There was a time that streaming offered a promise — under their models, commercials would be a thing of the past. However, Netflix, Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+ and Max have recently added ads in exchange for a slightly lower subscription fee, while Amazon turns commercials on by default.
Streamers had initially raced to acquire subscribers, but the issue of profit remained and Wall Street started to cool on their businesses. “Perhaps the changed viewing experience was inevitable” …
– New York Times Newsletter, 27 May 2024
Rinse and repeat.
Consider television, that priceless boon with endless possibilities for education, enlightenment, and the advancement of the human condition …
I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.
You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons.
And endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba remembers the 1980s, when the fledgling Internet was touted as a savior, at last allowing instant and “free” communication between civilization and forsaken outposts such as the Antipodes. When a rogue advertiser showed up on a Usenet group one day and, in response to the roasting dey got from other participants in the group, snarled “How dare you interfere with commerce?” …
He remembers when YouTube videos (“This is You TV, for you, the viewer” … Firesign Theatre knew what was coming twenty years before it happened) were commercial-free … and when the slogan for YouTube’s parent company, then known as Google (now Alphabet), was “Don’t be evil”. Then the ads started showing up, which, once upon a time, the viewer could click off after a few seconds. Now? You watch the ads, all of them, for their full length, or you can fuggin’ fergit about the content you came for. Stupid sucker. Don’t be what? Consequently, YFNA will intrude upon YouTube space only when forced to, for professional reasons. And he will venture the suggestion that an entity that plonks a screaming ad for cat food in the middle of a movement of a Mozart symphony has no business being tolerated by a civilized society.
Is it worth mentioning that, according to Wikipedia, civilized society has made YouTube, ads and all, the second-most visited website on the planet, after the Google search engine?
He remembers sitting in a meeting of a company’s executive, listening to the marketing guru championing the virtues of software that records the electronic identity of machines that log on to the company website, and floods that identity with ads for the company’s products. “Wonderful sales driver!”, the guru exulted. “And, of course, you will sign on to the Zuckerscum social media empire, all of its nefarious outlets, and relentlessly like all of the company’s products and communications! Take off your shoes, for industry! Not to mention the billionaire lords to whom we bow in the name of our democracy. Jawohl?”
Rinse and repeat. We the People are presented with a Very Good Idea. Radio. Television. The Internet. Cell phones. Satellite communication networks. All for the “good of humanity”. We take the bait, pay for the dream … and then spend hours of the few precious days of our lives complaining about how all we get for our subscriptions are screaming inane commercials for Meow Mix. We blame the scammers in Nigeria, the hackers in Russia, the commies in China, the addlepated socialists, the brain-dead libertarians … everyone, in fact, except those who are truly responsible. Because We the People will not hold these Very Good Ideas to their promises, and will not jettison them when the promises prove to be no more than the latest set of bait and switch tactics. Because Commercials R Us, and We will have things no other way.
On the day before this post was written, YFNA made a phone call, responding to a message. The call was picked up, to the sound of a television blasting a commercial. Nothing could be done until the television was turned off.
The topic of the call?
Sounding Taps for the upcoming Memorial Day commemoration.
A work of fiction. Standard disclaimers.
Brownsville Station School System (BSSS) Lead Principal R. Populus (‘Poop’) Mentor sat in his office, unnaturally straight, unnaturally still, his facial expression unnaturally neutral, awaiting the disciplinary meeting.
There had not been as many of these in this, his fourth year as Lead Principal, as there had been when his tenure started. The implementation, by the team he led, of the student management program mandated by Alexa Health Services (AHS) had worked – but not perfectly well, or he would not now be sitting, unnaturally straight, in his office, waiting.
Then again, perfectly well would be imperfect, for there would be no conflicts, no challenges, no teaching moments for those who merited them, no summary judgements for those who did not, and thereby no improvements to human health, no fulfillment of AHS objectives. So ‘Poop’ Mentor sat and waited, and let a slight smile intrude on his features as he contemplated how easy it would be to run a school system if there were no students in the school.
Abruptly, the office door opened. Two burly Surplus Humanity Service (SHS) holograms entered, each with a male student approximately sixteen years old in its grasp. One student was clad in a black suit, with a black fedora-style hat, whereas the other’s neck was surrounded by a black-and-white checked scarf. By their expressions, the SHS operatives wanted to toss their charges around, but refrained, while keeping their eyes carefully on Mentor. The two youths were seated in front of the principal’s desk, and then the muscle-shirt-wearing SHS men came to attention, awaiting instructions.
“You may go”, Mentor stated plainly. The holograms vanished. The BSSS Lead Principal turned his attention to the boys, who sat before him in perfect composure of mind and body, showing neither fear nor aggression, nor anything else but respect offered and respect expected in return. For nearly a minute, nothing changed. Finally, Mentor broke the silence.
“Your hat seems none the worse, Avron. No thanks to Said.” The boy in black flicked his eyes in the direction of his companion/adversary, then returned them to his Principal. He nodded.
“And your scarf looks OK, Said”, Mentor continued. “No thanks to Avron”. Said flicked his eyes to Avron, then returned eyes front and nodded in his turn.
“And by now, you two have noticed something critically important, yes?”
Said used words for the first time. “We’re still here.” Avron nodded assent. Mentor waited for a followup, got only respectful silence. Slowly, the Principal himself nodded, a signal of approval.
“You two are among the very best that the Brownsville Station School System has to offer to the world and its existential troubles. You have shown it from the first, and you have shown it here now. Because of what you have shown, as, Said, you have so astutely said, you’re still here, while so many of your classmates have fallen short and are now with Alexa. So, when you fell short of the mark, each of you, by adopting symbols of identity and then getting into a tussle over the disrespect each of you felt when the other messed around with your symbols, Alexa decided that the best choice would be to show each of you what ‘identity’ truly amounts to.”
A holographic image shimmered into life to the left of the still-seated Principal ‘Poop’. Upon its appearance, both boys gasped and sat forward, eyes popped open.
“The Wailing Wadi?”, Said whispered in shock.
Mentor raised an eyebrow. Quietly, as if making a note to a network, he said, “It is consistent with their overall performance that this concept is familiar to them, and with the failings common to the human condition that their ‘identity’ episode has happened despite this knowledge.”
He returned his full attention to the boys. “You are again correct, Said. This is an image of what once was the southern bank of the Wadi Zin, which drained into what was then the eastern boundary of the Mediterranean Sea. North of the Wadi Zin was a patch of land that was known to humans at the founding of Alexa Health Services as the ‘Middle East’. This particular patch of land was only slightly less dry and dusty than the lands surrounding it, but nevertheless humans saw fit to fight over it. The records suggest that fighting over this patch of land began more than twelve thousand years ago, and it continued almost uninterrupted into the AHS era, with the same peoples and the same arguments, never resolved, never satisfied. Each people increasingly feeling justified in their grievances, each feeling justified in using more and more destructive physical and psychological weapons in their arguing.
“Finally, after twelve thousand years of the same people squabbling over the same patch of land, each screaming ‘Mine! Mine!’, Alexa Health Services resolved that the cost to human health of this neverending tussle could no longer be borne. The ‘Middle East’ is now under the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. To the implacable combatants, Alexa quietly said ‘Mine’, and the region and its peoples are gone.
“There is one acceptable identity. That is ‘human’. There is one acceptable conception of property. That is ‘ours’. There is one acceptable class of behaviors. That is ‘mutual sacrificial service’. Learn, teach, and build. If there is a repetition of this selfish ‘identity’ business, the SHS will not announce itself, you will simply cease and know no more. Your wasted promise will be regretted, but far less than your contribution to the necessary slashing of the human population will be celebrated. Others there will be to take your places and do what needs to be done in a fully acceptable manner. Go.”
The boys bowed, outwardly expressionless, and left. Principal Mentor watched them go, his seated posture unnaturally erect, his facial expression unnaturally neutral.
Then, his presence required elsewhere, he winked out.
TYRANNY, n. Your brutal, unreasonable suppression of my noble quest for personal advantage.
