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“Anyone who cares” assumes a much higher level of technical competence and awareness than is actually present in the general population. Most people have very

“Anyone who cares” assumes a much higher level of technical competence and awareness than is actually present in the general population. Most people have very little idea of the myriad ways they are being tracked (they know that it’s happening in general, but not the specifics), so they don’t go digging around in their phone settings to figure out how to make these changes. The numbers on Apple’s “ask app not to track” usage demonstrate that the “people just don’t care about their privacy” crowd have serious blind spots.

jjk166 5y ago
If the issue were technical competence, you'd have a whole industry full of technically competent people who would be paid to take care of the issue for others. Even if people didn't realize that they needed the service, these enterprising individuals would produce marketing materials to reveal the pain point to them. That's how most technical services are sold. An electrician doesn't need me to understand the danger of a particular electrical issue, they only need to tell me the undesirable consequence of not fixing it - someone can be dumb as bricks but they'll still shell out money to fix it if they're told it could start an electrical fire. The fact is this privacy protection industry does not exist because even after thoroughly explaining the issue to people, they generally still don't care. At the end of the day, it's not a real pain point - I suffer no measurable damage from corporations having my personal data, indeed I derive some small but non zero benefits. It might feel weird or even unethical to you, but that's just like your opinion man, and people with other value systems will not necessarily feel the same way. These people aren't dumb and blind, just apathetic.
- Lio 5y ago
  Having seen two laptops side by side displaying different prices for the the same package holiday until the cookies were cleared on both I'm not so sure that there's no pain involved in ubiquitous tracking. I think for the most part people just aren't aware of the consequences of corporate surveillance.
- wbsss4412 5y ago
  > The fact is this privacy protection industry does not exist The largest consumer hardware company in existence (Apple) makes privacy a significant part of its marketing. I’m not sure where you’re getting this idea from. You state that there is no real pain point, but I would posit that the pain point is simply non obvious. People are definitely weirded out when they have a conversation with someone about a product that they’d never heard of and then it suddenly shows up all over their phone. They simply don’t comprehend how much the bits of data they are shedding could lead to that kind of prediction behavior from Google/facebook et al. And to be fair, I doubt that the engineers behind that could explain the behavior with exacting precision. At the end of the day there’s no good lever for the typical consumer. It ends up being framed as a all or nothing decision, and so they throw their hands up and say they have no interest in living as a hermit.
  - jjk166 5y ago
    I've never once heard someone say they're buying an apple product for privacy purposes. You're starting out with the assumption that prediction behavior is objectively a problem. Most people are well aware that they are shedding tons of information, but so what? When people get weirded out when their phone listens to them do they seek out someone to solve this problem for them, or do they shrug their shoulders and ignore it? The world is full of complicated but nevertheless clearly problematic issues where the how is challenging to explain but the why isn't. With corporate surveillance the how is easy to explain but the why is not. There isn't some measurable harm inflicted, and most concerns are hypothetical in nature. Just because something feels vaguely weird doesn't mean it must be a problem, it just means you're not used to it. It's like if you're arachnaphobic, you could conjecture that everyone who doesn't take precautions against spiders is simply ignorant of just how many spiders are around them, and indeed its true most people are not experts on spiders, but the fact is most people legitimately don't have a problem with spiders, and in the vast majority of cases they shouldn't as most spiders do no harm.
    - wbsss4412 5y ago
      Your assertion was that there were no enterprising individuals that market privacy focused products. I pointed out that Apple depends significant marketing, pr, and development resources towards positioning its products as a privacy preserving option. But because of your informal polling of people you know that all goes out the window? For the record, the relative privacy of iOS over android was a significant consideration in my most recent buying decision. I say relative because it’s obviously not “perfect privacy”. But in any case you have heard now from at least one person that based their decision on that fact. You’re quite clearly working backwards from a pre established conclusion. Do some, many or even the majority of people not care about privacy? I’d concede that point. But the narrative on HN that has last for years that regular people just don’t care at all is very much over confident.
- wbsss4412 5y ago
  Clearly there are also pure play privacy companies too. [1] [1] https://www.wired.com/story/duckduckgo-android-app-tracking-block/ https://www.wired.com/story/duckduckgo-android-app-tracking-...

jjk166 5y ago

If the issue were technical competence, you'd have a whole industry full of technically competent people who would be paid to take care of the issue for others. Even if people didn't realize that they needed the service, these enterprising individuals would produce marketing materials to reveal the pain point to them. That's how most technical services are sold. An electrician doesn't need me to understand the danger of a particular electrical issue, they only need to tell me the undesirable consequence of not fixing it - someone can be dumb as bricks but they'll still shell out money to fix it if they're told it could start an electrical fire. The fact is this privacy protection industry does not exist because even after thoroughly explaining the issue to people, they generally still don't care. At the end of the day, it's not a real pain point - I suffer no measurable damage from corporations having my personal data, indeed I derive some small but non zero benefits. It might feel weird or even unethical to you, but that's just like your opinion man, and people with other value systems will not necessarily feel the same way. These people aren't dumb and blind, just apathetic.

Lio 5y ago
Having seen two laptops side by side displaying different prices for the the same package holiday until the cookies were cleared on both I'm not so sure that there's no pain involved in ubiquitous tracking. I think for the most part people just aren't aware of the consequences of corporate surveillance.
wbsss4412 5y ago
> The fact is this privacy protection industry does not exist The largest consumer hardware company in existence (Apple) makes privacy a significant part of its marketing. I’m not sure where you’re getting this idea from. You state that there is no real pain point, but I would posit that the pain point is simply non obvious. People are definitely weirded out when they have a conversation with someone about a product that they’d never heard of and then it suddenly shows up all over their phone. They simply don’t comprehend how much the bits of data they are shedding could lead to that kind of prediction behavior from Google/facebook et al. And to be fair, I doubt that the engineers behind that could explain the behavior with exacting precision. At the end of the day there’s no good lever for the typical consumer. It ends up being framed as a all or nothing decision, and so they throw their hands up and say they have no interest in living as a hermit.
- jjk166 5y ago
  I've never once heard someone say they're buying an apple product for privacy purposes. You're starting out with the assumption that prediction behavior is objectively a problem. Most people are well aware that they are shedding tons of information, but so what? When people get weirded out when their phone listens to them do they seek out someone to solve this problem for them, or do they shrug their shoulders and ignore it? The world is full of complicated but nevertheless clearly problematic issues where the how is challenging to explain but the why isn't. With corporate surveillance the how is easy to explain but the why is not. There isn't some measurable harm inflicted, and most concerns are hypothetical in nature. Just because something feels vaguely weird doesn't mean it must be a problem, it just means you're not used to it. It's like if you're arachnaphobic, you could conjecture that everyone who doesn't take precautions against spiders is simply ignorant of just how many spiders are around them, and indeed its true most people are not experts on spiders, but the fact is most people legitimately don't have a problem with spiders, and in the vast majority of cases they shouldn't as most spiders do no harm.
  - wbsss4412 5y ago
    Your assertion was that there were no enterprising individuals that market privacy focused products. I pointed out that Apple depends significant marketing, pr, and development resources towards positioning its products as a privacy preserving option. But because of your informal polling of people you know that all goes out the window? For the record, the relative privacy of iOS over android was a significant consideration in my most recent buying decision. I say relative because it’s obviously not “perfect privacy”. But in any case you have heard now from at least one person that based their decision on that fact. You’re quite clearly working backwards from a pre established conclusion. Do some, many or even the majority of people not care about privacy? I’d concede that point. But the narrative on HN that has last for years that regular people just don’t care at all is very much over confident.
wbsss4412 5y ago
Clearly there are also pure play privacy companies too. [1] [1] https://www.wired.com/story/duckduckgo-android-app-tracking-block/ https://www.wired.com/story/duckduckgo-android-app-tracking-...