Roku TVs could one day show ads as soon as you pause playing a game on a connected Xbox, or stop a stream on an Apple TV.

Roku is exploring ways to show consumers ads on its TVs even when they are not using its streaming platform: The company has been looking into injecting ads into the video feeds of third-party devices connected to its TVs, according to a recent patent filing.

This way, when an owner of a Roku TV takes a short break from playing a game on their Xbox, or streaming something on an Apple TV device connected to the TV set, Roku would use that break to show ads. Roku engineers have even explored ways to figure out what the consumer is doing with their TV-connected device in order to display relevant advertising.

  • Got_Bent@lemmy.worldEnglish
    101·
    3 months ago

    How the fuck can an economy that’s almost nothing but advertisements sustain itself for any period of time? It feels like forcing more and more ads is the only thing anybody does for money anymore.

    • untorquer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      3 months ago

      Big economy, long time to fall. See example: rome or whatever.

      They’re not even going to profit so much off the ads as they will having a new way to distribute them. Even then its, “line go up this quarter”, not “what if sales go down due to this?”. They’ll license it out to every offer company who needs it for line go up.

    • Billiam@lemmy.worldEnglish
      81·
      3 months ago

      Wait until someone invents a bot/AI script that watches ads for you. Then the whole “ads everywhere” will either implode or it’ll trigger a war between AI ad makers and AI ad watchers

      Either way, it’ll be entertaining.

      • Draconic NEO@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        They already have that it’s called click fraud or automated ad clicking, mostly though it’s websites that earned money from advertisers who engage in this, as a sleazy way of making more money.

        Though if you want to partake in it there are ad blocking extensions that also do it. It’s not perfect but it is quite damaging to the advertising industry.