842
exactly right
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Here's a similar perspective: as a vegetarian, seeing advertisement selling meat is good: it means the animal exploitation industry is struggling and needs to promote their "product" which need nearly no advertising for years if not decades.
It's very similar here: the advertising (in the form of putting it where you can't miss it, in the tools you use everyday) is trying to convince you to use something many people are apparently just not that interested in.
Ads are just a way to sell more of your stuff. If you earn 100€ a day without ads and spending 100€ a day on ads earns you 101€, you spend 100€ a day on ads. It's as simple as that.
You werent around during the iphones launch or the beginnings of the internet. Also yes printers did the same thing with ink jets and how everyone needed to print out their digital pictures.
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When someone comes up with something like this, I transport the phrase back to the 80s where people said the exact same thing about home computers. "if a computer was something everyone wanted or needed, it wouldn't be constantly shoved (in) your face by every product. People would just use it." Ok great but a computer turned out to be something everyone wanted or needed which is why computers were built into everything by the turn of the 90s, famously leading to the Y2k bug.
Then I transport the phrase back to the mid 90s where people said the exact same thing about the internet. By the end of the 90s, the internet provided the backbone communications structures for telecommunications, emergency management, banking, education, and was built into every possible product. Ten years later people got smartphones and literally couldn't put them down.
Yeah, some of the things AI can do really is very impressive. Whether that justifies the billions upon billions that are being spent is another matter - and probably explains why it's being shoved in our faces. It needs to become essential so it can be made expensive, that's the only way it'll make the money back.
It does piss me off too - I recently bought a new phone and it's infested with AI stuff I don't need or want.
At the time computers were totally useless for everyone but big firms, banks and military. Ads for computers were rare and confined in specialized magazines. For mundane people, computers started to be actually useful (like money earning useful) 20 years latter at least. That's how I understand your approximative comparison
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I absolutely hate seeing AI crammed into everything.
However, i don't understand your logic.
If AI was in fact useful, it would be crammed into everything because everyone would want it.
So while AI is undoubtedly shit, its presence in everything is not evidence of that.
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AI companies believe the market will give the best rewards for a winner-take-all strategy.
They believe now is the time to accumulate customers.
Their future financing rounds very likely depend on being able to show growth.
Entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors all know it's not everything it's cracked up to be (yet). They hope another few billion in cash will get it there. And hope you don't notice until they already won the market.
I really love your analogy. I'm imagining early 90s Windows and AOL bombarding folks with pop ups that say 'want to take this with you? Print it!' and 'Did you know you can print anytime you like with our new dedicated keyboard print button?' and 'Try our new cassette music player, now printer-powered to give you the best sound you've ever heard!'
If AI was something everyone wanted or needed, it wouldn’t be constantly shoved your face by every product
Counter point: Yes it absolutely would be. There would still be competition between models and products and a need for brand recognition. If you had a product with a feature someone "wanted or needed" you wouldn't advertise that??? AI aside this is just silly
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It's crammed for awareness so shareholders know.
That's my take.
Because right now, the general populace thinks AI is some unicorn magic that will fix all the things.
It'd be the opposite you wouldn't know about it