12 ms·

Somebody has to pay for it in the end, so Facebook could simply say "agree to targeted advertising and use the site for free or do not agree and pay a monthly f

Somebody has to pay for it in the end, so Facebook could simply say "agree to targeted advertising and use the site for free or do not agree and pay a monthly fee for the site".

henrikschroder 8y ago
Sign me up! The sad truth though is that the users who are most likely to pay to get rid of ads, are also the users that are most valuable to advertisers, because that's a signal they have more money to spend than the rest.
- dmortin 8y ago
  What if they say it's $20 a month? And it's just facebook. Google also asks for $20, Reddit too, etc. It won't be cheap.
  - akerro 8y ago
    We already donate to reddit.
  - letsgetphysITal 8y ago
    Google services with guaranteed no tracking and profiling? $20 is cheap.
    - ccozan 8y ago
      Huh? A Google Suite account is 4 euros a month. No tracking and profiling.
  - xxs 8y ago
    So you are stipulating an account worth is 240USD a year at facebook? Instead of 20, why won't you say 100, make it round. Seriously though, behemoths do fall and if facebook ceases to exist there will be no harm but good in my book.
    - dhimes 8y ago
      The number that's been kicked around for he value of North American user is about $50/year. So $5/month will cover it.
      - CaptainZapp 8y ago
        The problem is that even if I pay Facebook this company is so utterly untrustworthy that I don't believe for one second that they wouldn't run their data sucking shenanigans on paid accounts.
        iainmerrick 8y ago
        I agree, but at least if the ad market is much smaller, the data will have that much less value. Various companies will probably still gather and sell data for even more nefarious purposes, like manipulating elections, but that’s a different battle.
        gkya 8y ago
        And that's why you want to have regulations. In the case you suggest, you could ask e.g. EFF if you suspected that they are abusing the contract, to sue FB in behalf of the users. Or even kick-start a big court case yourself.
      - adventured 8y ago
        That's not the number that is being kicked around. Facebook will yield more than $100 per active user in the US and Canada for fiscal 2018. That's going to $200 from here over the next six or seven years (it doubled from 2015 to 2017). No meaningful number of users are paying $15 per month out of pocket for Facebook. Google search is similarly worth a lot per user in the US. People would be irate if they had to pay $10 or $20 per month to use search engines after commonly enjoying the free utility of that for the last two decades.
        lukeschlather 8y ago
        Per daily active user or monthly active user? I also think it's conceivable in a more equitable arrangement with paid subscriptions that you could easily have a sizable number of paying users not being active in a given month.
  - burger_moon 8y ago
    I would actually pay a small amount to have a read-only account for facebook that doesn't track me at all. I don't want to post anything, but I would like to view stuff more easily on the platform. Especially since so many events are organized through fb.
    - em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
      Have you tried the mobile site with JavaScript disabled. Or have to tried Facebook command line where you can simply query for posts in the terminal?
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Are you saying the free market doesn't apply to pricing for these services?
  - sanxiyn 8y ago
    I am more than willing to pay $20 a month for both Google and Facebook. Do you hear me? Take my money!
    - wstrange 8y ago
      Google gsuite pricing is $5 / month for the basic version.
  - iainmerrick 8y ago
    That model already works for streaming TV! At least it’s working pretty well for Netflix, Amazon, HBO... (It’s definitely not ideal for viewers, but at least now it’s easy to get TV without ads.)
- mortehu 8y ago
  You can disable Google's ad targeting at any time: https://adssettings.google.com/ https://adssettings.google.com/ You don't have to pay anything. What you get instead is untargeted ads, like ads for cars, potato chips, and shampoo, just like on TV. Personally I find those to be a lot more annoying. Facebook's ad targeting can be similarly disabled under https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_s...
  - sanxiyn 8y ago
    You can also disable Google's ads on some sites, https://contributor.google.com/ https://contributor.google.com/ Sadly, Google Contributor is not available outside US. I am eagerly waiting for it.
  - kinsomo 8y ago
    > What you get instead is untargeted ads, like ads for cars, potato chips, and shampoo, just like on TV. Personally I find those to be a lot more annoying. I'm genuinely curious: what's so much more annoying to you about untargeted ads? I've never found targeting to be effective at showing me ads that were genuinely better or less annoying. I feel more comfortable with untargeted ads, since I can be much more confident nothing truly sneaky is going on, especially technology ever gets good enough to reliably manipulate me to buy more now.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - drusepth 8y ago
      >I've never found targeting to be effective at showing me ads that were genuinely better or less annoying. I'm not the guy you're responding to, but I think the key difference is this statement. I had untargeted ads on for about a year and they were always irrelevant. Since returning to targeted ads, I now see things all the time that I'm at least mildly interested in (mostly startups and new services, and/or tools/software I want to try out). I don't care if I'm being coaxed into buying more: the things they're tempting me with are legitimately interesting and I have the ultimate say on whether I buy it or not. Untargeted ads don't give that choice: they're just always irrelevant to my interests.
- delecti 8y ago
  It also puts users in the mindset of starting to consider if their time on Facebook is worth $X/mo.
belorn 8y ago
Yes, but when that point hits hard enough maybe people will stop saying "Why do you not use Facebook/Gmail, it is free". Now someone can actually try and compete with a free service. It might not work but its a step closer to happening. For example we have had open source federated social networks, and non-profits that ran email services.
- dmortin 8y ago
  That other free service also encounters the same dilemma. They have to pay for the site, so either they take your data or make you pay.
  - simias 8y ago
    You can have ads without tracking. But frankly I'm 100% happy if you actually have a choice of "give your data or pay". It's a massive improvement over "give your data or don't use the service" or "give your data and pay" which is what we have today.
    - dmortin 8y ago
      If people force the issue then I expect big sites will give you this option. But it won't be necessarily cheap, so most people will opt to use the free version instead.
nothis 8y ago
I’d happily pay.
p49k 8y ago
I’m pretty sure Facebook can’t do that. The point of the GDPR, as I understand it, is to make control of your data a right which can’t be bargained away, much like employers can’t try to bargain away your right to sick leave.
- zerostar07 8y ago
  depends really, the law says you can't deny service, but doesnt say you get to get the exact same service. I would expect the same for people who deny ad cookies - they 'll get more ads shown.
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - deleted 8y ago
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saiya-jin 8y ago
I, and I believe most of the world too, would be perfectly fine with Facebook valuation of say 1 billion $. Then you don't need so much income to sustain/be profitable. I mean it's basically the same website as before, just few smaller services and Oculus. They do scale a lot (with years of painful basic technical errors), but then again its just overengineered single page of news feed. The whole valuation is on data spied or voluntarily given up from users
moopling 8y ago
I didn't think that was possible. Otherwise it would make determination of a fair price very messy -> In the extreme facebook could set an arbitraily high price if they didn't want to change their business model.
taysic 8y ago
That's not possible with GDPR. You have to be able to access the same service 'without detriment' even if you do not want targeted advertising.
RugnirViking 8y ago
That would be a violation of the current policy. I don't wish to be rude, but it doesn't seem that hard to understand, and i'm a little surprised by the number of people making mistakes like this.
Doxin 8y ago
It's important to note that the GDPR doesn't ban ads without consent. It bans tracking users without consent.

Somebody has to pay for it in the end, so Facebook could simply say "agree to targeted advertising and use the site for free or do not agree and pay a monthly fee for the site".

henrikschroder 8y ago

Sign me up! The sad truth though is that the users who are most likely to pay to get rid of ads, are also the users that are most valuable to advertisers, because that's a signal they have more money to spend than the rest.

dmortin 8y ago
What if they say it's $20 a month? And it's just facebook. Google also asks for $20, Reddit too, etc. It won't be cheap.
- akerro 8y ago
  We already donate to reddit.
- letsgetphysITal 8y ago
  Google services with guaranteed no tracking and profiling? $20 is cheap.
  - ccozan 8y ago
    Huh? A Google Suite account is 4 euros a month. No tracking and profiling.
- xxs 8y ago
  So you are stipulating an account worth is 240USD a year at facebook? Instead of 20, why won't you say 100, make it round. Seriously though, behemoths do fall and if facebook ceases to exist there will be no harm but good in my book.
  - dhimes 8y ago
    The number that's been kicked around for he value of North American user is about $50/year. So $5/month will cover it.
    - CaptainZapp 8y ago
      The problem is that even if I pay Facebook this company is so utterly untrustworthy that I don't believe for one second that they wouldn't run their data sucking shenanigans on paid accounts.
      - iainmerrick 8y ago
        I agree, but at least if the ad market is much smaller, the data will have that much less value. Various companies will probably still gather and sell data for even more nefarious purposes, like manipulating elections, but that’s a different battle.
      - gkya 8y ago
        And that's why you want to have regulations. In the case you suggest, you could ask e.g. EFF if you suspected that they are abusing the contract, to sue FB in behalf of the users. Or even kick-start a big court case yourself.
    - adventured 8y ago
      That's not the number that is being kicked around. Facebook will yield more than $100 per active user in the US and Canada for fiscal 2018. That's going to $200 from here over the next six or seven years (it doubled from 2015 to 2017). No meaningful number of users are paying $15 per month out of pocket for Facebook. Google search is similarly worth a lot per user in the US. People would be irate if they had to pay $10 or $20 per month to use search engines after commonly enjoying the free utility of that for the last two decades.
      - lukeschlather 8y ago
        Per daily active user or monthly active user? I also think it's conceivable in a more equitable arrangement with paid subscriptions that you could easily have a sizable number of paying users not being active in a given month.
- burger_moon 8y ago
  I would actually pay a small amount to have a read-only account for facebook that doesn't track me at all. I don't want to post anything, but I would like to view stuff more easily on the platform. Especially since so many events are organized through fb.
  - em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
    Have you tried the mobile site with JavaScript disabled. Or have to tried Facebook command line where you can simply query for posts in the terminal?
- pjc50 8y ago
  Are you saying the free market doesn't apply to pricing for these services?
- sanxiyn 8y ago
  I am more than willing to pay $20 a month for both Google and Facebook. Do you hear me? Take my money!
  - wstrange 8y ago
    Google gsuite pricing is $5 / month for the basic version.
- iainmerrick 8y ago
  That model already works for streaming TV! At least it’s working pretty well for Netflix, Amazon, HBO... (It’s definitely not ideal for viewers, but at least now it’s easy to get TV without ads.)
mortehu 8y ago
You can disable Google's ad targeting at any time: https://adssettings.google.com/ https://adssettings.google.com/ You don't have to pay anything. What you get instead is untargeted ads, like ads for cars, potato chips, and shampoo, just like on TV. Personally I find those to be a lot more annoying. Facebook's ad targeting can be similarly disabled under https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_s...
- sanxiyn 8y ago
  You can also disable Google's ads on some sites, https://contributor.google.com/ https://contributor.google.com/ Sadly, Google Contributor is not available outside US. I am eagerly waiting for it.
- kinsomo 8y ago
  > What you get instead is untargeted ads, like ads for cars, potato chips, and shampoo, just like on TV. Personally I find those to be a lot more annoying. I'm genuinely curious: what's so much more annoying to you about untargeted ads? I've never found targeting to be effective at showing me ads that were genuinely better or less annoying. I feel more comfortable with untargeted ads, since I can be much more confident nothing truly sneaky is going on, especially technology ever gets good enough to reliably manipulate me to buy more now.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - drusepth 8y ago
    >I've never found targeting to be effective at showing me ads that were genuinely better or less annoying. I'm not the guy you're responding to, but I think the key difference is this statement. I had untargeted ads on for about a year and they were always irrelevant. Since returning to targeted ads, I now see things all the time that I'm at least mildly interested in (mostly startups and new services, and/or tools/software I want to try out). I don't care if I'm being coaxed into buying more: the things they're tempting me with are legitimately interesting and I have the ultimate say on whether I buy it or not. Untargeted ads don't give that choice: they're just always irrelevant to my interests.
delecti 8y ago
It also puts users in the mindset of starting to consider if their time on Facebook is worth $X/mo.

belorn 8y ago

Yes, but when that point hits hard enough maybe people will stop saying "Why do you not use Facebook/Gmail, it is free". Now someone can actually try and compete with a free service. It might not work but its a step closer to happening. For example we have had open source federated social networks, and non-profits that ran email services.

dmortin 8y ago
That other free service also encounters the same dilemma. They have to pay for the site, so either they take your data or make you pay.
- simias 8y ago
  You can have ads without tracking. But frankly I'm 100% happy if you actually have a choice of "give your data or pay". It's a massive improvement over "give your data or don't use the service" or "give your data and pay" which is what we have today.
  - dmortin 8y ago
    If people force the issue then I expect big sites will give you this option. But it won't be necessarily cheap, so most people will opt to use the free version instead.

nothis 8y ago

I’d happily pay.

p49k 8y ago

I’m pretty sure Facebook can’t do that. The point of the GDPR, as I understand it, is to make control of your data a right which can’t be bargained away, much like employers can’t try to bargain away your right to sick leave.

zerostar07 8y ago
depends really, the law says you can't deny service, but doesnt say you get to get the exact same service. I would expect the same for people who deny ad cookies - they 'll get more ads shown.
- deleted 8y ago
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- deleted 8y ago
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saiya-jin 8y ago

I, and I believe most of the world too, would be perfectly fine with Facebook valuation of say 1 billion $. Then you don't need so much income to sustain/be profitable. I mean it's basically the same website as before, just few smaller services and Oculus. They do scale a lot (with years of painful basic technical errors), but then again its just overengineered single page of news feed. The whole valuation is on data spied or voluntarily given up from users

moopling 8y ago

I didn't think that was possible. Otherwise it would make determination of a fair price very messy -> In the extreme facebook could set an arbitraily high price if they didn't want to change their business model.

taysic 8y ago

That's not possible with GDPR. You have to be able to access the same service 'without detriment' even if you do not want targeted advertising.

RugnirViking 8y ago

That would be a violation of the current policy. I don't wish to be rude, but it doesn't seem that hard to understand, and i'm a little surprised by the number of people making mistakes like this.

Doxin 8y ago

It's important to note that the GDPR doesn't ban ads without consent. It bans tracking users without consent.