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PositivityBear t1_irfxode wrote

Now that is real cyberpunk dystopian shit.

Imagine camping and seeing "IPHONE XV 24/5/5" scroll across the sky in the middle of a dead silent lake.

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CountOmar t1_irg05nt wrote

If they put ads in the night sky I'm gonna get radicalized

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PositivityBear t1_irg1v7o wrote

You and I both, friend, you and I both. That board of directors meeting is definitely going out with a bang.

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random8002 t1_irg5jlv wrote

were gonna have to develop ways to shoot the ads down

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MoobooMagoo t1_irggoeb wrote

Or hack them. That'd probably be easier.

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expo1001 t1_irh7j2j wrote

They don't belong up there blocking the stars. Shoot them down for sure.

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[deleted] t1_irigo3o wrote

Hacking anything in space after it’s launched is nearly impossible. They aren’t connected to the internet on earth, meaning it’s nearly impossible unless you have physical access.

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MoobooMagoo t1_irij1kc wrote

So you think they're going to launch space ads that can't be updated in any way? We can get images back from Mars, I think we can get data signals to low orbit satellite ads.

Like here is a live video feed from the ISS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86YLFOog4GM

Well I think at this exact moment it's recorded footage. It can't broadcast 100% of the time but my point is there is no way any company is going to spend the money to send up just one, un-updatable ad.

Also, and this is probably way more relevant than my first link, people have already hacked satellites: https://www.freethink.com/space/decommissioned-satellite-hacking

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[deleted] t1_irijpqv wrote

Are you under the belief that NASA satellites themselves are connected to the internet? I think you’re mistaken on what I meant. It’s impossible, for your personal computer to make an connection with the satellite as your computer has no way of sending “information” to the satellite. Even if you did have the physical possibility of somehow connecting to this satellite , likely through using radio equipment, satellites aren’t protected with just basic “protection” like passwords.

Decommissioned satellites aren’t comparable to active ones.

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MoobooMagoo t1_iril20c wrote

No you can't hack into the satellite directly, but the company is going to have an uplink somewhere and you can hack into that.

And the security of the satellite is going to depend on the company that owns and builds it. It's not like you can walk down to Satellites-R-Us and get some default model that comes with all sorts of security pre-installed. Some of them may very well have basic protections.

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[deleted] t1_irilh13 wrote

No, the security isn’t as basic as “software security”. There is only one way to connect to a satellite, which is through radio signals, which guess what, due to there being only one way to connect to the satellite, it’s easily detectable and traceable aswel.

It’s easier to hack the company itself then to hack the satellite. Governments can’t even accomplish this feat, you think ordinary humans with 300 dollar equipment will?

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MoobooMagoo t1_irinp56 wrote

You think the government isn't made of ordinary humans?

Although I understand the point you're trying to make about resources. And yes it would be easier to hack the company, that's literally what I said. I'm not saying it would be easier to build your own satellite uplink and then hack the satellite directly. That'd be stupid. Who would do that? Why would you ever think that was what I meant? That's like if I said "I'm walking to the store" and you got bent out of shape telling me how hard it is to walk on your hands so walking to the store is a dumb idea.

You would obviously hack the company then use their own uplink to send your code to the satellite. And the detectability and traceability of the signal doesn't matter because it's just going to lead them back to the company's uplink.

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[deleted] t1_iriowrb wrote

Should have made that clear given that your second response to this discussion implied “directly hacking the satellite” rather than hacking the company.

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MoobooMagoo t1_irj6dhi wrote

"No you can't hack into the satellite directly, but the company is going to have an uplink somewhere and you can hack into that."

I don't know how much more clear I could have been.

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[deleted] t1_irj74ig wrote

My bad, I meant your second comment, not your second response. Your second comment held zero mention of “hacking the company” but rather the implication of the satellite itself.

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MoobooMagoo t1_irjktt0 wrote

Oh ok I see what you're saying.

I still stand by my assertion that it should have been obvious that I meant hack the satellite through the company, because the alternative would be silly.

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Elusive-Yoda t1_irggsne wrote

I would unironically torche any company who'll pollute space with shitty ads

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TelestrianSarariman t1_irgshih wrote

"It should say 'Top Quality Exercycle For Sale' and could you put 'top quality' in bold?"

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pretendperson t1_irjk82a wrote

Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?

Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written on the sky. But not in dreams. No siree!

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PMmeyourclit2 t1_irg1nkp wrote

Their only economically viable if people buy shit after the advertisement, just don’t buy shit after they do it and it won’t be viable.

I’ll actively avoid the company that does this. Fuck space advertising. Night sky is polluted enough that you can hardly see stars anymore.

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SpinningHead t1_irg4ps6 wrote

> just don’t buy shit after they do it and it won’t be viable.

When has the free market ever let us down?

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Awanderinglolplayer t1_irg5fmg wrote

Yeah, no one would still buy things from a place like nestle after it becomes clear they support child slavery, steal water from multiple continents to resell to those same drought-torn places, and do countless other horrible shit, right? Right??

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RyvenZ t1_irghm4g wrote

I really don't think Nestle's atrocities are well-known to the public outside of Reddit.

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EscapeVelocity83 t1_irhbaum wrote

I presume all rich people are guilty of some type of exploitive conduct or complacency to it

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Raghead_ t1_irga7vz wrote

Problem is that its not clear, most people dont know this, or th what extent its true

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[deleted] t1_irgwfg3 wrote

[deleted]

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Awanderinglolplayer t1_irgywvz wrote

Nestle funds child slavery, Reddit is funded by a ton of place. I’m not giving money to the CCP, like giving money to nestle is funding slavery.

It’s a huge difference…

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Cajum t1_irg4tf0 wrote

Ok but I can't remember the last time a company doing horrible shit has caused people to stop buying their product as long as it remains reasonably prices and or convenient.

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EscapeVelocity83 t1_irhbff0 wrote

The way you stop that stuff is by being better cheaper. Slavery was ended because of machinery replacing chattel with wage workers. Pretty much wouldn't change if there weren't the various progresses in tech.

0

wasmic t1_iri4njv wrote

Serfdom ended in Western Europe due to the black death tipping the power balance towards farmers.

Positive change can happen if people stand up in unison. It doesn't need to be economical incentives.

This is also why the early modern company towns (which were pretty close to being slavery anyway) disappeared - people stood up for each other and demanded change.

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fysicks t1_irg570s wrote

I would radicalize.

If I saw a Coke ad in space, I would open every can in the supermarket and pour it into the aisle. I would risk arrest. And it’s easy to say this on the internet, but I bet most people would do the same or worse.

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blazedjake t1_irgme6q wrote

Why not do that now? Why not destroy the products of corporations who currently violate human rights and are responsible with extreme environmental degradation and loss of human life? What makes a space advert intrinsically worse and more actionable than the abhorrent actions corporations participate in today?

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pretendperson t1_irjjsb3 wrote

Hmm a very visible reminder WRITTEN IN SPACE every single night? Not very easy to ignore.

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blazedjake t1_irjuzvp wrote

If you live in a city the reminders are far more ubiquitous, visible, and far more numerous than any space ad could ever be. So the question still remains, why not act now?

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hack-man t1_irhpg74 wrote

Thanks for reminding me of one of the greatest sections of a good book

Sipping her champagne Kirsty Fantori, the star demolition engineer, started programming the nebulon missile. It had to explode at just the right moment to trigger off the reaction in the star’s core which would push it into supernova stage. A star in supernova would light up the entire galaxy for over a month, giving off more energy than the Earth’s sun could in ten billion years. It would be a hell of a bang.

One undetected bug in Fantozi’s programming could ruin everything. Not only did she have to push the star into supernova, she had to time it so the light from the explosion would reach Earth at exactly the right moment. The right moment was the same moment as the light from the other one hundred and twenty-seven supergiants, which were also being induced into supernovae, reached Earth.

For anyone living on Earth the result would be mindfizzlingly spectacular. One hundred and twenty-eight stars would appear to go supernova simultaneously, burning with such ferocity they would be visible even in daylight.

And the hundred and twenty-eight supernovae would spell out a message.

And this would be the message:

‘COKE ADDS LIFE!’

For five whole weeks, wherever you were on Earth, the huge tattoo would be branded across the day and night skies. Honeymooners in Hawaii would stand on the peak of Mauna Kca, gazing at sunsets stamped with the slogan. Commuters in London, stuck in traffic jams, would peer through the grey drizzle and gape at the Cola constellation. The few primitive tribes still untouched by civilization in the jungles of South America would look up at the heavens, and certainly not think about drinking Pepsi.

The cost of this single, three-word ad in star writing across the universe would amount to the entire military budget of the USA for the whole of history.

So, ridiculous though it was, it was still a marginally more sensible way of blowing trillions of Dollarpounds.

And, the Coke executives were assured by the advertising executives at Saachi, Saachi, Saachi, Saachi, Saachi and Saachi, it would put an end to the Cola war forever. Guaranteed.

Pepsi would be buried.

OK, it wasn’t wonderful, ecologically speaking. OK, it involved the destruction of a hundred and twenty-eight stars, which otherwise would have lasted another twenty-five million years or so. OK, when the stars exploded they would gobble up three or four planets in each of their solar systems. And, OK, the resulting radiation would last long past the lifetime of our own planet.

But it sure as hell would sell a lot of cans of a certain fizzy drink.

-– Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, p 72

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vesperpepper t1_irgfz46 wrote

I would too. There would probably be people lining up for the delivery trucks.

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RyvenZ t1_irgjlhs wrote

Hopefully not until after more of those dumb boomers die off. There are so many of them that will pay stupid money for anything that says "coca-cola" on it.

I can't imagine those collections are still worth much of anything these days.

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AugustusClaximus t1_irgstnd wrote

Destin, FL has some of the best beaches on the planet. That is until this 100 ft rusty tugboat comes along with a massive LED billboard telling you the McRib is back.

We are making this planet gradually more miserable to live in with each passing day.

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ZealousGoat t1_irg77yi wrote

You and I both know that people buy useless shit they don't need because they've been indoctrinated to do so.

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MpVpRb t1_irg4ia7 wrote

Any company that advertises in space should be boycotted and ridiculed. It's just plain fukkin' evil

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Harucifer t1_irg6q42 wrote

Some people are considerably younger and never used "Youtube" without ads because it's relatively recent. Some are older and also never used Youtube before it had ads because it wasn't as mainstream. I'm right in the middle: started using Youtube in 2005 and saw it go from "convenient video player" to "15 full-blown cancer ads before a 2 minute video". I don't like it one bit.

The amount of ads being thrown around are dystopian as fuck. I think Black Mirror's "treadmill" episode was almost spot on for what we'll see in the future.

And the ironic thing is: I don't think these ads help with sales much. I have never bought anything from an ad I saw on Youtube or Facebook and don't think I ever will.

Another ironic thing is because of my characteristics (male, 30's) I'm starting to get ads for hair loss. Both my grandfathers died at 80 with full heads of hair and my great-grandfather died at 98 with a full head of hair. I will never use a hair loss product but I also won't report those ads as irrelevant to me. Wasting their money 1 cent at a time.

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25inbone t1_irg77m3 wrote

I can’t remember a single advertisement I have ever seen on the internet, and by this point I’ve seen tens of thousands.

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MilkshakeBoy78 t1_irgadea wrote

i block so many ads with extensions

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25inbone t1_irgafye wrote

Any that work on iPhone? Lol, I only browse through stuff on my phone.

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RyvenZ t1_irgk1vl wrote

at home? Install a "pi-hole"

It's a Raspberry Pi loaded with easy-to-find firmware that you connect to your home network and it acts as a firewall, blocking ad on ALL devices. The hardware can be had for $35 or so and you can find the instructions by searching for "pi hole how to" or something similar.

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Inimposter t1_irhohrf wrote

It can also be launched in a container on any PC

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RyvenZ t1_irhp806 wrote

I did not know that. So it doesn't even require extra hardware!

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Shkuey t1_irgsht5 wrote

Advertising doesn’t (always) work by creating a direct connection from you to the ad to the product. It works by instilling in you the knowledge the company/product exists so when for unrelated reasons you go shopping and you see it, you’ll recognize it and be more likely to purchase the known item… without any conscious connection to the advertisement. It works on everybody.

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wasmic t1_iri4x6m wrote

Advertising doesn't boost sales, but it does influence which products you buy.

Thus, all companies need to advertise, or they would lose out to those who do advertise. It is, however, a negative-sum game that leaves everybody - companies and consumers alike - worse off.

1

Rikathchii t1_irg0f15 wrote

Potentially? Like, the actually useful satellites aren't covering the atmosphere, now we're gonna place useless BUY PRODUCT GET EXCITED FOR NEXT PRODUCT billboards floating around?

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CountOmar t1_irg42m5 wrote

The two words that were the most disturbing about this were the ones "economically viable"

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isaacmarionauthor t1_irgeilh wrote

Cost, space debris, blah blah, and not a single mention of concerns over, you know…polluting the actual heavens with ads.

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sunmummy t1_irgaiys wrote

This is obscene. For the love of god, please let there be some part of the world that is more than just a canvas to advertise on.

Before long even the trees and flowers will contain advertisements.

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fireatwillrva t1_irgp1g9 wrote

If I look up at the night sky and see an advertisement, I’m going to become an eco-terrorist.

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DoomToTheHumanRace t1_irg56e3 wrote

I mean they already turned this beautiful land into a giant parking lot with strip malls and billboards everywhere. They infest the internet, they infest television. Why not space? These parasites have no bounds.

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Soupjoe5 OP t1_irfv0nr wrote

Article:

1

Falling launch costs for satellites mean space advertising may now make commercial sense, according to a feasibility study, but the idea remains controversial

Constellations of satellites that reflect sunlight to Earth could be used for space advertising at a commercially viable cost of $65 million per mission, according to a feasibility study. But the idea is controversial among researchers, who warn of a pile-up of dangerous space debris and light pollution for ground and space-based telescopes.

Previous proposals for space advertising didn’t make commercial sense – the cost of launching enough satellites, which tend to remain in the correct orbit for only a short amount of time, has been prohibitive for any serious attempts.

But as launch costs have decreased with the advent of private space companies, Shamil Biktimirov at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow, Russia, and his colleagues think it could now be viable if the mechanics of how the satellites are used as advertising are reassessed.

To do this, they borrowed techniques that describe the dynamics of mega-constellations, such as that of Starlink’s communications satellite fleet, and used this to calculate how much revenue companies could get for keeping their satellites in the sky for certain lengths of time.

They propose that a fleet of about 50 satellites equipped with curved reflectors could orbit around the line where day turns to night and reflect the sun’s light to a patch of ground below. They would be arranged to form an image made of bright pixels showing a logo or a basic image. Viewers on the ground would see the constellation move across the sky in around 10 minutes around dawn or dusk, growing from half-moon size to two to three times bigger than the moon at its peak.

To maximise revenue, the satellites would change formation around 25 times to target different locations in a three month period of operation before the satellites run out of fuel and slowly descend towards Earth and – Biktimirov hopes – burn up.

But this long descent could be a problem. “The spaceflight risk from debris related to these objects is considerable,” says John Barentine of Dark Sky Consulting, a company based in Tucson, Arizona. “Left derelict in orbits with long lifetimes, every single object becomes a potential ‘bullet’ that threatens every other object in similar orbits. Any one might set off a catastrophic cascade of debris generation.”

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Soupjoe5 OP t1_irfv1d1 wrote

2

Biktimirov and his team say the descent of the satellites and any potential collisions could be monitored, but some are sceptical of how accurately this could be done. “The debris is especially concerning, given that tracking objects and satellites across a range of sizes and orbital parameters is inherently challenging and is affected by many factors including solar storms,” says Aparna Venkatesan at the University of San Francisco, California.

The only way to really mitigate this risk is by taking the satellites down as soon as they stop functioning, says John Crassidis at the University of Buffalo in New York. “Until there is a mandate to immediately remove the satellites once their formation is no longer maintained, then they will be a problem,” he says.

As well as the risk from debris, the reflected light could interfere with important telescopes, both on Earth and in space, including asteroid monitoring systems. “Astronomy already contends with the interference from the thousands of satellites already in orbit and faces a future in which that number may be as much as 100 times higher than it is now within a decade. Space advertising will only make this worse,” says Barentine.

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ImperialTzarNicholas t1_irgu1wf wrote

Lol “Pepsi space advertisement fails to burn up on re-entry, Pepsi cola co. found responsible and required to rebuild and repopulate 3 square blocks of nyc.

2

PurpEL t1_irgeh57 wrote

Hopefully someone threatens any company taking part in this shit idea

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Effective_Mouse t1_irg4oda wrote

Yea for your health after we aggressively knock on your door with a mob with torches

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Clarkimus360 t1_irgyx6l wrote

No giant billboards in space please. I want to see the stars ._.

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commandrix t1_irg1wpl wrote

"Fuck that, I want my advertising revenue now!"

Anyone in for draining some advertising budgets before this gets out of control? Just gauging interest because I don't want to be that annoying spam link person...

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could_use_a_snack t1_irhf18y wrote

I don't really understand how this could even work.

I just built a lighted sign for an event I'm doing that says PARKING with an arrow. It's made up of little lights that are spaced about 2 inches apart. The letters are about 9 inches tall and the sign takes over 200 lights!

I did a bunch of small tests and this design came up as about optimal. It can be seen (and read) from a decent distance, and uses the least amount of lights to do this. But if you are more than about 100 feet away you can't really read it.

If I read the article correctly they are talking about 50 satellites, what are they going to advertise? 50 dots isn't enough to do much. Even the old fashioned dot matrix printers wouldn't be able to spell much of a word with 50 dots. I just don't see this happening.

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CerealManufacturer t1_irh9zct wrote

Deadass if they advertised air in the night sky I would stop breathing

2

EvoEpitaph t1_iri8jli wrote

What a great way to get me never to purchase the advertised product or service.

2

FuturologyBot t1_irfyy23 wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Soupjoe5:

Article:

1

Falling launch costs for satellites mean space advertising may now make commercial sense, according to a feasibility study, but the idea remains controversial

Constellations of satellites that reflect sunlight to Earth could be used for space advertising at a commercially viable cost of $65 million per mission, according to a feasibility study. But the idea is controversial among researchers, who warn of a pile-up of dangerous space debris and light pollution for ground and space-based telescopes.

Previous proposals for space advertising didn’t make commercial sense – the cost of launching enough satellites, which tend to remain in the correct orbit for only a short amount of time, has been prohibitive for any serious attempts.

But as launch costs have decreased with the advent of private space companies, Shamil Biktimirov at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow, Russia, and his colleagues think it could now be viable if the mechanics of how the satellites are used as advertising are reassessed.

To do this, they borrowed techniques that describe the dynamics of mega-constellations, such as that of Starlink’s communications satellite fleet, and used this to calculate how much revenue companies could get for keeping their satellites in the sky for certain lengths of time.

They propose that a fleet of about 50 satellites equipped with curved reflectors could orbit around the line where day turns to night and reflect the sun’s light to a patch of ground below. They would be arranged to form an image made of bright pixels showing a logo or a basic image. Viewers on the ground would see the constellation move across the sky in around 10 minutes around dawn or dusk, growing from half-moon size to two to three times bigger than the moon at its peak.

To maximise revenue, the satellites would change formation around 25 times to target different locations in a three month period of operation before the satellites run out of fuel and slowly descend towards Earth and – Biktimirov hopes – burn up.

But this long descent could be a problem. “The spaceflight risk from debris related to these objects is considerable,” says John Barentine of Dark Sky Consulting, a company based in Tucson, Arizona. “Left derelict in orbits with long lifetimes, every single object becomes a potential ‘bullet’ that threatens every other object in similar orbits. Any one might set off a catastrophic cascade of debris generation.”

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/xy8cm2/space_adverts_are_now_economically_viable_but/irfv0nr/

1

JC2535 t1_irgsjkg wrote

I guess advertising is the only thing about space that interests people anymore.

1

Zoutaleaux t1_irhfqf0 wrote

The moment I look up at the heavens, at all the innumerable stars that all of my ancestors have gazed at in awe and wonder for as long as humans have been human, and see a fucking ad for starlink or something... I revolt. Guillotine time.

1

CondeBK t1_irjblxc wrote

Yeah, I don't get this. If they are after the people with money they mostly live in Cities where the sky is so light polluted that nobody even looks at it anymore.

In low earth orbit this thing will zip around the earth super fast. So if you wanna see it you will have to look at an app that tracks the orbits of satellites around the earth. Not exactly convenient.

This is more of a Marketing PR stunt for bragging rights. They will have to run ads on TV to remind people they are advertising in Space.

1

Subject-Ad3604 t1_irkzkjx wrote

Going to be a lot of debris in orbit when 99% of humanity decides to blow that shit out of the sky

1