5 ms·

>Though I'd agree that most internet users don't like ads, what's true is that most internet users don't like paying for things. Using YouTube as an example, th

>Though I'd agree that most internet users don't like ads, what's true is that most internet users don't like paying for things. Using YouTube as an example, the most popular site on the internet, the vast majority of people do not pay for YouTube premium even though it's available. This is a bit circular. People would rather use a free service than a paid service. So long as free services exist it will be hard or impossible for paid services to exist or thrive. >At the end of the day no one is stopping you from going back to circa-2000s internet, using IRC, going on plain text websites, using BBS, etc. There's no reason that we should have to make this choice. We don't have to live in a spyware dystopia so that we can have cheaper internet services. This spyware economy is less than 20 years old, and we should throw it out.

endisneigh 5y ago
> This is a bit circular. People would rather use a free service than a paid service. So long as free services exist it will be hard or impossible for paid services to exist or thrive. Of course. If a paid product wants to thrive it needs to be better. People do use paid search engines, email, maps, etc. most people don’t because most people don’t value it that much. > There's no reason that we should have to make this choice. We don't have to live in a spyware dystopia so that we can have cheaper internet services. This spyware economy is less than 20 years old, and we should throw it out. I don’t think there’s a dystopia. If you want to regress you can do so alone. We have irc and bbs that won’t track you. I’m sure there are also some plain text sites you can peruse. Not really understanding why you want to change things for others. Just change it for yourself and then you’re good.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > paid search engines, [...], maps Can you find me one? The only one I know about is Kagi which is in beta and invite-only. The problem with the current status-quo is that as long as advertising powered by illicit data collection is possible in practice, it's not viable for a paid service to compete. > Just change it for yourself and then you’re good. It doesn't matter what you do if ad-tech scum will track you anyway and create a shadow profile by tricking your friends into giving out information about you such as how Facebook infers social graphs (including non-users) by sneaking into people's contacts lists.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    Try out Neeva in addition to Kagi. If you pay and get your friends to, it’ll compete. > It doesn't matter what you do if ad-tech scum will track you anyway Stay away from sites that use trackers and you won’t be tracked. I recommend turning off JavaScript and sticking to plain text sites.
    - mopsi 5y ago
      > Stay away from sites that use trackers and you won’t be tracked. That's not enough. If your friends give Instagram and the likes access to their contacts to "find friends", then they unintentionally leak your social circle too, and data warehouses sell this info to the highest bidder, lowest bidder, and everyone inbetween, and government agencies also tap into this for mass surveillance. Even the goddamn Mastercard sells transaction histories to Google. Everything's scraped and sold, doesn't matter if you use the internet at all. Any notion of user consent to this is ridiculous, because barely anyone understands how much is truly collected, shared and linked together from various sources, and then used and abused. That's why Google, Facebook et al fight so furiously against legislation like the GDPR that mandates informed (!) consent.
- parkingrift 5y ago
  Let's flip it. How about you continue with the spyware dystopia and the rest of us regulate away spyware businesses?

endisneigh 5y ago

> This is a bit circular. People would rather use a free service than a paid service. So long as free services exist it will be hard or impossible for paid services to exist or thrive. Of course. If a paid product wants to thrive it needs to be better. People do use paid search engines, email, maps, etc. most people don’t because most people don’t value it that much. > There's no reason that we should have to make this choice. We don't have to live in a spyware dystopia so that we can have cheaper internet services. This spyware economy is less than 20 years old, and we should throw it out. I don’t think there’s a dystopia. If you want to regress you can do so alone. We have irc and bbs that won’t track you. I’m sure there are also some plain text sites you can peruse. Not really understanding why you want to change things for others. Just change it for yourself and then you’re good.

Nextgrid 5y ago
> paid search engines, [...], maps Can you find me one? The only one I know about is Kagi which is in beta and invite-only. The problem with the current status-quo is that as long as advertising powered by illicit data collection is possible in practice, it's not viable for a paid service to compete. > Just change it for yourself and then you’re good. It doesn't matter what you do if ad-tech scum will track you anyway and create a shadow profile by tricking your friends into giving out information about you such as how Facebook infers social graphs (including non-users) by sneaking into people's contacts lists.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  Try out Neeva in addition to Kagi. If you pay and get your friends to, it’ll compete. > It doesn't matter what you do if ad-tech scum will track you anyway Stay away from sites that use trackers and you won’t be tracked. I recommend turning off JavaScript and sticking to plain text sites.
  - mopsi 5y ago
    > Stay away from sites that use trackers and you won’t be tracked. That's not enough. If your friends give Instagram and the likes access to their contacts to "find friends", then they unintentionally leak your social circle too, and data warehouses sell this info to the highest bidder, lowest bidder, and everyone inbetween, and government agencies also tap into this for mass surveillance. Even the goddamn Mastercard sells transaction histories to Google. Everything's scraped and sold, doesn't matter if you use the internet at all. Any notion of user consent to this is ridiculous, because barely anyone understands how much is truly collected, shared and linked together from various sources, and then used and abused. That's why Google, Facebook et al fight so furiously against legislation like the GDPR that mandates informed (!) consent.
parkingrift 5y ago
Let's flip it. How about you continue with the spyware dystopia and the rest of us regulate away spyware businesses?