Zapping Impossible

Philips patented a technology to prevent channel-switching during commercials. The broadcaster sends a signal, your TV locks, you’re stuck.

I remember reading this and just laughing—the laugh you get when something’s so perfectly dystopian it loops back to being funny. What’s next, a TV that won’t turn off? But underneath the joke is something colder: someone at Philips decided this was worth protecting as intellectual property. Not ’will anyone buy this,’ but ’this deserves a patent.’ The casual confidence that controlling a few seconds of someone’s life, forcing them to sit through an ad they can’t skip, is just another problem to engineer away.

It never shipped. But the thinking behind it is everywhere now—every dark-pattern interface, every infinite scroll, every notification designed to pull you back. We didn’t need Philips to trap us. We’re very good at building the cages ourselves.