Lileks: New TV tech lets you skip commercials? What a world!

It's always annoying to get ads on the streaming channels. Aren't I paying you for this already?

You are, but not enough. You have the PEON (Pay Extra? Oh No) package, which grudgingly allows you to watch a handful of shows that went off the air in 1996. If you don't want ads, upgrade to the SAP (Successful, Attractive Person) package, and they won't show you ads. Well, a few.

Most of these ads cannot be skipped, which is like being thrown back in time to the era of battleship-sized console TVs and La-Z-Boys, three channels, and antenna wires you had to jiggle so Archie Bunker was not followed by a ghostly doppelgänger.

"We'll be back after these important messages!" they used to say. The messages were never important, but at least they were imaginative every now and then. All ads today seem the same. If it's not a pharmacy ad ("Ask your doctor if Praxitalia is right for you. Side effects may include sudden liquefication of internal organs, itching"), it's insurance. In the future there will be just one ad. It will be Flo from Progressive, her head now the shape of a gekko lizard, pushing a suppository that lowers your blood pressure and your car insurance rates.

The other day I read of a Sony patent that allows you to skip commercials with a simple two-step process: You wave your arms and then shout the name of the product being advertised. This tells the listening device inside your TV that you have recognized the sponsor and committed its name to reverent memory.

You can see where this might cause problems.

TV ad: "Have you ever wanted to vacation in historic Mexico? To visit the strange ancient ruins? Quexixhicoatl Travel is here to help! Call now."

Or, what if the ad is for Andersen Windows, and you think the word "Anderson" as you say it? Will it still work?

And, worst of all, you have the windows open, because it's a nice summer night, and your neighbors are outside sitting in the chairs on their front lawn, and suddenly they hear you shout "erectile dysfunction treatment!" at the top of your lungs.

OK, that's ridiculous. No one sits in the chairs in the front lawn.

Still, I would agree to this, with conditions. If my TV is listening, I have some things to say. Let us posit an ad for a hamburger chain. I will sit through an entire ad if I am able to offer feedback at the end of it.

"Let me tell you about my last visit at the drive-through. The fellow who took my order was sour and curt, and while I do not expect sunny, bright, effusive Chick-fil-A manic joy from every disembodied voice that crackles through the metal speaker grate, something more welcoming than a Prohibition-era speakeasy bouncer would be nice.

"Let me be clear: I am never the problem. My orders are concise and crisp. They might be a bit verbose; I could say 'two peppers' instead of 'two packets of pepper,' but packets is precise.

"What I got: one packet of mustard, which is plainly insufficient for two hamburgers, and two packets of salt, which one might say is the exact opposite of pepper, both in hue and taste-bud-receptor impact. Upon pointing this out, I was met with irritation and impatience, as if I had asked for parboiled hand-minced gherkins and French fries with a median length of 2 inches.

"The entire exchange left me annoyed, as if my request for packets of pepper had somehow thrown a crowbar into the clockwork mechanism of the drive-through. I examined the receipt to see if there was a request for feedback. There was an invitation to go to a website, give the store the best possible rating, and receive a coupon for a free drink. As a man of principle, I would rather pay for my next drink than lie to the skies about my experience. Thank you. The TV program for which I am paying $5.99 a month may now resume."