Haven't we been here before?

In recent months, I think that I've caught one or two references to using the iPhone to deliver mobile ads. Whatever--didn't plan on drinking the Apple-flavored Kool-Aid in the first place. But I should have known to look for the "me-too" from other folks. And here it is from Microsoft.

If the advertisers subsidized part of your phone bill or chipped in to discount the original cost to the device--and you had a choice about it--I wouldn't be so disgusted. But I very much doubt that happening. At least in the scenario described, the customer has to take the step of installing an application from the advertiser. If the relationship is abused thereafter, s/he presumably has the choice of severing the connection by uninstalling the app. Fair enough.

What bugs me, though, is how the lessons of the internet age were clearly not absorbed. Because you can already see the marketing wagons fitted out to march to the next boom-bust cycle. It's in the use of phrases like "advertising platform"--as if spammers, scammers and B-school boorishness have an actual right to bogart bandwidth for which you, the consumer, are footing the entire bill. You know, the reason that spam filters and image-blocking have to be baked into email software, and popup blockers are in their own arms race against JavaScript-gone-bad. The reason why people have to make an all-or-nothing decision about whether or not to block Flash on web pages.

In other words, welcome back to the 1990s, just on a smaller screen, at tastier download speeds, and higher costs to the "customer."