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To be frank, I really don’t care. The ad-driven business model needs to die. The ad-driven business model is making our society sick on so many levels. The inc

To be frank, I really don’t care. The ad-driven business model needs to die. The ad-driven business model is making our society sick on so many levels. The incentivization it creates is totally toxic. It’s one of the biggest driving forces behind our near total loss of privacy online and offline (the psychological ramifications of which we’ll be unpacking for decades to come - if, of course, we don’t destroy ourselves first in advertising-promoting algorithmically driven social media-induced fits of rage). There are many other ways to make money online that allow you to make the user and the customer the same person. And if you can’t find a way, maybe your site/service shouldn’t exist in the first place.

bruce511 5y ago
While I don't disagree with your premise, I feel you may be a tad over dramatic here. If you don't want to be advertised to, then don't use services paid for by advertising. For example use Netflix, not broadcast-TV, pay for YouTube premium, not plain YouTube and so on. Your fears on psychological damage have been around since media was invented - I still remember panic about subliminal advertising in the 70s - and meh - it's just advertising. Social media, and advertising, are not the source of the current political climate - they are just tools used to stoke a fire that has been burning for hundreds of years.
- mactavish88 5y ago
  Maybe, we’ll see how we turn out in the coming decades :-) As for the psychological ramifications (not “damage”), I was talking specifically about the loss of privacy. There seems to be something very important about privacy that facilitates a healthy individuation process (at least from a Jungian perspective). Not to mention the notion of lack of respect for healthy boundaries. What does it do to a person when their boundaries are continually intruded upon (either against their will or without their knowledge)? In my experience, it erodes a person’s sense of identity. What does it do to a society whose devices continually listen in on their private conversations without their consent and use those conversations to subtly infiltrate their digital lives, manipulating the content to which they’re exposed? This is beyond, of course, the Big Brother-esque uses for which this same technology is now being employed. As inequality rises and people become unhappier, Big Brother will need to keep ever-tighter control on people. We will be manipulated, and ultimately coerced into submission in order to preserve the current social order - much of which will be achieved using repurposed ad-tech.

bruce511 5y ago

While I don't disagree with your premise, I feel you may be a tad over dramatic here. If you don't want to be advertised to, then don't use services paid for by advertising. For example use Netflix, not broadcast-TV, pay for YouTube premium, not plain YouTube and so on. Your fears on psychological damage have been around since media was invented - I still remember panic about subliminal advertising in the 70s - and meh - it's just advertising. Social media, and advertising, are not the source of the current political climate - they are just tools used to stoke a fire that has been burning for hundreds of years.

mactavish88 5y ago
Maybe, we’ll see how we turn out in the coming decades :-) As for the psychological ramifications (not “damage”), I was talking specifically about the loss of privacy. There seems to be something very important about privacy that facilitates a healthy individuation process (at least from a Jungian perspective). Not to mention the notion of lack of respect for healthy boundaries. What does it do to a person when their boundaries are continually intruded upon (either against their will or without their knowledge)? In my experience, it erodes a person’s sense of identity. What does it do to a society whose devices continually listen in on their private conversations without their consent and use those conversations to subtly infiltrate their digital lives, manipulating the content to which they’re exposed? This is beyond, of course, the Big Brother-esque uses for which this same technology is now being employed. As inequality rises and people become unhappier, Big Brother will need to keep ever-tighter control on people. We will be manipulated, and ultimately coerced into submission in order to preserve the current social order - much of which will be achieved using repurposed ad-tech.