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Completely absent from this narrative is a discussion about the immense value people get out of these technologies and what people like the author propose as a

Completely absent from this narrative is a discussion about the immense value people get out of these technologies and what people like the author propose as a replacement. The internet and "tech giants" have given us the ability to put our thoughts out to a global audience, stay in touch with friends and family around the globe (for free). Take and store a near infinite number of photographs. Order a car to your front door and have the destination chosen before hand without having to negotiate with your driver... Tech is awesome, life is good. Yes the East Coast old media companies hate that they've lost their gatekeeping power but plenty of us would see that as yet another benefit of tech empowerment. The cost? You give up some privacy. Only no one cares about that. Most people don't have anything to hide from advertisers. Most of this personalization tech doesn't even work. I've literally never seen an ad so enticing that I've clicked on it. Normal people love their technology and the "issues" outlined in this piece and the book it's discussing are those of the old money elite and their loss of power, not those of the masses who are more empowered by tech than ever before.

jimmy1 8y ago
> Only no one cares about that. I really wish people would stop saying this. It is a completely idiotic statement. There are hundreds of people throughout history that quite literally gave their lives for privacy, as recent as one generation ago. Complacency and the silent majority does not equate to "no one cares about that" otherwise, you wouldn't have so many privacy centers and advocacy groups throughout the country. > Most people don't have anything to hide from advertisers. "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings Of Privacy" https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=faculty_publications https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=... It's a good read, and I hope it convinces you otherwise that privacy is as important as ever, even in lieu of fallacious "nothing to hide" arguments. From the paper, the easiest way to debunk the "nothing to hide" argument is to ask easy questions. "I've got nothing to hide." "OK, so why do you have curtains or blinds in your home?" "OK you have nothing to hide, so can I see your past credit card statements?" If we all have nothing to hide, why don't those interested in our private lives show us theirs? It's the ole "Show me yours and I’ll show you mine" adage.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  My point is that there is no proposed alternative. Why is there no privacy focused Facebook or Google? The answer is that privacy is not valuable enough to most people to endure the switching costs and alternative solutions don't even exist. So the discussion then comes down to going offline all together (which no one will do) or as this OP asks for: more regulation. Only that further slows down the pace of innovation and further entrenches the large players due to regulatory capture. The article you post is a perfect example of why privacy doesn't matter. Do you think the average FB user will wade through that then erase their account? No. They want the value they get out of FB and nowhere in the counter argument is any suggestion of alternatives.
  - uabstraction 8y ago
    > Why is there no privacy focused Facebook or Google? The tongue-in-cheek answer to this is that they all eventually get bought by Facebook or Google. Anything that poses a threat to Facebook or Google will fold for the right price, as a simple matter of serving the fiduciary interest of the investors. The only platforms which can hold out are the ones explicitly designed to resist centralization. They have no pitch to make to investors, no funds for promotion, but the technology is there. Mastodon and Matrix are proof. The technology is dead simple. Facebook, Reddit and Twitter are nothing but glorified shiny message boards. WhatsApp, Discord, and Skype are nothing but glorified shiny VoIP apps. The only thing that makes them special is the branding
    - nilskidoo 8y ago
      I'd go even further and say that the larger platforms are anti-privacy by design, because their core purpose has always been concerned with data collection. I think the large online social networks are in the same vein fundamentally rightwing, because profiting from the efforts of others has nothing whatsoever to do with leftism. IRL, if you want privacy, you avoid groups. I don't see why the digital realm should be viewed any differently. So there's a duality with social networkers, in that they may want privacy for themselves, yet a large reason for being on those platforms is to learn about everyone else. From a safe distance.
g45y45 8y ago
I care about privacy very deeply. I care more about privacy than the 'immense value' that garbage like facebook provides the world. The 'anything to hide' argument is an authoritarian call, and a way to devalue personal agency wrt privacy. No, I have nothing to share. Your attitude disgusts me. Wake up and see what damage you and your employers are thrusting upon humanity!
- malvosenior 8y ago
  > I care more about privacy than the 'immense value' that garbage like facebook provides the world Then you are in the minority. If there was a mass of people like you then someone could build an alternative and you could use it. That mass doesn't exist though. Most people don't see FB as "garbage" and until you recognize that, then you have a minority opinion (totally ok!) just don't expect billion dollar products to cater to your view.
  - g45y45 8y ago
    Of course I am in the minority. The majority of people on this planet have neither the education, interest or intelligence to understand the cage that is being constructed around them. Are you in the blissful, ignorant majority that cannot see what is actually going on here?
    - enitihas 8y ago
      Well if we go by your narrative then the world is anyways doomed. Since majority of the planet has no education, interest, or intelligence to understand anything complicated, their votes are not going to vote for solving problems which are important, but irrelevant to them. IMHO, unless your cause is important to the masses, it is doomed. You should probably think how can you help the blissful, ignorant majority to understand your perspective from their point of view to achieve your cause.
      - g45y45 8y ago
        I agree -- we are doomed. I have no cause. I stopped believing in democracy a long time ago. I have zero interest in helping others to understand my perspective, best we can hope for is to slow down the tech parasites from harvesting their digital souls.
return0 8y ago
if this wasn't true there wouldn't be tech giants
deogeo 8y ago
> You give up some privacy. Only no one cares about that. Until they want to bring to light government or employer abuses, or organize a union.
xorand 8y ago
>Completely absent from this narrative is a discussion about the immense value people get out of these technologies and what people like the author propose as a replacement. Because today on HN were two postings about Sci-Hub and Elbakian, why not compare Sci-Hub and Google Scholar (or Google Books). Both of immense value for many many people. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19558118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19558118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19550282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19550282
50656E6973 8y ago
>The cost? You give up some privacy. Only no one cares about that. Most people don't have anything to hide from advertisers. SSN, PII/PCI, medical history, personal secrets, naked photos etc...? Identity theft is at an all time high, and it's only getting easier. >Most of this personalization tech doesn't even work. I've literally never seen an ad so enticing that I've clicked on it. Then why are they among the most successful business models in the world?
- smokeAndMirr0rs 8y ago
  A. I've literally never seen an ad so enticing that I've clicked on it. Q. Then why are they among the most successful business models in the world? Perception management. It's a big lie that takes the dare to seem so big it obviously must be true. So, think about it another way. Think about how large of an industry pornography is. But, is pornography really a form of "entertainment" and more importantly, is it one that people actually spend disposable income on? No one, and I mean NO ONE, pays for pornography on the internet. People barely pay for music, and they had to be chased to the ends of the earth before that tide hinted at changing. So then, what is the pornography "industry" reeeealllly? The largest, legalized cluster of elite prostitution rings in the world, operating in plain sight. As a corollary, if advertising only moves the revenue needle to the tune of roughly 10% or less of the normal operations for any given business, what must advertising really be? A means to rationalize operating costs as business expenses, when you're trying to cook the books and hide money for tax purposes, and feed into a corrupt system of payola and favors. A way to conceal exorbitant spending, such that it doesn't appear as part of income or profits. A way to burn cash the way you want, before the government knows it exists, and keep it behind the corporate veil, distributed in the business world for as long as possible, so that someone else takes the tax hit instead of you.
WallWextra 8y ago
I agree. At the very least, there should be some dialogue on whether the trade off is worth it. I lean towards yes, most people think we can get the privacy back without giving up the advantages. I'm not sure how, but I'd be interested.
bill_rr 8y ago
>> The internet and "tech giants" have given us the ability to put our thoughts out to a global audience, stay in touch with friends and family around the globe (for free). Take and store a near infinite number of photographs. Order a car to your front door and have the destination chosen before hand without having to negotiate with your driver... I realize that I'm an outlier here, but after each and every one of these examples, I thought - so what?!
hakfoo 8y ago
There's value, but we need to discuss marginal value and cost. We shouldn't be asking "is Facebook as a whole worth its creepiness" in a vaccuum, it's "is the difference between Facebook and other platforms worth the difference in creepiness?" Everything most consumers use Facebook for (photo/video sharing, chat/messaging, micro-blogging, discussion groups, event management) can be done by other services as well if not better. These days, they might be under different umbrellas, but it's basically the side features of a Yahoo-style portal circa 2002. Features they had no trouble delivering without making undeletable shadow profiles of your garage bandmates, snarfling every bit of data off your Nokia 3310, and selling your political leanings to the Yeltsin administration. The quality of the services aren't the draw. It sure as hell isn't the convoluted user interface and the constant rearranging of things designed to undermine any sense of control you had. The appeal is mostly "but all my friends are there and I can't convince Aunt Bobette to change to Mastodon." And that problem can be solved with federation and SSO initiatives.

jimmy1 8y ago

> Only no one cares about that. I really wish people would stop saying this. It is a completely idiotic statement. There are hundreds of people throughout history that quite literally gave their lives for privacy, as recent as one generation ago. Complacency and the silent majority does not equate to "no one cares about that" otherwise, you wouldn't have so many privacy centers and advocacy groups throughout the country. > Most people don't have anything to hide from advertisers. "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings Of Privacy" https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=faculty_publications https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=... It's a good read, and I hope it convinces you otherwise that privacy is as important as ever, even in lieu of fallacious "nothing to hide" arguments. From the paper, the easiest way to debunk the "nothing to hide" argument is to ask easy questions. "I've got nothing to hide." "OK, so why do you have curtains or blinds in your home?" "OK you have nothing to hide, so can I see your past credit card statements?" If we all have nothing to hide, why don't those interested in our private lives show us theirs? It's the ole "Show me yours and I’ll show you mine" adage.

malvosenior 8y ago
My point is that there is no proposed alternative. Why is there no privacy focused Facebook or Google? The answer is that privacy is not valuable enough to most people to endure the switching costs and alternative solutions don't even exist. So the discussion then comes down to going offline all together (which no one will do) or as this OP asks for: more regulation. Only that further slows down the pace of innovation and further entrenches the large players due to regulatory capture. The article you post is a perfect example of why privacy doesn't matter. Do you think the average FB user will wade through that then erase their account? No. They want the value they get out of FB and nowhere in the counter argument is any suggestion of alternatives.
- uabstraction 8y ago
  > Why is there no privacy focused Facebook or Google? The tongue-in-cheek answer to this is that they all eventually get bought by Facebook or Google. Anything that poses a threat to Facebook or Google will fold for the right price, as a simple matter of serving the fiduciary interest of the investors. The only platforms which can hold out are the ones explicitly designed to resist centralization. They have no pitch to make to investors, no funds for promotion, but the technology is there. Mastodon and Matrix are proof. The technology is dead simple. Facebook, Reddit and Twitter are nothing but glorified shiny message boards. WhatsApp, Discord, and Skype are nothing but glorified shiny VoIP apps. The only thing that makes them special is the branding
  - nilskidoo 8y ago
    I'd go even further and say that the larger platforms are anti-privacy by design, because their core purpose has always been concerned with data collection. I think the large online social networks are in the same vein fundamentally rightwing, because profiting from the efforts of others has nothing whatsoever to do with leftism. IRL, if you want privacy, you avoid groups. I don't see why the digital realm should be viewed any differently. So there's a duality with social networkers, in that they may want privacy for themselves, yet a large reason for being on those platforms is to learn about everyone else. From a safe distance.

g45y45 8y ago

I care about privacy very deeply. I care more about privacy than the 'immense value' that garbage like facebook provides the world. The 'anything to hide' argument is an authoritarian call, and a way to devalue personal agency wrt privacy. No, I have nothing to share. Your attitude disgusts me. Wake up and see what damage you and your employers are thrusting upon humanity!

malvosenior 8y ago
> I care more about privacy than the 'immense value' that garbage like facebook provides the world Then you are in the minority. If there was a mass of people like you then someone could build an alternative and you could use it. That mass doesn't exist though. Most people don't see FB as "garbage" and until you recognize that, then you have a minority opinion (totally ok!) just don't expect billion dollar products to cater to your view.
- g45y45 8y ago
  Of course I am in the minority. The majority of people on this planet have neither the education, interest or intelligence to understand the cage that is being constructed around them. Are you in the blissful, ignorant majority that cannot see what is actually going on here?
  - enitihas 8y ago
    Well if we go by your narrative then the world is anyways doomed. Since majority of the planet has no education, interest, or intelligence to understand anything complicated, their votes are not going to vote for solving problems which are important, but irrelevant to them. IMHO, unless your cause is important to the masses, it is doomed. You should probably think how can you help the blissful, ignorant majority to understand your perspective from their point of view to achieve your cause.
    - g45y45 8y ago
      I agree -- we are doomed. I have no cause. I stopped believing in democracy a long time ago. I have zero interest in helping others to understand my perspective, best we can hope for is to slow down the tech parasites from harvesting their digital souls.

return0 8y ago

if this wasn't true there wouldn't be tech giants

deogeo 8y ago

> You give up some privacy. Only no one cares about that. Until they want to bring to light government or employer abuses, or organize a union.

xorand 8y ago

>Completely absent from this narrative is a discussion about the immense value people get out of these technologies and what people like the author propose as a replacement. Because today on HN were two postings about Sci-Hub and Elbakian, why not compare Sci-Hub and Google Scholar (or Google Books). Both of immense value for many many people. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19558118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19558118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19550282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19550282

50656E6973 8y ago

>The cost? You give up some privacy. Only no one cares about that. Most people don't have anything to hide from advertisers. SSN, PII/PCI, medical history, personal secrets, naked photos etc...? Identity theft is at an all time high, and it's only getting easier. >Most of this personalization tech doesn't even work. I've literally never seen an ad so enticing that I've clicked on it. Then why are they among the most successful business models in the world?

smokeAndMirr0rs 8y ago
A. I've literally never seen an ad so enticing that I've clicked on it. Q. Then why are they among the most successful business models in the world? Perception management. It's a big lie that takes the dare to seem so big it obviously must be true. So, think about it another way. Think about how large of an industry pornography is. But, is pornography really a form of "entertainment" and more importantly, is it one that people actually spend disposable income on? No one, and I mean NO ONE, pays for pornography on the internet. People barely pay for music, and they had to be chased to the ends of the earth before that tide hinted at changing. So then, what is the pornography "industry" reeeealllly? The largest, legalized cluster of elite prostitution rings in the world, operating in plain sight. As a corollary, if advertising only moves the revenue needle to the tune of roughly 10% or less of the normal operations for any given business, what must advertising really be? A means to rationalize operating costs as business expenses, when you're trying to cook the books and hide money for tax purposes, and feed into a corrupt system of payola and favors. A way to conceal exorbitant spending, such that it doesn't appear as part of income or profits. A way to burn cash the way you want, before the government knows it exists, and keep it behind the corporate veil, distributed in the business world for as long as possible, so that someone else takes the tax hit instead of you.

WallWextra 8y ago

I agree. At the very least, there should be some dialogue on whether the trade off is worth it. I lean towards yes, most people think we can get the privacy back without giving up the advantages. I'm not sure how, but I'd be interested.

bill_rr 8y ago

>> The internet and "tech giants" have given us the ability to put our thoughts out to a global audience, stay in touch with friends and family around the globe (for free). Take and store a near infinite number of photographs. Order a car to your front door and have the destination chosen before hand without having to negotiate with your driver... I realize that I'm an outlier here, but after each and every one of these examples, I thought - so what?!

hakfoo 8y ago

There's value, but we need to discuss marginal value and cost. We shouldn't be asking "is Facebook as a whole worth its creepiness" in a vaccuum, it's "is the difference between Facebook and other platforms worth the difference in creepiness?" Everything most consumers use Facebook for (photo/video sharing, chat/messaging, micro-blogging, discussion groups, event management) can be done by other services as well if not better. These days, they might be under different umbrellas, but it's basically the side features of a Yahoo-style portal circa 2002. Features they had no trouble delivering without making undeletable shadow profiles of your garage bandmates, snarfling every bit of data off your Nokia 3310, and selling your political leanings to the Yeltsin administration. The quality of the services aren't the draw. It sure as hell isn't the convoluted user interface and the constant rearranging of things designed to undermine any sense of control you had. The appeal is mostly "but all my friends are there and I can't convince Aunt Bobette to change to Mastodon." And that problem can be solved with federation and SSO initiatives.