Comment by Steko
11 years ago
We need two things. The first is a piece of software or robot that can just keep browser tabs open along with iMessage/wechat clients whatever and then reads it and transfers any message that comes thru one of these locked down services to the second thing which is an open federated universal communication service/app.
This app would have a slider at the top and if the slider is all the way on the left you get 1-1 messages/mail from the most important people in your social network and all the way on the right you get 1 to many things of people you don't even know but you follow on Twitter/twitch/youtube/RSS/tv shows you watch. This app makes money because people/advertisers can pay to increase how close they are to you for one message and the money is split with the user who also sets the cost. So for a million dollars you could call Jay Z who might be sleeping but he's making 500k so what the hell, sure he'll listen to your demo.
...and fast forward few years and you have the Black-Mirror episode "Fifteen Million Merits" happening world-wide.
How long do you think it will take for advertisers to realise that people will watch "stuff" even if you don't pay them as long as they have nothing better to do. Add to this the fact that major media outlets (movie productions, tv-channels) will jump at the chance to broadcast ads as entertainment.
A very dark future awaits us...