A lot of people have been talking about "friend.com" because they spent a ton of money on ads in every major city.
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@futurebird
My phone has no ads, no spyware, no malware.Yes I know, you're not talking about my kind of phone, you want smartphone apps without ads/spyware, but that's what apps *are*. That's what smartphones *are*.
To be fair my phone has no ads, but it's not "magic" it's a lot of work and I'm not always into doing it.
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@futurebird Wow, that is some very thoughtful and civic-minded graffiti. Is that because there are more people to push back in a big city, or is it because, in a big city, it makes sense to buy pedestrian-accessible ad signs like this?
Anyway I applaud the chutzpah.
Also, that's not an exception. Most of the ads I've seen for this thing have been marked up like this and not by the same people. I think it's just a last straw.
The ad is kind of insulting in a way.
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To be fair my phone has no ads, but it's not "magic" it's a lot of work and I'm not always into doing it.
@futurebird
I know you were only talking about ads, but the other problem is you can't stop the spying and tracking, since the OS itself does that (and most apps as well).Until there's a viable FLOSS smartphone alternative (highly unlikely since it would take tons of capital investment and marketing), smartphones are in essence surveillance capitalism devices and suppressing the ads will be an ongoing struggle.
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@futurebird @quinn I think you are vastly, vastly underestimating the unrealized demand for an AI horny Jesus
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@futurebird
I know you were only talking about ads, but the other problem is you can't stop the spying and tracking, since the OS itself does that (and most apps as well).Until there's a viable FLOSS smartphone alternative (highly unlikely since it would take tons of capital investment and marketing), smartphones are in essence surveillance capitalism devices and suppressing the ads will be an ongoing struggle.
I think a lot of the spying and tracking is driven by the desire to do ads.
Not all of it. But the bulk.
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@futurebird they're targeting lonely people without community or social support. That's not you, but statistically that's most Americans, especially the young ones.
I think angry lonely people defaced the ads.
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@futurebird
How about "Ponzi Friend"
@quinn@dlakelan @futurebird @quinn It's like Bonzi Buddy!
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@dlakelan @futurebird @quinn It's like Bonzi Buddy!
so... a virus?
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The 22-year-old AI CEO behind Friend.com necklace welcomes graffiti on his $1 million ad campaign: ‘Capitalism is the greatest artistic medium’ | Fortune
”The audience completes the work,” Avi Schiffmann, creator of the AI wearable, told Fortune. “I purchased the zeitgeist.”
Fortune (fortune.com)
The CEO claims he expected the ads to be defaced. I do not believe this.
**What would you think of someone who had this device on? **
This is supposed to be the trendy new thing to wear. Like a smart watch. But nobody will want to be caught dead with one. (even if they liked the product, which isn't even done yet and sounds awful even if it worked perfectly.)
@futurebird Maybe I’m cynical, but I think this company paid someone to deface the ads as a publicity stunt and that’s why the ads have so much white space. All the “defaced” ones I’ve seen in pics are “defaced” with the same sentiment in similar handwriting.
Would they get as much (or any) attention if they weren’t getting “defaced”? Probably not.
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@futurebird Maybe I’m cynical, but I think this company paid someone to deface the ads as a publicity stunt and that’s why the ads have so much white space. All the “defaced” ones I’ve seen in pics are “defaced” with the same sentiment in similar handwriting.
Would they get as much (or any) attention if they weren’t getting “defaced”? Probably not.
I don't think so. The stuff people write is too funny.
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@futurebird Maybe I’m cynical, but I think this company paid someone to deface the ads as a publicity stunt and that’s why the ads have so much white space. All the “defaced” ones I’ve seen in pics are “defaced” with the same sentiment in similar handwriting.
Would they get as much (or any) attention if they weren’t getting “defaced”? Probably not.
Like if you wanted to do this as a stunt you'd make the people doing the defacing seem more clueless and pointlessly mean.
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"Personal" jesus
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Like if you wanted to do this as a stunt you'd make the people doing the defacing seem more clueless and pointlessly mean.
@futurebird Ehh, maybe.
“The goal, he says, [is] to provoke a cultural debate about what counts as friendship in the age of artificial intelligence.”
Not to build sympathy, but to prime people to talk about it by writing clever things on the ads that they knew people would agree with. Otherwise the entire product is so far out there it begs to be ignored
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@futurebird Ehh, maybe.
“The goal, he says, [is] to provoke a cultural debate about what counts as friendship in the age of artificial intelligence.”
Not to build sympathy, but to prime people to talk about it by writing clever things on the ads that they knew people would agree with. Otherwise the entire product is so far out there it begs to be ignored
“The goal, he says, [is] to provoke a cultural debate about what counts as friendship in the age of artificial intelligence.”
No one is talking about this.
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Make me a magic phone that has no ads on it. That is the product I want. I don't need to install ad blockers and keep updating them. It just makes every single ad go away.
I would pay for that. That would be the "mental health tech" that I would go for.
Easy right?
LMAO
Everyone responding to this with sensible suggestions for operating systems or obscure basic phones is missing what I mean by "magic"
I don't have ads on my phone now. Because I do a lot of work to block them and make choices to avoid them.
I want this to just be magically not my problem. I WOULD pay.
