus@kbin.social ) 
    8·
    2 years ago

    Smart contact lenses and also smart built-in lenses that work like cataract surgery lenses.

    These are given away free and basically make traditional optometry have to change to a lower volume higher cost model. We also outlaw lasik on the grounds that it is more dangerous than smart lense implants.

    The smart lenses track you and interact with personalised location specific advertiser content at each surveillance point, allowing them to show ads directly to your retina.

  •  Bizarroland   ( @Bizarroland@kbin.social ) 
    7·
    2 years ago

    You have to watch an ad to crank your car.

    Every time you bring your car to a full stop while it is running, an ad plays through your audio system and displays on your radio.

    You have to watch an ad to make a phone call.

    When your phone rings, it plays an ad jingle, call JG Wentworth 877 cash now.

    When you send a text message or write a text post to an online system, an ad is injected with your text post so that readers in order to read what you wrote also have to read the ad.

    If you have Smart lights or anything smart in your home, in order to use it you have to watch an ad.

    In order to pay for something with a credit card you have to watch an ad on the credit card machine and click one of the choices that are offered to you.

    Smart pillows that play hypnotic ads at you in your sleep.

    Your electric toothbrush requires an ad to be played the whole time it is being used, and if you brush your teeth for less than the length of the ad, then they take a dollar from you.

    Some guy comes to your house and screams logos and add quotes at you all of the time. If you try to get him to shut up he murders you and your entire family.

    Replace the guy with a robot.