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> The interest was monetization of customer eyeballs, an American Airlines source shared that they wanted customers checking accounts at AA.com where they could

• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• smsm42 5y ago
  Unfortunately, like the real cancer, it has too many forms and too many causes to have a simple way of eradicating it. And unlike the real cancer, nobody is seriously investing into fixing it. Maybe some kind of paradigm shift is required to make the approach of "we hold data about you that you need hostage so we could sell you stuff and control your behavior" no longer acceptable. After all, you wouldn't accept if the car dealer would be the only one who had access to your car mileage or maintenance records, and would only tell you any information about it after you listened to the sales pitch. People would be grabbing torches and pitchforks if that happened. But for other businesses the same behavior is seen as OK.
  • pixl97 5y ago
    >car dealer would be the only one who had access to your car mileage or maintenance records So yea, I have the next billion dollar idea. The gas gauge app. $3.99 a month to know how much farther you can travel. Also, we remove the gauge from inside the car.
    • technothrasher 5y ago
      I wish I thought you were joking. With subscription services now needed to remotely start your car, we're almost there.
    • bsenftner 5y ago
      Shhhh... seriously; GM and others from the car industry might get the idea and actually implement such a travesty.
    • Nextgrid 5y ago
      Any car that has a screen could have a built-in diagnostic tool displaying all the trouble codes, live data from sensors, etc. The computer behind the screen already has access to said data as it's connected to the various data buses. But yet even in 2022 the best we can do is "service engine soon" and getting more information than that requires an expensive visit to the dealership.
      • smsm42 5y ago
        I think there are apps that could read OBD-II codes? Though usually they're kinds cryptic and fixing them often beyond what an average motorist could do.
• dheera 5y ago
  Exactly. Personally I don't differentiate between carbon-based and silicon-based eyes. They're both eyes. Also, banning silicon-based eyes should be declared a massive, massive ADA violation.
  • jlmorton 5y ago
    That's a fairly bizarre and Byzantine approach to legalizing screen scraping. If we want to make screen scraping affirmatively legal, we can simply do that. We don't need to anthropomorphize HTML/JSON parsing as equivalent to human vision, and then declare any efforts to restrict that vision to be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Lol.
    • vineyardmike 5y ago
      We should just make it legal, but this seems like a convenient "backdoor" way to do it - either the company site is fully screen-reader enabled 100% or scraping is allowed of any kind.
    • dheera 5y ago
      It isn't bizarre; screen scraping and re-presenting information to the user in a way that is convenient for them is absolutely essential to many assistive technologies.
      • jlmorton 5y ago
        Perhaps I misunderstood. The airlines are already legally required to make their websites accessible in the United States, including to screen readers, by virtue of the Air Carrier Access Act. They already all comply with this. Unrelated to screen readers, American Airlines and Red Ventures are involved in a dispute about the _legality_ of screen scraping. The dispute involves lawsuits, but does not involve technological measures to obfuscate or otherwise obstruct screen readers, or even screen scraping. Your comment seemed to suggest that we should make _screen scraping_ legal by considering it the same as vision, and that any efforts -- including legal efforts -- to prevent screen scraping should run afoul of the ADA. That was my understanding, and that's indeed a bizarre view. If your point was limited simply to making screen readers accessible, then I think your point is perfectly fine, but kind of a non sequitur, because this dispute is not about technological measures to control screen scraping, it's about legal measures.
• loceng 5y ago
  Specifically the airline industry, all industrial complexes, or adapting/adjusting copyright and intellectual property laws? Edit to add: Do you really have to downvote, don't you have something better to do with your click?
  • vineyardmike 5y ago
    i assume they mean advertising.
    • loceng 5y ago
      Ah thanks, I didn't catch that aspect at first - threw off my interpretation.
• kryogen1c 5y ago
  > Imagine how more efficient things could be if this cancer was eradicated once and for all. people dont like paying and they dont mind ads. they enable a lot of products and services that would otherwise not exist. ads might be a net negative, but they certainly have at least some positives.
• ativzzz 5y ago
  Is a website considered a private space (maybe not, but you agree to a TOS when you fly AA)? If so, you should have the right to say how your space is used by others, regardless of if we believe marketing is ethical or not. If AA doesn't want their data being used anywhere else, sounds like they should have the right to do that, just like we have the right to remove people from our private spaces if they do things against our rules. You also have the choice not to fly AA.
  • joe_the_user 5y ago
    It's pretty outrageous that to fly with a given airlines you give up X many rights of online use. This seems to fit the definition of an unconscionable contract pretty well. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability
  • matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Their servers are their own private spaces. That's the line. I will not do anything that subverts their control of their own computers. I will not make their servers execute my code. Their website, however, is just data they sent to my computer. They have exactly zero right to dictate what I do on my computer. Their HTML is being rendered on my computer and I absolutely reserve the right to delete or modify elements in any way and for any reason. Their javascript is executing on my computer and I absolutely reserve the right to delete and modify functions if I deem necessary.
  • dkonofalski 5y ago
    The issue with this sentiment, in my opinion, is that users have access to this data by logging in and they've provided the app with that access by providing their credentials. Unless a court is going to go down the road of preventing users from sharing their own information, I don't see how AA can do anything about this. If you can view this info in a web browser, you can scrape it.
    • matheusmoreira 5y ago
      They'll invent some "acceptable use policy" document that says you can only talk to their servers using their software which of course does what they want, namely monetize your attention by showing you ads. Then they'll trick and coerce people into accepting or signing it. Complete bullshit but it's totally something these judges would understand. One would think these people would actually protect consumers from corporation abuse...
• matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Yeah. Advertising ruins everything. Everything. They are directly and indirectly responsible for the poor state of consumer technology today. Privacy violations? Advertising. Borderline unusable websites? Advertising. Deliberately addictive social media? Advertising. Almost everything that's wrong with computing today is fueled by this industry's entitlement to our attention. > Imagine how more efficient things could be if this cancer was eradicated once and for all. Yes!! What I wouldn't give to see this entire industry banned from existence. It would solve so many problems it's ridiculous.
  • arcticbull 5y ago
    Well first you're going to have to convince people to pay for the things they use. History has shown us they have practically zero interest in doing so. People would rather trade their attention for free stuff than their money for priced goods and services. The industry has grown out of this human behavior, not vv. [edit] Humans have a limited capacity for making purchasing decisions. This is why in 20+ years nobody has made a successful micropayments based product or platform. Further, simply paywalling software or services means 99% of people will not use it. People also are uncomfortable with a system that just withdraws money from their account to pay people - and a universal subscription model isn't particularly tenable due to the competing interests of market participants. If you can solve this problem with something other than ads, I will be your first investor because you're going to be the richest human on earth. It's easy to say "ads bad" - ok, but the real question is what are we going to replace them with?
    • bobthepanda 5y ago
      I will say, I find it interesting that newspapers never developed an equivalent to "the daily paper." Even in the 2000s I remember newspapers not costing more than a dollar or two. I would personally prefer a one-off payment of some small amount to get the website for the day or X amount of articles instead of some god-awful subscription that has to be cancelled via some shitty call center process where they try to stop you twenty times.
    • alexpotato 5y ago
• asxd 5y ago
  I'm always kind of reminded of Louis C.K's old bit about how humans learned to literally fly, and it turns out the whole experience sucks.
  • atombender 5y ago
    Isn't the whole point of that bit that we've become spoiled and indifferent, to the point where we no longer appreciate how amazing and futuristic our world has become?
    • asxd 5y ago
      I think you're right, but it's hard to argue that flying is both an amazing human achievement and is also just the worst. Edit: Wow, re-listening to the bit, my memory definitely failed me. Basically a rant on how we should be grateful that airline companies are even able to get a plane in the air. I think we can do better, personally.
• a45a33s 5y ago
  I always liked this bit: "Industry could not benefit from its increased productivity without a substantial increase in consumer spending. This contributed to the development of mass marketing designed to influence the population's economic behavior on a larger scale.[24] " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising#20th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising#20th_century
• bradly 5y ago
  Was it Ray Bradbury that said something like the only difference between the rich and the poor in the future will be the number of ads they see?
• alexpotato 5y ago
  Or at least offer an option to pay to remove the annoyances. HBO was a great example of this in the pre-streaming days. "Want to see great shows and movies with no commercials, pay the extra for cable + HBO and you won't have to seem them again.!" This default, "it's all free BUT you have to see ads and there are no alternatives" seems to be the problem. The apps described in the article are effectively recognizing this consumer surplus/need and acting on it.
  • learc83 5y ago
    The problem is that once you segment your customers into paying and non paying. The non paying customers become much less valuable to advertisers and the paying customers become much more valuable. So the service needs to charge even more, which makes paying customers even more valuable in a feedback loop. The usual result is that eventually the service can’t help themselves and starts showing paying customers “a few” ads. Then the definition of a few gets larger and larger.
    • asxd 5y ago
      > The non paying customers become much less valuable to advertisers I can see this being true, but I'm curious why. Is this because the advertisers know the paying customers have the cash to pay for the service?
      • Nextgrid 5y ago
        Outside of a very few markets that prey on desperate people's last dollars (payday loans, etc), most advertising's objective is to get people to buy something - advertising to those who can't afford it is useless.
      • matheusmoreira 5y ago
        Advertisers want the attention of people with disposable income. If someone's paying for something as superfluous as a streaming service, then they must have more than enough money to spend on whatever they want to sell. The more you pay in general, the more they want you to pay them specifically.
• WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  > Imagine how more efficient things could be if this cancer was eradicated once and for all. Do you mean we should build a starship, Ark B, put all marketers into it, and send them all to a very distant planet?
• deleted 5y ago
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• seanp2k2 5y ago
  Ooh lord, this reminds me of Mint and their useless email alerts. Every alert is along the lines of “You’ve been charged a foreign transaction fee! Log in to see what / who / when / how much!”. This is obviously to drive engagement at the expense of UX and, you know, actually making a useful service. I absolutely abhor this practice and I’ve written a few feedback emails to explain as much. As if mining all my transaction data wasn’t payment enough, I must also endure irrelevant marketing for yet another credit card or home loan I don’t need. It’s further annoying that despite having a complete view of my finances, they can still fail so stupendously at showing me any ad with even the slightest relevance. I personally feel that although we live in this age of unprecedented consumer data, the actual useful insights leveraged by companies to sell things are still in their infancy. I basically see all consumer data collection companies as ripping off a few parties: advertisers they’re selling the data to, and in turn, companies paying to run “targeted” ads, and of course, consumers. There is a huge consumer appetite for RELEVANT products that could make their lives better or solve even the smallest inconvenience, and yet that appetite is met instead with a deluge of poorly-designed, ill-conceived, ready-for-the-dumpster products. Some people are starting to push back, but it’s a massive problem with no easy solution. Related: https://www.pinkbike.com/news/mechanics-petition-for-repairable-bikes-and-durability-standards.html https://www.pinkbike.com/news/mechanics-petition-for-repaira...