4 ms·

Uh Karl Marx? Although looking at the evidence he may have been wrong. In seriousness though, I hate to be "that other" guy, but I'm tired of this. We pick out

by vlunkr 9y ago

Uh Karl Marx? Although looking at the evidence he may have been wrong. In seriousness though, I hate to be "that other" guy, but I'm tired of this. We pick out some flaw in our culture and immediately decide the solution is to throw capitalism away entirely like it's a JS framework. As if everything we have including the forums where we complain about capitalism weren't created by capitalism. I don't think it's perfect, but it seems to be the most successful system we've created so far. And one of the best parts is that unlike some systems, you choose what you take part in. You think social media is addictive and it's creators have malicious intent? Don't use it!

maxxxxx 9y ago
I definitely think the trend of financing companies by selling ads is very corrupting. Google, Facebook and others have huge conflicts of interest that can't really be resolved. It would be nice if we went back to business models where companies sell products to their end users and not sell their end users to others.
- manigandham 9y ago
  The vast majority of companies do sell direct. Only some make products that users are able to enjoy for free (and wouldn't pay for otherwise) and fund it through ads. There's nothing wrong with advertising, it's fast, passive, egalitarian and effective for both sides. Perhaps people need better training and self-control but that applies to a whole lot more in life than just ads on a social network.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    If advertising were merely a matter of making information available to provide options and a basis for decision, you'd have a point here. The modern history of the field [1] displays no such innocuous tendencies. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book) - more or less the original how-to manual, breathtaking both in its cynicism and in its candor.
    - manigandham 9y ago
      That's not about advertising, it's about the use of what we now holistically refer to as propaganda. The use of messaging to engineer opinions only highlights the real foundation of at work: human nature.
      - nyolfen 9y ago
        this is like a terrorist/freedom fighter distinction
  - j2bax 9y ago
    You don't think Facebook provides value worth paying money for? They wouldn't have to charge premium members (assuming they could convert enough free users) much to match their ad revenue... They have over 2 billion users, at least a handful which you have to imagine would be willing to pay to socialize with privacy from external corporate entities. I understand why they had to make it free to get to this point, but they've got almost 7x the population of the United States as daily active users now. If they could convert 10% of their user base to pay $9.99/month, that's $24B a year... A decent start seemingly, and I can imagine there are many ways to further monetize those users with other services.
    - manigandham 9y ago
      People are bad at judging value. Facebook might be valuable for them but they dont want to pay for it. People barely pay $10/month for news or music, let alone social media. There are also plenty of alternatives, both free and paid, and not much advantage in any one single platform.
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      I don't think any version of Facebook that bills their users would be viable. None at all. There's something that could be viable it bundled with other products. That something would be much more like email than Facebook (what is good). Yet, ad-based Facebook would beat it all the time.
      - j2bax 9y ago
        I think you underestimate the highly tuned addictive properties of their service, interface and brand... I'm not saying it's net positive whether ad-supported or not, but I believe it would be very difficult for another player to come in and beat Facebook at their dopamine inducing game now whether they charged for it or not at this point. The extent of analytics (how people interact with their website and mobile services) across the population that they have access to is borderline scary. When you consider how much money King Digital made/makes with a stupid polished match 3 mechanic by making incremental psychology driven UI/UX game design decisions...
- KekDemaga 9y ago
  >It would be nice if we went back to business models where companies sell products to their end users and not sell their end users to others. If you include services in that you are talking about what, 98% of economic activity currently?
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    Correct. But some of our most powerful players like Google and Facebook sell their end users and not to them. After reading about the Equifax leaks and how our information is being sold around it seems a big part of the financial sectors also depends on doing things behind the backs of end users.

by vlunkr 9y ago

maxxxxx 9y ago

I definitely think the trend of financing companies by selling ads is very corrupting. Google, Facebook and others have huge conflicts of interest that can't really be resolved. It would be nice if we went back to business models where companies sell products to their end users and not sell their end users to others.

manigandham 9y ago
The vast majority of companies do sell direct. Only some make products that users are able to enjoy for free (and wouldn't pay for otherwise) and fund it through ads. There's nothing wrong with advertising, it's fast, passive, egalitarian and effective for both sides. Perhaps people need better training and self-control but that applies to a whole lot more in life than just ads on a social network.
- throwanem 9y ago
  If advertising were merely a matter of making information available to provide options and a basis for decision, you'd have a point here. The modern history of the field [1] displays no such innocuous tendencies. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book) - more or less the original how-to manual, breathtaking both in its cynicism and in its candor.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    That's not about advertising, it's about the use of what we now holistically refer to as propaganda. The use of messaging to engineer opinions only highlights the real foundation of at work: human nature.
    - nyolfen 9y ago
      this is like a terrorist/freedom fighter distinction
- j2bax 9y ago
  You don't think Facebook provides value worth paying money for? They wouldn't have to charge premium members (assuming they could convert enough free users) much to match their ad revenue... They have over 2 billion users, at least a handful which you have to imagine would be willing to pay to socialize with privacy from external corporate entities. I understand why they had to make it free to get to this point, but they've got almost 7x the population of the United States as daily active users now. If they could convert 10% of their user base to pay $9.99/month, that's $24B a year... A decent start seemingly, and I can imagine there are many ways to further monetize those users with other services.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    People are bad at judging value. Facebook might be valuable for them but they dont want to pay for it. People barely pay $10/month for news or music, let alone social media. There are also plenty of alternatives, both free and paid, and not much advantage in any one single platform.
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    I don't think any version of Facebook that bills their users would be viable. None at all. There's something that could be viable it bundled with other products. That something would be much more like email than Facebook (what is good). Yet, ad-based Facebook would beat it all the time.
    - j2bax 9y ago
      I think you underestimate the highly tuned addictive properties of their service, interface and brand... I'm not saying it's net positive whether ad-supported or not, but I believe it would be very difficult for another player to come in and beat Facebook at their dopamine inducing game now whether they charged for it or not at this point. The extent of analytics (how people interact with their website and mobile services) across the population that they have access to is borderline scary. When you consider how much money King Digital made/makes with a stupid polished match 3 mechanic by making incremental psychology driven UI/UX game design decisions...
KekDemaga 9y ago
>It would be nice if we went back to business models where companies sell products to their end users and not sell their end users to others. If you include services in that you are talking about what, 98% of economic activity currently?
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Correct. But some of our most powerful players like Google and Facebook sell their end users and not to them. After reading about the Equifax leaks and how our information is being sold around it seems a big part of the financial sectors also depends on doing things behind the backs of end users.