11 ms·

I'm surprised anyone wouldn't think so. TVs are the same. And phones. And most web sites. And buses, walls, taxies, public transportation stops, bridges over r

by tyfon 9y ago

I'm surprised anyone wouldn't think so. TVs are the same. And phones. And most web sites. And buses, walls, taxies, public transportation stops, bridges over roads etc etc. One has to work hard to defend against the ad onslaught these days.

YouAreGreat 9y ago
This needs a collective defense, i.e. state action: An advertising tax to take the profit out of most of it.
- Spivak 9y ago
  You're not wrong. The individual right to 'choose' is not strong enough to enact real change in this space. But a tax is a short sighted and there's no reason to believe that any state dislikes the current state of advertising enough to effectively ban it outright.
  - vincnetas 9y ago
    Google "city without ads sao paulo". IIRC there are no outdoor ads in the city.
    - virtualmic 9y ago
      Almost true for Chandigarh in India, as well.
    - tyfon 9y ago
      That is wonderful. I wish there was a ban on ads in public spaces here as well.
- kk_cz 9y ago
  I agree in instances where ads pollute public spaces, but nobody is forcing you to use Echo or watch TV. If you don't like ads you have a personal choice to do something about it, no government involvment is necessary IMHO.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    Yes but my personal choice is limited because the government refuses to step in. Right now I can choose between an Echo which tries to sell me and my kids Colgate toothpaste or not having an Echo at all. With government action I could choose between an Echo (without ads) or not having an Echo at all. In this way government has actually created better options for me to exercise my personal choice on.
    - kk_cz 9y ago
      > Yes but my personal choice is limited because the government refuses to step in. Wow. Do you really believe that it's government job to guarantee ad-free Echo?
      - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
        That's not exactly how I would phrase it but basically. I mean you would agree that a bunch of people could organize a boycott of Echo with ads and eventually Amazon would stop selling it and sell Echo without ads and that would be fine right? So why don't we just do that? It's because we lack a coordination mechanism, the incentive of individual boycotters is to cheat. Luckily humans have developed a great coordination mechanism called 'democracy' and we can use it when coordination in the market place has failed.
        dbmikus 9y ago
        Or someone can make another audio-controlled device that doesn't sell ads and that can be a separate company. I don't see why you would immediately go towards having the government step in and regulate whether Amazon can make the Echo prefer their own products quite yet. It's still a new device and there are some other competitors. I could agree that companies be required to have a disclaimer when they provide preference to a certain product set over another.
        frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Feniks 9y ago
The whole POINT of Echo is to always listen and direct your consumer pattern to Amazon and other approved affiliates. To me it represents pure evil and I don't see how you could defend against it. Except for not buying into this stupid shit.
- mikeash 9y ago
  The whole point of my Echo is to play music and set timers and pre-heat my car in the morning and such. There’s no avenue for any consumer anything unless you allow it by using the device to shop. I don’t entirely understand why people are surprised that using an Amazon device to shop on Amazon might result in biases toward what Amazon sees as beneficial. Buying stuff with a voice assistant is antithetical to the sort of comparison shopping you need to do to have a hope of retaining some agency in what you decide to buy.
  - pwinnski 9y ago
    That's not why Amazon sold you an echo, though. Cortana or Siri exist without obvious nefarious purpose. Alex and Google are clearly trying to push advertising. I know which I would prefer to set timers and play music for me.
    - addicted 9y ago
      It’s a massive failure of the tech industry that the vast majority of the world doesn’t even realize this, and therefore places very little, if any, price premium on the “does not snoop on you” feature.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      Does it matter why they sold it to me if I don't use it that way?
      - walterbell 9y ago
        Yes, because it will likely evolve in ways not optimized for you, vs supporting a product that caters to your use case. Many products co-evolve with users, as the product modifies daily workflows. If you are not the target user, the product can evolve based on requirements that are adversarial to you.
addicted 9y ago
The passivity of most of those mediums make them different. TVs, Walls, taxis, etc. are not personally targeting you based on intimate private information about you. The internet and smartphones are, but even those are not snooping in on your conversations (or so we believe, hence the hue and cry about Facebook listening in). Alexa is different in that it’s listening to all your conversations, including presumably extremely private ones.

by tyfon 9y ago

YouAreGreat 9y ago

This needs a collective defense, i.e. state action: An advertising tax to take the profit out of most of it.

Spivak 9y ago
You're not wrong. The individual right to 'choose' is not strong enough to enact real change in this space. But a tax is a short sighted and there's no reason to believe that any state dislikes the current state of advertising enough to effectively ban it outright.
- vincnetas 9y ago
  Google "city without ads sao paulo". IIRC there are no outdoor ads in the city.
  - virtualmic 9y ago
    Almost true for Chandigarh in India, as well.
  - tyfon 9y ago
    That is wonderful. I wish there was a ban on ads in public spaces here as well.
kk_cz 9y ago
I agree in instances where ads pollute public spaces, but nobody is forcing you to use Echo or watch TV. If you don't like ads you have a personal choice to do something about it, no government involvment is necessary IMHO.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Yes but my personal choice is limited because the government refuses to step in. Right now I can choose between an Echo which tries to sell me and my kids Colgate toothpaste or not having an Echo at all. With government action I could choose between an Echo (without ads) or not having an Echo at all. In this way government has actually created better options for me to exercise my personal choice on.
  - kk_cz 9y ago
    > Yes but my personal choice is limited because the government refuses to step in. Wow. Do you really believe that it's government job to guarantee ad-free Echo?
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      That's not exactly how I would phrase it but basically. I mean you would agree that a bunch of people could organize a boycott of Echo with ads and eventually Amazon would stop selling it and sell Echo without ads and that would be fine right? So why don't we just do that? It's because we lack a coordination mechanism, the incentive of individual boycotters is to cheat. Luckily humans have developed a great coordination mechanism called 'democracy' and we can use it when coordination in the market place has failed.
      - dbmikus 9y ago
        Or someone can make another audio-controlled device that doesn't sell ads and that can be a separate company. I don't see why you would immediately go towards having the government step in and regulate whether Amazon can make the Echo prefer their own products quite yet. It's still a new device and there are some other competitors. I could agree that companies be required to have a disclaimer when they provide preference to a certain product set over another.
        frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

Feniks 9y ago

The whole POINT of Echo is to always listen and direct your consumer pattern to Amazon and other approved affiliates. To me it represents pure evil and I don't see how you could defend against it. Except for not buying into this stupid shit.

mikeash 9y ago
The whole point of my Echo is to play music and set timers and pre-heat my car in the morning and such. There’s no avenue for any consumer anything unless you allow it by using the device to shop. I don’t entirely understand why people are surprised that using an Amazon device to shop on Amazon might result in biases toward what Amazon sees as beneficial. Buying stuff with a voice assistant is antithetical to the sort of comparison shopping you need to do to have a hope of retaining some agency in what you decide to buy.
- pwinnski 9y ago
  That's not why Amazon sold you an echo, though. Cortana or Siri exist without obvious nefarious purpose. Alex and Google are clearly trying to push advertising. I know which I would prefer to set timers and play music for me.
  - addicted 9y ago
    It’s a massive failure of the tech industry that the vast majority of the world doesn’t even realize this, and therefore places very little, if any, price premium on the “does not snoop on you” feature.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Does it matter why they sold it to me if I don't use it that way?
    - walterbell 9y ago
      Yes, because it will likely evolve in ways not optimized for you, vs supporting a product that caters to your use case. Many products co-evolve with users, as the product modifies daily workflows. If you are not the target user, the product can evolve based on requirements that are adversarial to you.

addicted 9y ago

The passivity of most of those mediums make them different. TVs, Walls, taxis, etc. are not personally targeting you based on intimate private information about you. The internet and smartphones are, but even those are not snooping in on your conversations (or so we believe, hence the hue and cry about Facebook listening in). Alexa is different in that it’s listening to all your conversations, including presumably extremely private ones.