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Honest question - What are your personal feelings about working on tech that many (perhaps most), HN users consider harmful from a security and privacy standpoi

by mthoms 7y ago

Honest question - What are your personal feelings about working on tech that many (perhaps most), HN users consider harmful from a security and privacy standpoint?

bad_user 7y ago
I think ads provide a business model without which many online services won't survive. And indeed there's the privacy angle, however... (1) laws like the GDPR are far more effective at fighting that and (2) ads don't have to actually do personalisation to work and indeed, now that GDPR is in, in the EU many publishers are turning to less intrusive advertising. I also think many users block ads for reasons unrelated to privacy. As proof, whenever a new restriction happens for a free service without ads, you only need to witness the outrage, like for example when Dropbox limited its free service to sync with only 3 devices, or when OneDrive lowered the storage provided on its free tier, etc. Also witness, for all the bitching and moaning about privacy issues, how many people here are still using a @gmail.com address. Truth of the matter is many people want to eat their cake and have it too. Most people just wants free stuff without any inconvenience. and it's hard to take them seriously. Don't get me wrong, I'm using an ad-blocker myself. However I'm also paying for the content I'm consuming whenever I can, if it has any value to me. I happily pay for YouTube Premium for example, also for Fastmail, Dropbox, Newsblur and others. So how do I feel? I'm feeling fine to be honest.
cmroanirgo 7y ago
If you need to ask other people's advice, then it's probably not ok, because you're already questioning it yourself. The problem is that there's a part of your psychology that wants to ignore any 'moral' issues for some reason. Money and self-status are the two most common reasons I can think of that makes us want to go ahead with a project that others would prefer be left alone. Specifically, you used the word "harm" which implies that you understand that your actions can actually harm others. I'd give that a solid - "don't do it". Love thy neighbor, brother.

by mthoms 7y ago

Honest question - What are your personal feelings about working on tech that many (perhaps most), HN users consider harmful from a security and privacy standpoint?

bad_user 7y ago

I think ads provide a business model without which many online services won't survive. And indeed there's the privacy angle, however... (1) laws like the GDPR are far more effective at fighting that and (2) ads don't have to actually do personalisation to work and indeed, now that GDPR is in, in the EU many publishers are turning to less intrusive advertising. I also think many users block ads for reasons unrelated to privacy. As proof, whenever a new restriction happens for a free service without ads, you only need to witness the outrage, like for example when Dropbox limited its free service to sync with only 3 devices, or when OneDrive lowered the storage provided on its free tier, etc. Also witness, for all the bitching and moaning about privacy issues, how many people here are still using a @gmail.com address. Truth of the matter is many people want to eat their cake and have it too. Most people just wants free stuff without any inconvenience. and it's hard to take them seriously. Don't get me wrong, I'm using an ad-blocker myself. However I'm also paying for the content I'm consuming whenever I can, if it has any value to me. I happily pay for YouTube Premium for example, also for Fastmail, Dropbox, Newsblur and others. So how do I feel? I'm feeling fine to be honest.

cmroanirgo 7y ago

If you need to ask other people's advice, then it's probably not ok, because you're already questioning it yourself. The problem is that there's a part of your psychology that wants to ignore any 'moral' issues for some reason. Money and self-status are the two most common reasons I can think of that makes us want to go ahead with a project that others would prefer be left alone. Specifically, you used the word "harm" which implies that you understand that your actions can actually harm others. I'd give that a solid - "don't do it". Love thy neighbor, brother.