We can’t stop playing HQ Trivia. Work stops at 2 p.m. Bedtime stops at 8 p.m.

Is this the FUTCH?

Another friend of mine called HQ the “embodiment of the futch.”

A few years ago, Joanne McNeil wrote a short essay called “Postcards from the Futch,” describing the un-factcheck-able brand of futurism sold at tech conferences by “idea-ators…who instructed us to keep looking toward the horizon and never look down.”

The futch (pronounced “fyooch”) takes complexity and renders it into simplistic opacity, shined up with gee whiz techno glitter. The futch takes the idea that the future should be legible and transforms it into the dictate that the future should be easy. Interactive TV is up there with flying cars and meals in pill form as far as idealized visions of the future have gone. Everything about HQ, from its push notification demands for attention to the flat plasticky graphics to the well-groomed holoman at the center feels like a gloss on complicated questions about how we want to interact with technology and how we want technology to interact with us. It holds out the promise of interaction while reverting back to broadcast model of attention scheduling and one-to-many communication. It sucks you deeper into your phone with the promise of cash, holding your attention and yourself in place for… something.

We’re familiar with the new-old adage, if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. So what does it mean when the product is paying you?

Source: Is HQ Trivia the future of TV?