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Pretty ridiculous I must admit, but what do you propose is the alternative? Micropayments is a utopian fantasy that would never play out in reality and pay wall

Pretty ridiculous I must admit, but what do you propose is the alternative? Micropayments is a utopian fantasy that would never play out in reality and pay walls eliminate what makes the web valuable to so many people. I would never have run across this (actually pretty interesting) article and information if it was hidden behind a paywall because I don't own a motorcycle. This kind of serendipitous exposure to a diverse set of viewpoints and information would not be possible outside of a free-yet-cookie-filled internet. I know this sentiment will be unpopular around here, but personally, my concerns around privacy begin and end with governments. X profit motivated company wants to track my browsing activity to sell me consumer products in exchange for paying their (already barely paid) writers? Go right ahead. If you annoy me enough I'll just turn off cookies.

hutzlibu 8y ago
"Micropayments is a utopian fantasy that would never play out in reality" Care to provide some arguments? The problem right now I see in the lack of an easy to use service with reasonable fees. And the mindset of the people that why pay for things voluntarily? But Wikipedia for example shows, that there allready enough people thinking different. So we just lack the micropayment service
pwagland 8y ago
You know, if it was restricted _purely_ to advertising, I suspect that most people could live with this. However when they then start to use this tracking information for pricing discrimination people start to get twitchy. When you start to use it for political purposes, including political advertising, people start to get twitchy. When they start to use it for credit rating scores, etc, etc.
- tobltobs 8y ago
  > people start to get twitchy You mean all the people who don't have a facebook account?
whatshisface 8y ago
Advertising is fine, just don't do anything that violates privacy. For 100 years or so advertisements have not needed to remember your face... We just need to go back to before this one specific thing was instituted.

hutzlibu 8y ago

"Micropayments is a utopian fantasy that would never play out in reality" Care to provide some arguments? The problem right now I see in the lack of an easy to use service with reasonable fees. And the mindset of the people that why pay for things voluntarily? But Wikipedia for example shows, that there allready enough people thinking different. So we just lack the micropayment service

pwagland 8y ago

You know, if it was restricted _purely_ to advertising, I suspect that most people could live with this. However when they then start to use this tracking information for pricing discrimination people start to get twitchy. When you start to use it for political purposes, including political advertising, people start to get twitchy. When they start to use it for credit rating scores, etc, etc.

tobltobs 8y ago
> people start to get twitchy You mean all the people who don't have a facebook account?

whatshisface 8y ago

Advertising is fine, just don't do anything that violates privacy. For 100 years or so advertisements have not needed to remember your face... We just need to go back to before this one specific thing was instituted.