I have a pair that kind of does this. When I put them on, the ads go away but are replaced with huge phrases like “OBEY” and “THIS IS YOUR GOD” on every building. 7/10 - improved but not blocked.
Living life in the present age is being almost constantly under pressure from people trying to influence you to do what they want (which is what Advertising is: sales pressure, often of the slimy kind that tries to influence you subconsciously).
Properly trying to do what is rationally in your own self-interest whilst minimizing the influence (as I mentioned, because Marketing nowadays use techniques from Psychology, commonly subconsciously) from those trying to manipulate you into giving them your money is tiresome, to say the least.
Just the other day I saw the new Aquaman film and the amount of in-your-face Product Placement (mainly of a known beer brand) was literally disgusting and significantly spoiled the film (which, frankly, wasn’t all that great to begin with - Special Effect rompfest with bad writting).
I saw my buddy watch the Aquaman film yesterday, and his face was glued to the screen like a child. Seeing anything Marvel or that other one in Europe is like, how do these people just eat this war mongering blatant military propaganda ultraconsumerist bullshit right up like that?
But then I remember it’s because of brainwashing since birth.
it’s amazing when you cross over the border into WA state and the giant video billboards every 2m evaporate, and you can see trees and mountains everywhere.
Yes and no. For ads to make any kind of revenue, you first need an user-base. And if the first thing you do is riddle them with ads, it will probably really hurt the sales.
So, the first generation of smart glasses should be pretty OK as far as ads go. Of course, they will gradually introduce them, but that will hopefully take several years before we get to that point.
And inevitably some FOSS/privacy focused alternative will show up, just like you have with GrapheneOS, PinePhone and similar. Or, assuming they will let developers side-load their apps without going through proprietary store (which may be unlikely, given the current trend of locking everything down - on the other hand, there is a pretty large market of developers who wouldn’t touch anything Apple-level of closed and someone will definitely want to cash in on it), you will eventually get OCR ad-blocks for billboards outside. I bet that would be one of the first apps developed once possible.
People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
I tuned into the NYC new years, and I guess it’s been awhile since I saw images of NYC - holy shit, it looks terrible! HAPPY KIA NEW YEARS! seriously? every inch of building is a scrolling screen. wow.
This reminds me of blocking ads on twitch. You can’t skip the ad but you can instead look at a black screen for the exact same duration. And that’s preferable.
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