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I actually, in a strange way, don't really care about all this privacy stuff. A for-profit company looking into my personal preferences just to show me better t

I actually, in a strange way, don't really care about all this privacy stuff. A for-profit company looking into my personal preferences just to show me better targeted ads, instead of boring, generic ones? What's better than that? They're either going to charge me monthly subscription fees, which would kill the whole business in an instant, or find a way to make a profit off ads.

chrisper 8y ago
You are right. Nothing better than a company using your private messages for targeted ads!
- chriswarbo 8y ago
  I don't consider this recent news as any sort of surprise. On the contrary, I have always disapproved of Facebook tricking users into thinking any of the data they hand over is "private".
- basitmakine 8y ago
  I don't know man. I'm just perfectly ok with them sneak peeking into my conversation trends and extracting key phrases for targeted ads.. I mean, what is the alternative? You can pay subscription fees(noone would), or see generic ads(no company would advertise due to next to zero CR).. Either way, facebook is dead. What makes companies like Facebook, Google etc unique is that, their ability to appease to both sides of the market. If they don't, they simply cannot exist. And lack of privacy is a price we have to pay if we want these services in our lives. Maybe I'm morally corrupt. Idk.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    An alternative would be to have contextual ads that were based on the present state of the page, but none of your history. This is how it always was, only a few years ago.
    - kaybe 8y ago
      And it is so much better, because when I'm thinking about X anyway my though process is not hijacked in an uncomfortable way by ads about X, and so sometimes I actually look at them instead of using energy to disregard them and gasp have even clicked on one or two.
    - bcherny 8y ago
      Is there a single ad network or ad platform that does that, besides DuckDuckGo?
  - Marsymars 8y ago
    > I mean, what is the alternative? You can pay subscription fees(noone would) I'd be happy to pay for the marginal cost of a quality, highly scaled, private messaging service for me and for everyone I communicate with.
maigret 8y ago
Hard to tell if you’re sarcastic here. Facebook is now a tool that endangers elections. It worsens political dialog and keep people in a bubble that strengthens their uninformed opinions. It does not only shows ads but works super hard on making you addicted to the service, so you spend all your available time looking at ads, even when they don’t look like such (your friends and family are unimportant there, they don’t pay Facebook). So, Facebook does screw up a lot, most of all they screw their users. The monthly fee might help but at this point I’ve lost most trust.
- stale2002 8y ago
  > It worsens political dialog and keep people in a bubble that strengthens their uninformed opinions. Well it turns out that people tend to prefer their bubble. If a bubble is what they want, who am I to judge? People should be free to make their own decisions.
whatshisface 8y ago
You are suffering from one cut in the thousand cut death mechanism. Each corporation will take away a little of what everyone used to have by default, in exchange for something worth just a little less than what they're taking away. Once every corporation, government office and secret agency has taken their cut you will no longer be a free person. Some time down the line, someone will notice that you are not a free person, and then they will do something that could impact your happiness.
ryandrake 8y ago
I'd rather have irrelevant ads than targeted ones. When I visit a web site and see irrelevant ads, I have more confidence (but not 100%) that they are not collecting or using information about me. So I'd rather see irrelevant ads.

chrisper 8y ago

You are right. Nothing better than a company using your private messages for targeted ads!

chriswarbo 8y ago
I don't consider this recent news as any sort of surprise. On the contrary, I have always disapproved of Facebook tricking users into thinking any of the data they hand over is "private".
basitmakine 8y ago
I don't know man. I'm just perfectly ok with them sneak peeking into my conversation trends and extracting key phrases for targeted ads.. I mean, what is the alternative? You can pay subscription fees(noone would), or see generic ads(no company would advertise due to next to zero CR).. Either way, facebook is dead. What makes companies like Facebook, Google etc unique is that, their ability to appease to both sides of the market. If they don't, they simply cannot exist. And lack of privacy is a price we have to pay if we want these services in our lives. Maybe I'm morally corrupt. Idk.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  An alternative would be to have contextual ads that were based on the present state of the page, but none of your history. This is how it always was, only a few years ago.
  - kaybe 8y ago
    And it is so much better, because when I'm thinking about X anyway my though process is not hijacked in an uncomfortable way by ads about X, and so sometimes I actually look at them instead of using energy to disregard them and gasp have even clicked on one or two.
  - bcherny 8y ago
    Is there a single ad network or ad platform that does that, besides DuckDuckGo?
- Marsymars 8y ago
  > I mean, what is the alternative? You can pay subscription fees(noone would) I'd be happy to pay for the marginal cost of a quality, highly scaled, private messaging service for me and for everyone I communicate with.

maigret 8y ago

Hard to tell if you’re sarcastic here. Facebook is now a tool that endangers elections. It worsens political dialog and keep people in a bubble that strengthens their uninformed opinions. It does not only shows ads but works super hard on making you addicted to the service, so you spend all your available time looking at ads, even when they don’t look like such (your friends and family are unimportant there, they don’t pay Facebook). So, Facebook does screw up a lot, most of all they screw their users. The monthly fee might help but at this point I’ve lost most trust.

stale2002 8y ago
> It worsens political dialog and keep people in a bubble that strengthens their uninformed opinions. Well it turns out that people tend to prefer their bubble. If a bubble is what they want, who am I to judge? People should be free to make their own decisions.

whatshisface 8y ago

You are suffering from one cut in the thousand cut death mechanism. Each corporation will take away a little of what everyone used to have by default, in exchange for something worth just a little less than what they're taking away. Once every corporation, government office and secret agency has taken their cut you will no longer be a free person. Some time down the line, someone will notice that you are not a free person, and then they will do something that could impact your happiness.

ryandrake 8y ago

I'd rather have irrelevant ads than targeted ones. When I visit a web site and see irrelevant ads, I have more confidence (but not 100%) that they are not collecting or using information about me. So I'd rather see irrelevant ads.