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> No, but someone giving bread away for free and doing that wouldn't be so clearly bad. I would say that's even worse. By giving bread away for free, he's maki

> No, but someone giving bread away for free and doing that wouldn't be so clearly bad. I would say that's even worse. By giving bread away for free, he's making it impossible for other bakeries to compete unless they do the same thing. This is why there are no serious competitors to services like Facebook or GMail. It's impossible to compete with free unless you monetize the data. I say this as someone who pays for ProtonMail. Do you think it's possible to convince friends and family to start paying for email as well when they already get it for free?

tinus_hn 8y ago
I refuse to believe it is impossible to earn money by showing ads without allowing full scale tracking. It’s just easier and more profitable to not care.
- rhizome 8y ago
  It’s just easier and more profitable to not care Easier yes, more profitable no. Selling direct advertising is the most profitable of all: the money all goes to the site without 20 trackers and 8 seconds of auction-waiting on each of your pages, resulting in a better experience for everybody.
  - thekyle 8y ago
    > the money all goes to the site without 20 trackers and 8 seconds of auction-waiting on each of your pages, resulting in a better experience for everybody This doesn't prove that direct selling is more profitable. Sure there is no ad network taking a 40% cut but sites also need to run their own in house sales staff then.
    - rhizome 8y ago
      I'm sure an enterprising programmer or two could whip up a self-serve ad facility the same as they have with any other ecommerce plugin. And I'm pretty sure that per-unit it is indeed more profitable.
michaelmior 8y ago
For me, it's not just the cost of email but also the fact that I use several useful services that only work with Gmail. Of course, this means further compromises in privacy, so maybe not the best choice, but that's where I'm at now.
otachack 8y ago
I think it's a matter of time until people start valuing privacy enough to overcome the threshold to pay for email. For us, our thresholds were lower due to our knowledge in the tech space.
- ferbivore 8y ago
  This seems unlikely. Most people only have things to hide from their family, friends and neighbours. They don't care about whatever data Google, Facebook, Visa or their government might collect about them, and will prefer free services no matter what the privacy cost is.
  - sorokod 8y ago
    They will when it starts affecting their medical insurance, interactions with the legal system,etc...
    - ferbivore 8y ago
      But it won't. Very, very few people actually run into any trouble because of their disregard for privacy.
      - arminiusreturns 8y ago
        I think you are wrong. You are both talking in the future tense but you seem to be doing thinking what is now will be the same later, and it won't be. Companies are starting to catch on, many forced to evolve or die but many are simply looking for extra margins, and they will exploit any technology they can. A great example of this is car insurance companies. I had a friend who is a very careful driver and was looking to maximize his cost savings, so agreed to use an app that would track things like hard braking, average speed, etc, and at first he was complaining about how stupid the definitions for hard breaking were, then after months of data the insurance company actually raised his rates with the justification that his driving times were during peak traffic hours (you know, when everyone drives to work and back) and therefor he was a higher risk. I told him before he started that would be the outcome. Simply because I extrapolated the insurance companies wanted to be able to use data they defined to make extra money. Not working? Redefine the data. Not to mention the fact they are probably also making a bit Morea on top selling it to a third party (and even in anonymized, I think we all know how easy it is these days to deanonymize data) People will start caring because it will affect them, but I'd they don't start caring now it will largely be too late or at least a much harder battle.
koboll 8y ago
>By giving bread away for free, he's making it impossible for other bakeries to compete unless they do the same thing. He's not going to make enough from simply selling data to invest in talented bakers and quality ingredients, so his bread will be visibly at the lowest tier of quality. Other bakeries will compete on baking bread that is actually edible.
- josho 8y ago
  I don’t follow. Because clearly google and Facebook (the bakers in this analogy) are incredibly profitable and pay top dollar for top talent.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  This used to be true, when material ingredients cost significant money, and one baker could only make so many loaves a day. However, computers mean that the analogy breaks down. The data is selling for more than the cost of the service.
xoa 8y ago
Edit/Preface: I made this post just in response to the point about email, but I think there's a broad contention here. Regarding email, just be clear, I think it's a poorer example then many because it really can be offered for a song. The complex bits are highly amortizable, it's standardized/static/federated, and the fundamental storage/memory/cpu/bandwidth per normal user is nearly zilch. Business models are a lot more flexible with all that. There are other services where it's a lot more arguable that "free" does mess up the market. But only to a point, I think it's actually become somewhat overrated as a principle. Many of the most valuable subpopulations of any market are made up of people who know perfectly well how financial reality works, and that things that aren't free to offer need to get paid for somehow. There was a period where often "free" really was essentially free, because it was VCs pissing away money, and it was perfectly rational to use it. Or there were volunteer efforts while people tried things. Much of that of course was not sustainable, and the compromises that come with it long term are a lot more visible and widely known now. There is backlash to be seen against "free" models in plenty of areas. Sure, much of the market may make the bargain, but that isn't the same thing as there being no market for something that has a higher sticker price but offers privacy and quality alongside that. --Original Post-- >Do you think it's possible to convince friends and family to start paying for email as well when they already get it for free? Yeah, pretty trivially, so long as their needs are normal. Email is just such a fundamentally light service for most usage that it can be covered easily. These days I do most of my domains through Gandi.net for example, and each domain includes 5 mailboxes at 3 gigs a pop. In actual practice is just hasn't been hard to sell friends and family on the value of having their own domain for email. It looks good/personalized, it means they can have the exact handle they want rather then johndoe5712038123871@gmail.com, tying into that they can have easier mailbox splits, it means they can keep their email if they move to a different service, and $16/year or less simply does not break the bank. I've set up a lot of friends and family at this point, and nobody has ever had any difficulty grasping the advantages of any of these in this day and age. Many have for example lost old email accounts before due to moving services, and "this can be yours for the rest of your life regardless of where you go" is quite compelling. It's not even just companies going out of business, it's not hard to pull up stories of Google alglorithms banning accounts for unrelated stuff for example, and it being nearly impossible to rectify. The real obstacle isn't some minimal payment, it's that it's seen as more technically challenging, or they've simply never considered it at all.
dennisgorelik 8y ago
If your privacy is important to you, then you would go to the baker that does not sell your private information and charges money for bread. If there are enough people who are ready to pay for their bread and prevent selling out their private information -- then it would allow such privacy respecting bakeries to exist.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  Because auditing is garbage and there's no way to know who isn't collecting this information.
  - dennisgorelik 8y ago
    Collecting information is not really a concern for the vast majority of users. But some users start to worry when that information is getting sold to third-party providers. Information sales are easier to audit.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      Collected information almost always turns into transferred information at some point. Knowing they don't sell anything now doesn't help you in five years when the company has a change of heart or a change of ownership.
    - ohazi 8y ago
      I don't think it's true that the vast majority of users aren't concerned. The vast majority of users don't understand what is happening, and the few that are aware have decided that it's not worth the fuss, because they have correctly internalized that they basically have no real choice in the matter. This sort of data collection is almost never optional, and when it is, the settings are deliberately hidden and obfuscated behind the worst kind of dark patterns. If properly informed about what data is collected, and given a real choice about opting out, that doesn't reset every two seconds or hobble the service (what gdpr theoretically requires), I think the majority of users would be concerned and would opt out of as much as possible.

tinus_hn 8y ago

I refuse to believe it is impossible to earn money by showing ads without allowing full scale tracking. It’s just easier and more profitable to not care.

rhizome 8y ago
It’s just easier and more profitable to not care Easier yes, more profitable no. Selling direct advertising is the most profitable of all: the money all goes to the site without 20 trackers and 8 seconds of auction-waiting on each of your pages, resulting in a better experience for everybody.
- thekyle 8y ago
  > the money all goes to the site without 20 trackers and 8 seconds of auction-waiting on each of your pages, resulting in a better experience for everybody This doesn't prove that direct selling is more profitable. Sure there is no ad network taking a 40% cut but sites also need to run their own in house sales staff then.
  - rhizome 8y ago
    I'm sure an enterprising programmer or two could whip up a self-serve ad facility the same as they have with any other ecommerce plugin. And I'm pretty sure that per-unit it is indeed more profitable.

michaelmior 8y ago

For me, it's not just the cost of email but also the fact that I use several useful services that only work with Gmail. Of course, this means further compromises in privacy, so maybe not the best choice, but that's where I'm at now.

otachack 8y ago

I think it's a matter of time until people start valuing privacy enough to overcome the threshold to pay for email. For us, our thresholds were lower due to our knowledge in the tech space.

ferbivore 8y ago
This seems unlikely. Most people only have things to hide from their family, friends and neighbours. They don't care about whatever data Google, Facebook, Visa or their government might collect about them, and will prefer free services no matter what the privacy cost is.
- sorokod 8y ago
  They will when it starts affecting their medical insurance, interactions with the legal system,etc...
  - ferbivore 8y ago
    But it won't. Very, very few people actually run into any trouble because of their disregard for privacy.
    - arminiusreturns 8y ago
      I think you are wrong. You are both talking in the future tense but you seem to be doing thinking what is now will be the same later, and it won't be. Companies are starting to catch on, many forced to evolve or die but many are simply looking for extra margins, and they will exploit any technology they can. A great example of this is car insurance companies. I had a friend who is a very careful driver and was looking to maximize his cost savings, so agreed to use an app that would track things like hard braking, average speed, etc, and at first he was complaining about how stupid the definitions for hard breaking were, then after months of data the insurance company actually raised his rates with the justification that his driving times were during peak traffic hours (you know, when everyone drives to work and back) and therefor he was a higher risk. I told him before he started that would be the outcome. Simply because I extrapolated the insurance companies wanted to be able to use data they defined to make extra money. Not working? Redefine the data. Not to mention the fact they are probably also making a bit Morea on top selling it to a third party (and even in anonymized, I think we all know how easy it is these days to deanonymize data) People will start caring because it will affect them, but I'd they don't start caring now it will largely be too late or at least a much harder battle.

koboll 8y ago

>By giving bread away for free, he's making it impossible for other bakeries to compete unless they do the same thing. He's not going to make enough from simply selling data to invest in talented bakers and quality ingredients, so his bread will be visibly at the lowest tier of quality. Other bakeries will compete on baking bread that is actually edible.

josho 8y ago
I don’t follow. Because clearly google and Facebook (the bakers in this analogy) are incredibly profitable and pay top dollar for top talent.
LeifCarrotson 8y ago
This used to be true, when material ingredients cost significant money, and one baker could only make so many loaves a day. However, computers mean that the analogy breaks down. The data is selling for more than the cost of the service.

xoa 8y ago

Edit/Preface: I made this post just in response to the point about email, but I think there's a broad contention here. Regarding email, just be clear, I think it's a poorer example then many because it really can be offered for a song. The complex bits are highly amortizable, it's standardized/static/federated, and the fundamental storage/memory/cpu/bandwidth per normal user is nearly zilch. Business models are a lot more flexible with all that. There are other services where it's a lot more arguable that "free" does mess up the market. But only to a point, I think it's actually become somewhat overrated as a principle. Many of the most valuable subpopulations of any market are made up of people who know perfectly well how financial reality works, and that things that aren't free to offer need to get paid for somehow. There was a period where often "free" really was essentially free, because it was VCs pissing away money, and it was perfectly rational to use it. Or there were volunteer efforts while people tried things. Much of that of course was not sustainable, and the compromises that come with it long term are a lot more visible and widely known now. There is backlash to be seen against "free" models in plenty of areas. Sure, much of the market may make the bargain, but that isn't the same thing as there being no market for something that has a higher sticker price but offers privacy and quality alongside that. --Original Post-- >Do you think it's possible to convince friends and family to start paying for email as well when they already get it for free? Yeah, pretty trivially, so long as their needs are normal. Email is just such a fundamentally light service for most usage that it can be covered easily. These days I do most of my domains through Gandi.net for example, and each domain includes 5 mailboxes at 3 gigs a pop. In actual practice is just hasn't been hard to sell friends and family on the value of having their own domain for email. It looks good/personalized, it means they can have the exact handle they want rather then johndoe5712038123871@gmail.com, tying into that they can have easier mailbox splits, it means they can keep their email if they move to a different service, and $16/year or less simply does not break the bank. I've set up a lot of friends and family at this point, and nobody has ever had any difficulty grasping the advantages of any of these in this day and age. Many have for example lost old email accounts before due to moving services, and "this can be yours for the rest of your life regardless of where you go" is quite compelling. It's not even just companies going out of business, it's not hard to pull up stories of Google alglorithms banning accounts for unrelated stuff for example, and it being nearly impossible to rectify. The real obstacle isn't some minimal payment, it's that it's seen as more technically challenging, or they've simply never considered it at all.

dennisgorelik 8y ago

If your privacy is important to you, then you would go to the baker that does not sell your private information and charges money for bread. If there are enough people who are ready to pay for their bread and prevent selling out their private information -- then it would allow such privacy respecting bakeries to exist.

Dylan16807 8y ago
Because auditing is garbage and there's no way to know who isn't collecting this information.
- dennisgorelik 8y ago
  Collecting information is not really a concern for the vast majority of users. But some users start to worry when that information is getting sold to third-party providers. Information sales are easier to audit.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    Collected information almost always turns into transferred information at some point. Knowing they don't sell anything now doesn't help you in five years when the company has a change of heart or a change of ownership.
  - ohazi 8y ago
    I don't think it's true that the vast majority of users aren't concerned. The vast majority of users don't understand what is happening, and the few that are aware have decided that it's not worth the fuss, because they have correctly internalized that they basically have no real choice in the matter. This sort of data collection is almost never optional, and when it is, the settings are deliberately hidden and obfuscated behind the worst kind of dark patterns. If properly informed about what data is collected, and given a real choice about opting out, that doesn't reset every two seconds or hobble the service (what gdpr theoretically requires), I think the majority of users would be concerned and would opt out of as much as possible.