Attention theft is an existing term, though it’s used to describe bad practices by marketers. I suppose it’s bad that the term has had to come into existence, but it is good that it exists as a way to talk about bad practices more easily.
(not) fun fact: In game design there exists analogical term for “making player addicted” called “dark patterns”. Mostly used by live service and mobile games
Some insurance group put up a billboard on the route I use to go to work telling us how we all suffer from insurance fraud.
Each and every time I went past it I would try to imagine how much I would have to hate a person in order to side with the enemy against them. No saint and I never pretended to be one but I still wouldn’t do that.
Yup. What YouTube doesn’t understand is that we’ve got ** other stuff to do.** I’ve got books to read, games to play, music to listen to. None of which requires YouTube.
I’ve found myself repatronizing half priced books lately. I’ve gone through five books since mid May.
I was a voracious reader before mobile devices existed.
I’d forgotten just how much more satisfying it is to let yourself go in a good story rather than bicker about minutiae with countless strangers all day every day.
(Sidenote: I’ve been looking up reviews for the books I’ve read and am surprised to find indignation at sexual scenes in novels. Like, if you’ve ever read a John Irving novel in your life, and you’re surprised and offended that the next one has sex in it, you should maybe reconsider your chosen career path)
surprised to find indignation at sexual scenes in novels
To quote Ryan Letourneau, “Gen Z is Puritanpilled.” Seriously, I’ve found post-millennial generations to be extremely prudish. I think part of it has to do with the fact that as the internet evolved and became mainstream (and more profitable by catering to general audiences), the edgy or adult content became more ghetoized and quarantined over time. Used to be you’d go to reddit and there’d be porn on the front page. There’s like a 0% change of finding something NSFW on the front page there now. As such, younger people who grew up with the modern incarnation of the internet have a very different perspective on sexual content than those of us who grew up with a more “wild west” style internet where porn was just something that lived alongside the more mundane content. The side-effect of this is also that content like the John Irving novels you’re talking about are treated as if they’re grotesque for presenting sex as just another part of people’s lives - something that you’re not supposed to be shy about or ashamed of. Which is, uh…concerning, for a number of reasons. Other theories are that the world in which we live has eroded platonic relationships among young people and that they want to only see platonic friendships among characters, as that’s the vicarious experience they most desire.
for those that don’t know, in vr most apps to avoid motion sickness keeps player in it’s own “space”. Users can look away from virtual screen displaying content or text, just by turning their heads around. But, for example in games, when content is important (ex. story dialogue subtitles) the content is programmed to try to move in front of player’s view at all times, even if it’s obstructing rest of the virtual world
“There will now be a short questionnaire on the ad you watched to see if you actually listened to it. If you get below 90%, we will show two minutes of ads.”
“Why are you leaving? Fill out this survey and let us know what you didn’t like. Please enter your email. Before you go, 50% of YouTube Plus Ultimate!”
A Russian video hosting Rutube (which was totally dead until the govt decided to detract Russians from using YouTube, which made the platform semi-dead) actually tried to do that, having a quiz after each ad break, asking questions such as “what TV channel has been advertised in this ad?” and repeating the ad video if answered wrong
To be serious, nobody would use that platform even there hadn’t been any ads, because competing with YouTube is not an easy feat.
I should probably be happy that Rutube and VK Video gain popularity as the regional alternatives to the monopolist which gets more aggressive each day… if not that popularity has just been inflated by bought-out bloggers and comics from Putin’s oligarch owned channels like TNT being directed to cease their YouTube presence, just so the government could have their own “YouTube without team Navalny”.
but yeah, being more shitty than YouTube at delivering ads is not an easy feat, too!
Them existing and Google being able to enforce people turn them on, and consistently blocking everyone who doesn’t, is a whole other problem that is a lot more complex.
It’s not practically feasible because people will find ways around it. The app can require an eye tracking features to be turned on, but people will go to the browser site. If they get the people making a browser to integrate it, then people will use another browser. They’d have to block access on any mobile browser that doesn’t enforce it, and that’s a futile effort.
At least on IOS, they tried to lock Picture in Picture and background play behind a paywall, but that only worked in the app, and both features still work for the mobile site with a bit of fussing. Just because they implement restrictions and features doesn’t mean they can actually get them to work enough that people won’t glitch around them.
I remember playing with a similar feature on my Galaxy S3 back in the day. Eye scrolling. The phone would scroll for you when it sensed you looking at the bottom of the screen. That was the S3. It was not perfect but very usable. My hands always felt faster so I never kept it on but it was a fun thing to play with. I’m sure the only thing stopping them is the fear of backlash. We’ll get there in time I’m sure :/
Default is 60s ad block. However, enabling ‘Regular User’ feature will bring this down to a more convenient 15s block so you get your content faster every time. To enable this feature, tap Allow when prompted for camera permissions.
I remember there being some Android phone (some generation of Samsung Galaxy S series probably) with a “feature” where it pauses video playback if you look away from it. Good thing it didn’t catch on.
S10+ here. I’ll have to check and see what my older phones still have, my current one still has “keep screen on while viewing”, I don’t think I had one that paused videos, but I remember one offering “smart scrolling” based on eye movement
Side note: If I’m wearing headphones, and you don’t know me, and you disturb me without a good reason, I won’t hurt you or anything, but know that you’re a bad bad person.
That’s why I use Revanced. I can hide the shorts and news shelves. The former is disgustingly addictive and a massive waste of time, while the latter is plain Nazi propaganda at times.
Yeah it’s a bit confronting to look at the alternative front ends like invidious or something and realise that there’s much less dopamine produced while looking for your stuff.
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