> Some time ago (1999-ish) [...] a number of ways to integrate ads were discussed.
> One was to show a cool video from a respected company (such as Nike) every time the Mac starts up. [...]
This sounds so weird in 2025. However, I can see that probably in those times there was no "norm", and people were trying different things.
Who knows, maybe if it weren't for Steve Jobs, ads at startup might be the norm. And who knows how many similar things we dodged because of people like Jobs.
Kindles have been showing ads on their lock screen for the ad-supported tier for a very long time now.
These days, we have moved to far more insane schemes. E.g. smart TV manufacturers are patenting detection of static frames to show you ads while TV is idle (although I don't think anyone has actually shipped that yet).
> One was to show a cool video from a respected company (such as Nike) every time the Mac starts up. [...]
This sounds so weird in 2025. However, I can see that probably in those times there was no "norm", and people were trying different things.
Who knows, maybe if it weren't for Steve Jobs, ads at startup might be the norm. And who knows how many similar things we dodged because of people like Jobs.