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Not everyone can afford to pay for a browser. Get off your privileged horse and stop imposing your privacy argument on everyone. A mother in the bronx fighting

Not everyone can afford to pay for a browser. Get off your privileged horse and stop imposing your privacy argument on everyone. A mother in the bronx fighting for survival is not going to pay for a browser. The free browser is a godsend.

aspaceman 6y ago
You don't need to be on a privileged horse to make both the privacy argument and the welfare argument. You don't have to argue against them. There's options for public funding of such things. I know that's nowhere near where our political mindset is, but you could require a browser to be paid, but have government programs and subsidies that make the browsing free for most people. Then all the incentives are properly accounted for.
- mav3rick 6y ago
  This will take 50 years to pass and countless kids will again be at a disadvantage while searching the Internet.
john_moscow 6y ago
This is tricky. She is still paying for it because when she buys a box of cereal from the store, X% of the price goes to the ad budget, Y% of which goes to Google, and Z% of that goes to the Chrome developers. She also pays by getting a lower wage, because if most of the people had to pay $1/month for a browser, the salary cutoff point, beyond which people would simply not want to work, would be $1 higher. And then through supply/demand, it would slightly raise the average salaries. And, BTW, she would have one more opportunity to save money by not paying for a browser, and instead reading from a library computer. Or maybe using a cheaper volunteer-maintained Linux-like browser. The thing is, money is just a token of passing value between people. If Alice is developing the browser and Bob is using it, there will be a mechanism to pass value from Bob to Alice to compensate for it. It can be either straight-forward (putting Bob in control) or centralized (through some social program, or ad revenue or whatever), but there will be one. Otherwise, Alice would spend her day playing ping-pong with friends, or cycling, or whatever people do when they don't have to work. BTW, I do think that many social problems we are recently facing come from the fact that people are getting more disconnected from consciously producing value. If the abstract mother in Bronx had a clear path to making more money by opening a business and selling something to others, she would take that chance. And she would happily grow as a person and respect others who went the same path, regardless of their skin color. Except how many % of your monthly budget have you spent on owner-operated businesses vs. sector monopolies that treat people like drones and de-facto discourage professional growth to keep people more replaceable? That might also answer the question why the median salary in most areas barely covers rent, while the stock market is record high. Except instead of asking those questions and finding a way for people to contribute value in each others' lives without middlemen, we are turning tribal and trying to blame races, genders and political affiliations for a problem that truly affects us all.
- mav3rick 6y ago
  All of this sounds great in theory but a dollar on food vs a dollar on a browser, I know what that mom is spending it on.
  - john_moscow 6y ago
    In practice it's junk food and brand name sneakers unfortunately. As someone who was born to poverty beyond what even the poorest Americans have, and made it all the way up, I can see that most of the people's problems come from bad planning and lack of self-discipline. But, of course, the fact the I made it, makes me "privileged" and gives an easy excuse to discard my opinion.
    - mav3rick 6y ago
      You easily discarded others' woes to some lack of self discipline. Rather than acknowledging how hard even one mistake in that condition could be. Miss out on a loan, oh pay some exorbitant penalty etc. Cycle keeps on going. Rather than showing empathy you're saying that "it must be their fault they can't make it". Don't pretend to know everyone's story. And if you feel this strongly, why don't you make a paid browser product ? Half the people here won't even pay for it, let alone the world.

aspaceman 6y ago

You don't need to be on a privileged horse to make both the privacy argument and the welfare argument. You don't have to argue against them. There's options for public funding of such things. I know that's nowhere near where our political mindset is, but you could require a browser to be paid, but have government programs and subsidies that make the browsing free for most people. Then all the incentives are properly accounted for.

mav3rick 6y ago
This will take 50 years to pass and countless kids will again be at a disadvantage while searching the Internet.

john_moscow 6y ago

This is tricky. She is still paying for it because when she buys a box of cereal from the store, X% of the price goes to the ad budget, Y% of which goes to Google, and Z% of that goes to the Chrome developers. She also pays by getting a lower wage, because if most of the people had to pay $1/month for a browser, the salary cutoff point, beyond which people would simply not want to work, would be $1 higher. And then through supply/demand, it would slightly raise the average salaries. And, BTW, she would have one more opportunity to save money by not paying for a browser, and instead reading from a library computer. Or maybe using a cheaper volunteer-maintained Linux-like browser. The thing is, money is just a token of passing value between people. If Alice is developing the browser and Bob is using it, there will be a mechanism to pass value from Bob to Alice to compensate for it. It can be either straight-forward (putting Bob in control) or centralized (through some social program, or ad revenue or whatever), but there will be one. Otherwise, Alice would spend her day playing ping-pong with friends, or cycling, or whatever people do when they don't have to work. BTW, I do think that many social problems we are recently facing come from the fact that people are getting more disconnected from consciously producing value. If the abstract mother in Bronx had a clear path to making more money by opening a business and selling something to others, she would take that chance. And she would happily grow as a person and respect others who went the same path, regardless of their skin color. Except how many % of your monthly budget have you spent on owner-operated businesses vs. sector monopolies that treat people like drones and de-facto discourage professional growth to keep people more replaceable? That might also answer the question why the median salary in most areas barely covers rent, while the stock market is record high. Except instead of asking those questions and finding a way for people to contribute value in each others' lives without middlemen, we are turning tribal and trying to blame races, genders and political affiliations for a problem that truly affects us all.

mav3rick 6y ago
All of this sounds great in theory but a dollar on food vs a dollar on a browser, I know what that mom is spending it on.
- john_moscow 6y ago
  In practice it's junk food and brand name sneakers unfortunately. As someone who was born to poverty beyond what even the poorest Americans have, and made it all the way up, I can see that most of the people's problems come from bad planning and lack of self-discipline. But, of course, the fact the I made it, makes me "privileged" and gives an easy excuse to discard my opinion.
  - mav3rick 6y ago
    You easily discarded others' woes to some lack of self discipline. Rather than acknowledging how hard even one mistake in that condition could be. Miss out on a loan, oh pay some exorbitant penalty etc. Cycle keeps on going. Rather than showing empathy you're saying that "it must be their fault they can't make it". Don't pretend to know everyone's story. And if you feel this strongly, why don't you make a paid browser product ? Half the people here won't even pay for it, let alone the world.