We’ve got a bunch of new people now so let’s bring back a classic post. What low stakes conspiracy theory do you believe that you cannot prove but feels right to you?
I’ll start: I believe that dating apps have made a concerted effort to smear in person meeting people and tie it to being “creepy” through social media so you are forced to meet people online(which was the creepy option just 15 years ago)
“Smart” consumer products are intentionally spying on you. Full stop.
That’s why it’s so hard to find a not “smart” anything. The added material cost is well worth the additional surveillance, be it for the sake of ruling class parasites buying and selling the surveillance data, or for their buddies
this isn’t a conspiracy theory. they literally do this and cooperate with the feds
It’s low stakes because I believe it isn’t just done but it’s done at such a staggeringly wide scale and not many people notice or even care.
I’ve gotten into arguments about this with the cryptofash over at programming.dev lmao. literally had one of them tell me to “get over it”.
This is a big reason that high quality TVs are getting so much more affordable. The revenue from selling data subsidizes the cost to bring the price way down. “Telly” is one such company taking this to the extreme and offering the device to consumers free of charge.
When something is free (or cheap) the consumer is often the product. :sus:
This is a big reason that high quality TVs are getting so much more affordable.
There’s a lot of reasons like improved technology and efficiency but yeah, the ability to play such targeted ads based off what you’re doing is pretty insane and they have a vested interest to sell at less profit.
And at the end of the day the amount of people who are willing to just not connect their TV to the internet in the first place or find a way to circumvent them is low. Like it still shocks me every time I see a YouTuber not have adblock on.
Not a conspiracy theory. It’s basically how modern marketing works since…2012 or so, and why it’s in a death spiral (you can either afford the data sets or not and that’s what determines if your advertising is effective)
I call it a conspiracy theory by way of the deliberate absence/omission of non “smart” choices. It’s unspoken but it’s there, and it’s systemic.
I don’t think that’s a conspiracy they’re pretty up-front about that. The bigger not-a-conspiracy is that they can remotely brick all that shit when they decide to stop supporting it, meaning that your expensive smart-house set up might end up being worthless overnight.
Doctorow’s “Unauthorized Bread” short story lays it out in a humorous short-fiction format.
