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I sign up to Facebook, which costs them money (storage costs, network traffic, CPU, etc) and in exchange they make money off me by showing me ads. How is that u

by iqanq 5y ago

I sign up to Facebook, which costs them money (storage costs, network traffic, CPU, etc) and in exchange they make money off me by showing me ads. How is that unfair? It would be like saying it is unfair that meat I buy in the supermarket costs the supermarket less than they charge me.

FledNanders 5y ago
> I sign up to Facebook, which costs them money (storage costs, network traffic, CPU, etc) and in exchange they make money off me by showing me ads How would you explain the fact that police forces, private investigators, credit bureaus, stalkers and intelligence agencies love Facebook if all the company is doing is "showing me ads"? My point is that you're leaving out the most valuable/terrifying thing that this company does: creating incredibly detailed profiles of nearly every person on the planet including their likes, dislikes, relationships, private thoughts and behavioral patterns. We may be powerless to change it because developers are easily bribed with FAANG salaries and people generally like their stock portfolios but let's at least be honest about it.
ben_w 5y ago
Advertising isn’t the problem, the processing of data to target those adverts is the problem. That said, given how often they insist on showing me (literally) revolutionary marxist content no matter how often I click “Show me less of this” — and from the same specific groups no matter how often I click “Never show me ‘Demexit Memes For Green Teens’” (I’m not a teen, I can’t exit the Democrat party because I’m not an American and can’t join in the first place, Brexit riffs give me a negative affect[0], and while I am vaguely green-ish at least in regards to UK politics I feel negatively about the USA Green Party) — I don’t think they’re even very good at using this data for targeting content. > It would be like saying it is unfair that meat I buy in the supermarket costs the supermarket less than they charge me. Something about buying Manhattan island for some beads comes to mind, although the actual history behind that meme is rather more interesting: https://knowledgenuts.com/native-americans-didnt-sell-manhattan-for-24-of-beads/ https://knowledgenuts.com/native-americans-didnt-sell-manhat... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_(psychology)
cheschire 5y ago
Imagine if a new grocery store started in your area called foodface, and only let people in if they were invited by an existing member (a la Price Club, but without the membership fee). It gets popular, maybe the service they offer is slightly unique, slightly better than the other grocery stores. foodface spends a lot of time in the red propped up by investors as it focuses on growth. At this point goods were priced the same as everywhere else. foodface uses its funding to invest in the best arrangement of aisles and container quantity to focus purely on maximizing quantity that people buy, not on profit. Eventually foodface cracks the code. They recognize how to maximize quantity. Now they shift focus to profit. They start to figure out how to aggregate data about your purchases and then how to market that data to companies who sell goods in their store. foodface now hands you an automated personal shopper device at the door, with deals on goods that are personalized to you. While you're shopping, metrics are collected and sold off to the highest bidder and they get to bid for spots on your shopping deals list. You're most likely shopping for baby related items, or prepping items, or weekly grocery items, or clothing. Grocery shopping starts to morph. People become slaves to the deal list. People no longer go with a list to the store, they go to the store and get the list of things to buy. foodface notices when their purchasing falls below a normal threshold and then pings them to update their profile. Did they lose a job? Did they get a new family member? And based on those things and machine learning models they start to present shopping lists that take all the stress out of planning your shopping trip. The feedback loop is complete. They raise more money, and they start to buy up all the grocery stores around you. Now there's nowhere else for you to shop except foodface. Mom and pop stores spring up, but their whole intent is to get bought. You try to drive out of town to where there's still normal grocery stores but those stores don't offer deals because all the companies with goods on their shelves don't get even an order of magnitude of the profit they get from buying your data from foodface. Anyways, so the contention here as it seems to me is that your personal data is worth more to foodface than the service you're getting, and that isn't obvious to you at the time your data is handed over. You can figure it out later but at that point it's too late. The amount of personal data you can salvage once you figure it out is simply taking away future data points, but you're still ultimately "known" up to the point you quit. ... hold on, that's a pretty good startup idea. Meh, nevermind. It's brick and mortar. Those are notoriously difficult.
skummetmaelk 5y ago
We're approaching the point where asking this question is like asking why we set a cold temperature record when there's supposed to be global warming. It's just willful ignorance.
- switch007 5y ago
  It’s might be PR too You can guarantee every single post critical of FAANG has lots of those kind of comments
  - sangnoir 5y ago
    Automatically considering a perspective different to yours as shilling is shallow dismissal. Recently, there was a thread on the non-monetization of Wordle and a similar argument arose, with some justifying hypothetical ads in exchange of using compute & storage. I doubt that was Josh Wardle's PR commenting (as he doesn't make money off of it)
Youden 5y ago
I think "unfair" here is a legal term. Looking at the act they reference, I'm guessing they're arguing that Facebook abused its dominant market position to impose an "unfair" price per [0] (which is the only place "unfair" is mentioned in the document). I think they're also arguing that the price that users are paying isn't clear to them. The difference between what they're arguing and your supermarket example is that there's competition in the UK for supermarkets [1] and that the price of the meat in the supermarket is right there on the label, while on Facebook you have to dig through the T&Cs to figure out what they're doing. Your standard supermarket also has margins of ~5% [2], while Facebook has 36% [3], so it might be argued that Facebook's price is unreasonably inflated due to the lack of competition. [0]: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/41/section/18 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/41/section/18 [1]: https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/fmcg/2021-wp-new-baseline-for-uk-grocery-market-as-shopper-habits-stabilise https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/fmcg/2021-wp-new-baseline... [2]: https://finbox.com/OTCPK:TSCD.F/explorer/gp_margin https://finbox.com/OTCPK:TSCD.F/explorer/gp_margin [3]: https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2021/Facebook-Reports-Third-Quarter-2021-Results/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...
WhyNotHugo 5y ago
You either take something in return, or claim it's free. You can't claim that you're giving a free service if you're expecting something in return.
- smorgusofborg 5y ago
  I suppose it is technically true that we don't call commercial television "free television" but TV broadcasters don't really establish any terms and conditions. Informally, I think they say they are a free service in PR interactions from time to time. Shouldn't it really be more significant when a company takes payment but continues to also monetize ads. I.e. not disclosing the money made from product placements in a movie in a ticket purchase is a specific fraud relating to a transaction with a measurable cost.

by iqanq 5y ago

FledNanders 5y ago

> I sign up to Facebook, which costs them money (storage costs, network traffic, CPU, etc) and in exchange they make money off me by showing me ads How would you explain the fact that police forces, private investigators, credit bureaus, stalkers and intelligence agencies love Facebook if all the company is doing is "showing me ads"? My point is that you're leaving out the most valuable/terrifying thing that this company does: creating incredibly detailed profiles of nearly every person on the planet including their likes, dislikes, relationships, private thoughts and behavioral patterns. We may be powerless to change it because developers are easily bribed with FAANG salaries and people generally like their stock portfolios but let's at least be honest about it.

ben_w 5y ago

Advertising isn’t the problem, the processing of data to target those adverts is the problem. That said, given how often they insist on showing me (literally) revolutionary marxist content no matter how often I click “Show me less of this” — and from the same specific groups no matter how often I click “Never show me ‘Demexit Memes For Green Teens’” (I’m not a teen, I can’t exit the Democrat party because I’m not an American and can’t join in the first place, Brexit riffs give me a negative affect[0], and while I am vaguely green-ish at least in regards to UK politics I feel negatively about the USA Green Party) — I don’t think they’re even very good at using this data for targeting content. > It would be like saying it is unfair that meat I buy in the supermarket costs the supermarket less than they charge me. Something about buying Manhattan island for some beads comes to mind, although the actual history behind that meme is rather more interesting: https://knowledgenuts.com/native-americans-didnt-sell-manhattan-for-24-of-beads/ https://knowledgenuts.com/native-americans-didnt-sell-manhat... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_(psychology)

cheschire 5y ago

Imagine if a new grocery store started in your area called foodface, and only let people in if they were invited by an existing member (a la Price Club, but without the membership fee). It gets popular, maybe the service they offer is slightly unique, slightly better than the other grocery stores. foodface spends a lot of time in the red propped up by investors as it focuses on growth. At this point goods were priced the same as everywhere else. foodface uses its funding to invest in the best arrangement of aisles and container quantity to focus purely on maximizing quantity that people buy, not on profit. Eventually foodface cracks the code. They recognize how to maximize quantity. Now they shift focus to profit. They start to figure out how to aggregate data about your purchases and then how to market that data to companies who sell goods in their store. foodface now hands you an automated personal shopper device at the door, with deals on goods that are personalized to you. While you're shopping, metrics are collected and sold off to the highest bidder and they get to bid for spots on your shopping deals list. You're most likely shopping for baby related items, or prepping items, or weekly grocery items, or clothing. Grocery shopping starts to morph. People become slaves to the deal list. People no longer go with a list to the store, they go to the store and get the list of things to buy. foodface notices when their purchasing falls below a normal threshold and then pings them to update their profile. Did they lose a job? Did they get a new family member? And based on those things and machine learning models they start to present shopping lists that take all the stress out of planning your shopping trip. The feedback loop is complete. They raise more money, and they start to buy up all the grocery stores around you. Now there's nowhere else for you to shop except foodface. Mom and pop stores spring up, but their whole intent is to get bought. You try to drive out of town to where there's still normal grocery stores but those stores don't offer deals because all the companies with goods on their shelves don't get even an order of magnitude of the profit they get from buying your data from foodface. Anyways, so the contention here as it seems to me is that your personal data is worth more to foodface than the service you're getting, and that isn't obvious to you at the time your data is handed over. You can figure it out later but at that point it's too late. The amount of personal data you can salvage once you figure it out is simply taking away future data points, but you're still ultimately "known" up to the point you quit. ... hold on, that's a pretty good startup idea. Meh, nevermind. It's brick and mortar. Those are notoriously difficult.

skummetmaelk 5y ago

We're approaching the point where asking this question is like asking why we set a cold temperature record when there's supposed to be global warming. It's just willful ignorance.

switch007 5y ago
It’s might be PR too You can guarantee every single post critical of FAANG has lots of those kind of comments
- sangnoir 5y ago
  Automatically considering a perspective different to yours as shilling is shallow dismissal. Recently, there was a thread on the non-monetization of Wordle and a similar argument arose, with some justifying hypothetical ads in exchange of using compute & storage. I doubt that was Josh Wardle's PR commenting (as he doesn't make money off of it)

Youden 5y ago

I think "unfair" here is a legal term. Looking at the act they reference, I'm guessing they're arguing that Facebook abused its dominant market position to impose an "unfair" price per [0] (which is the only place "unfair" is mentioned in the document). I think they're also arguing that the price that users are paying isn't clear to them. The difference between what they're arguing and your supermarket example is that there's competition in the UK for supermarkets [1] and that the price of the meat in the supermarket is right there on the label, while on Facebook you have to dig through the T&Cs to figure out what they're doing. Your standard supermarket also has margins of ~5% [2], while Facebook has 36% [3], so it might be argued that Facebook's price is unreasonably inflated due to the lack of competition. [0]: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/41/section/18 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/41/section/18 [1]: https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/fmcg/2021-wp-new-baseline-for-uk-grocery-market-as-shopper-habits-stabilise https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/fmcg/2021-wp-new-baseline... [2]: https://finbox.com/OTCPK:TSCD.F/explorer/gp_margin https://finbox.com/OTCPK:TSCD.F/explorer/gp_margin [3]: https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2021/Facebook-Reports-Third-Quarter-2021-Results/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...

WhyNotHugo 5y ago

You either take something in return, or claim it's free. You can't claim that you're giving a free service if you're expecting something in return.

smorgusofborg 5y ago
I suppose it is technically true that we don't call commercial television "free television" but TV broadcasters don't really establish any terms and conditions. Informally, I think they say they are a free service in PR interactions from time to time. Shouldn't it really be more significant when a company takes payment but continues to also monetize ads. I.e. not disclosing the money made from product placements in a movie in a ticket purchase is a specific fraud relating to a transaction with a measurable cost.