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Mozilla bragging to me about how they're defending me on the web is like Smith & Wesson telling me they're keeping me safe from guns. It also seems like the he

Mozilla bragging to me about how they're defending me on the web is like Smith & Wesson telling me they're keeping me safe from guns. It also seems like the height of hypocrisy to complain about data privacy when people use almost exclusively free services online. Somebody has to pay for it all, and since users refuse to do so, advertising has to. It's simple math: if you don't pay for content, your data will be monetized to pay for it. If all use of private data on the web was somehow regulated into oblivion, the web would collapse, because there'd be no money to pay for it.

zzzcpan 8y ago
Invasive advertisement doesn't fund most of the web, it only funds some thousands of top websites and I bet most of them can exist without invasive tracking and banners. There are still brand deals and content advertising and other forms of non banner advertisement, not to mention non advertising business models. And most websites can't exist on advertising revenue anyway and are funded some other way.
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  There's no question of whether a business can exist without targeted advertising ("invasive" advertising). But they're definitely going to use it whenever feasible, because it's the most efficient form, possibly more than direct marketing. The ways a business can make money online are A) partnerships, B) advertising, C) goods/services, D) subscriptions, or E) community. The last two are dwarfed by the first three, which depend on advertising. Even if you're a B2B, you still need marketing to get new clients, which almost invariably includes some kind of advertising. So the majority of websites people visit are still paid for with some form of marketing. It may be indirect, such as by affiliate, partnership, selling of private data, etc, or it may be direct, such as with advertisements and spam/newsletters. The user is still going to pay for it, one way or another. If they're not paying via a subscription or donation, they're paying through their use as a marketing target. (And often, via both!)

zzzcpan 8y ago

Invasive advertisement doesn't fund most of the web, it only funds some thousands of top websites and I bet most of them can exist without invasive tracking and banners. There are still brand deals and content advertising and other forms of non banner advertisement, not to mention non advertising business models. And most websites can't exist on advertising revenue anyway and are funded some other way.

peterwwillis 8y ago
There's no question of whether a business can exist without targeted advertising ("invasive" advertising). But they're definitely going to use it whenever feasible, because it's the most efficient form, possibly more than direct marketing. The ways a business can make money online are A) partnerships, B) advertising, C) goods/services, D) subscriptions, or E) community. The last two are dwarfed by the first three, which depend on advertising. Even if you're a B2B, you still need marketing to get new clients, which almost invariably includes some kind of advertising. So the majority of websites people visit are still paid for with some form of marketing. It may be indirect, such as by affiliate, partnership, selling of private data, etc, or it may be direct, such as with advertisements and spam/newsletters. The user is still going to pay for it, one way or another. If they're not paying via a subscription or donation, they're paying through their use as a marketing target. (And often, via both!)