I was browsing the thread under this Mastodon post about how absurdly gamified the Temu app has become. Someone posted this decade-old video:
It's sad and a little scary how HYPER-REALITY predicted the current state of web (and app) design, assuming you're not using a decent adblocker. Like the film Idiocracy, this is a video which has slowly turned from hyperbole into a chilling reflection of reality. All the same companies and individuals who turned the web into a gamified nightmare clusterfuck of banners and popups and dark patterns and enshittified services are going to race to do the same to AR if it becomes mainstream. There's no reason to suspect otherwise.
All this leads me to ask, what actual incentive (aside from short term conveniences) would I have to buy an AR device? You don't need an AR device. And you can't become dependent or reliant on a device you haven't yet bought. So don't buy one!
You're not always expected to have your phone out. Most of the time, it should be in your pocket. Despite an epidemic of absentminded people walking around glued to their phones (I'm as guilty as anyone), it's still considered bad etiquette to use them during dinner, or while crossing the street. That's not the case with glasses, which are designed to be worn all day. That will become the expectation for AR glasses as they evolve into lighter, sleeker devices. All the same apps and services keeping you tied to your phone will follow you over to AR. Is that what you want?
Do you really want the hellscape end-state of the modern attention economy grafted onto your fucking face? To see ads everywhere all the time? Why? Even if you currently own an AR device and are enjoying a clean, uncluttered, curated user experience, how long do you think that will last? The web didn't turn into what it is overnight. Things take time to enshittify, but it's bound to happen.
Pop-up windows were a plague in the 90s and early 2000s, and remained that way until browsers started blocking them by default. This forced the popups to migrate into the pages themselves, and they've been trapped there ever since. Well, AR will be the escape hatch through which they break free of the constraints of the browser window and escape into the "real" world. Is that what you want? REAL-WORLD POPUPS? Are you insane?
I don't know exactly how, I don't know exactly when, but Apple and Google and Meta will create their own frameworks for businesses to display interfaces and ads and popups in arbitrary places, and it will spiral out of control. History will repeat itself.
Keep using your smartphone. Don't become dependent on an always-on HUD. Put up some resistance. If they want to envelop you within the cyberpunk dystopia, they should be forced to drag you inside it kicking and screaming.