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> Expect everybody to follow suit. Year or two down the road this type of scanning and control will be mandatory. Indeed, this article (despite many incorrect

by judge2020 5y ago

> Expect everybody to follow suit. Year or two down the road this type of scanning and control will be mandatory. Indeed, this article (despite many incorrect facts about the process) is right in that this is just a vocal minority 'screeching' to get the message out there to anyone willing to listen. The absolute majority of the population, or at least adult population, will always choose the path of least resistance - they just wants to live, work, avoid hardship, and partake in dopamine-inducing activity every day. There's a reason Google and Amazon are trillion-dollar enterprises and Hulu still has an ad-supported version that 70% of people choose[0] - people don't value privacy at all when dealing with these faceless companies. Society has always shifted the level of privacy they accept (think taxes, audits, search & seizure with probably cause), and this will just be another shift that people accept so that they continue on with their lives while not sacrificing any of their valuable time. 0: https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/hulu-ad-supported-subscribers-70-percent-1203227954/ https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/hulu-ad-supported-subs...

geeB 5y ago
The hulu number was quite surprising to me, given that the ad supported tier is $6/mo vs $12/mo for ad free, and if someone watches enough the extra $6/mo would seem worth it. It might have a lot to do with their $1.99 for one year promotion they do on Black Fridays though, which would change things considerably ($2 vs $144 per year), especially for households without enough disposable income. Easy enough to switch to a different person every year and keep it going for a while, and also at the time of that article it had been less than 3 years since the free tier with ads was removed. I don't think privacy has much to do with it though. People that don't have any idea about these topics just wouldn't care, and at least in my case I care but I'm under no illusion that paying for ad-free changes anything other than the convenience of not having ads. iirc hulu's ads cannot be skipped anyway, so they pretty much can collect the same exact information from both tiers.
WorldMaker 5y ago
Ad-supported is a distinct concern from "level of privacy", though. Google (et al) have done a lot to muddy the waters and keep telling us that ad-support "requires" panopticon levels of tracking and no privacy, but centuries of advertising history before that existed with little to no individual tracking and/or where is was maybe physically impossible (in magazines, newspapers, broadcast TV). Personally, I have no problem with ad-supported and generic/no-tracking. Ads themselves are not the privacy invasion, and have a reasonable history of helping to pay for things, and it is possible to rebuild ad companies to respect privacy (again). (It might take burning a few big players to the ground first, unfortunately.)

geeB 5y ago

The hulu number was quite surprising to me, given that the ad supported tier is $6/mo vs $12/mo for ad free, and if someone watches enough the extra $6/mo would seem worth it. It might have a lot to do with their $1.99 for one year promotion they do on Black Fridays though, which would change things considerably ($2 vs $144 per year), especially for households without enough disposable income. Easy enough to switch to a different person every year and keep it going for a while, and also at the time of that article it had been less than 3 years since the free tier with ads was removed. I don't think privacy has much to do with it though. People that don't have any idea about these topics just wouldn't care, and at least in my case I care but I'm under no illusion that paying for ad-free changes anything other than the convenience of not having ads. iirc hulu's ads cannot be skipped anyway, so they pretty much can collect the same exact information from both tiers.

WorldMaker 5y ago

Ad-supported is a distinct concern from "level of privacy", though. Google (et al) have done a lot to muddy the waters and keep telling us that ad-support "requires" panopticon levels of tracking and no privacy, but centuries of advertising history before that existed with little to no individual tracking and/or where is was maybe physically impossible (in magazines, newspapers, broadcast TV). Personally, I have no problem with ad-supported and generic/no-tracking. Ads themselves are not the privacy invasion, and have a reasonable history of helping to pay for things, and it is possible to rebuild ad companies to respect privacy (again). (It might take burning a few big players to the ground first, unfortunately.)