7 ms·

I find it quite tasteless honestly.

by mda 5y ago

infp_arborist 5y ago
What, Google's behaviour? Or the fact that this is the society we currently live in?
- mda 5y ago
  The comic. It was something to convey technical aspects of Chrome, now it is defiled by someones personal rants put into mouths of engineers who created it. I find it disgusting actually.
  - bayindirh 5y ago
    Is the comic lying? I don't think so. So, it might be tasteless, but agitation is a valid style to push ideas across for some people. Did you look to the comic? Seems yes. Did you read it? Seems yes. So it pushed its ideas across. So, it was successful in a sense.
    - mda 5y ago
      I only looked at a few pages and closed. Not worth it.
      - bayindirh 5y ago
        Seems like you're missing a lot (of information to digest).
        mda 5y ago
        Oh I know all about this, but definitely I prefer reading about it not in this tasteless format and not from out of context half truths and injected propaganda.
        bayindirh 5y ago
        So, if you're happy with all the ways your information is used against you, then I wish you the best of luck and eternal happiness in your endeavors and life.
  - infp_arborist 5y ago
    Disgusting? Because they mixed a comics style (which is usually associated with a happy childhood) with the most brutal of truths about surveillance capitalism? Welcome.
  - andybak 5y ago
    > defiled That word implies something was originally good and pure. Which seems an unusual take. > I find it disgusting actually. Why do you find it more disgusting than the behaviour it is calling out? I think there's a moral imperative to challenge bad behaviour and satire is an effective method.
    - mda 5y ago
      Are you sure all the rants that the author inserted there are true?
      - andybak 5y ago
        You've already admitted you gave up after a couple of pages. Which parts are you disputing?
        mda 5y ago
        Even the first page, it implies it is made by the original designer. It is disingenuous from the start. And actually i looked a few more pages, the quality of the content is quite bad.
        bayindirh 5y ago
        Let's look at what the PDF file says: Leah Elliott Contra Chrome ... a little down in the address bar: "Remixed from Scott McCloud's Google Chrome Comic" Next page: Again "Leah Elliott" and "Remixed from..." notice. So the actual "remixer" isn't hiding or anything. On the actual webpage, there's an "About" link, which is not hidden or anything either.
        jefftk 5y ago
        If you click through the link to the website (instead of the PDF) it starts you off on the first page of the comic (not the introduction) with no indication that there are earlier pages. Which means it starts off sounding like it is something Scott McCloud wrote.
  - detaro 5y ago
    So if an author has made a work about something they then can't make a second work criticizing it, because doing so is "defiling" the first?
  - darkwater 5y ago
    "Personal rant"? It is just describing in an easier to undertand way what a basic Chrome installation on any OS does out of the box. Why do you find it disgusting? Because it mocks the original Chrome comic? That's it?
    - native_samples 5y ago
      It's definitely quite ranty. I didn't make it to the end. It really only makes sense if you take as axiomatic the assumption that ad targeting is very bad, but most people really don't agree with that. Ad targeting has been a fact of life since the earliest days of newspapers, radio and TV, it just wasn't particularly well targeted. Now it's much better targeted but where are the people actually hurt by it? Discussions about adtech and privacy always have this kind of ultra-abstract feel to them, for that reason. Finding concrete, specific people who have suffered concrete, specific harms due to better ad tech is nearly impossible, so the space gets ignored by all except middle class activist types who have to resort to ever more manipulative stunts (like this comic book "remix") to try and get attention, to convince people that this is what matters and not other issues. Also, opposing advertising is kind of a luxury belief. It's reminiscent of the sort of champagne /r/antiwork socialists who earnestly ask, why do people have to work? These people would certainly blanche if suddenly asked to pay the full ad-free rates for all the services they enjoy, especially because the average person's internet experience is being subsidized to the tune of hundreds of dollars a month by advertisers (I saw stats on this once, how much is being bid in the ad auctions on a per-person basis but you can also just work out crude averages from Google's revenue and guesstimated click traffic). And finally it's also somehow internally contradictory. What would it take to have a world free of annoying ads? Well, people would still need to find out about services, including those they maybe didn't even realize existed. Basically you'd need to replace broadcast brand-style ads with very specific "pull ads" where they're only seen by the people who need to see them. Which is ... exactly what search advertising is.
      - darkwater 5y ago
        > Discussions about adtech and privacy always have this kind of ultra-abstract feel to them, for that reason. Finding concrete, specific people who have suffered concrete, specific harms due to better ad tech is nearly impossible, so the space gets ignored by all except middle class activist types who have to resort to ever more manipulative stunts (like this comic book "remix") to try and get attention, to convince people that this is what matters and not other issues. I don't really want to this sounds like a reductio ad absurdum but really, this is like saying that you don't need to have written down privacy or free speech rights in a country which is truly democratic because it has been impossible "Finding concrete, specific people who have suffered concrete specific harms". Under your point of view the GDPR is a completely useless law as well, because it protects the user from a phantom menace. > And finally it's also somehow internally contradictory. What would it take to have a world free of annoying ads? Well, people would still need to find out about services, including those they maybe didn't even realize existed. Basically you'd need to replace broadcast brand-style ads with very specific "pull ads" where they're only seen by the people who need to see them. Which is ... exactly what search advertising is. There is GIANT difference between advertising and tracking individuals en masse. I have no problem with billboard advertisement or passive one. I still don't like them and personally try to filter them out as much as possible (by paying for services directly or using adblockers) but I don't see them as a big moral issue. With tracking, it's a whole different story! Also, most of the good things that tracking can give users, could nowadays be done on the edge, local to the user device, without reporting it back to the central servers.
  - pebble 5y ago
    I think you should examine your feelings. Perhaps the reason you find this so uncomfortable is that it's revealing a truth you don't want to admit is true.
  - vvillena 5y ago
    Please consider the fact that anyone here can click on your name, look at your comment+submission history, and place a value on your arguments. It's actually a good exercise that puts in practice some of the claims made in the comic.

I find it quite tasteless honestly.

by mda 5y ago

I find it quite tasteless honestly.

infp_arborist 5y ago

What, Google's behaviour? Or the fact that this is the society we currently live in?

mda 5y ago
The comic. It was something to convey technical aspects of Chrome, now it is defiled by someones personal rants put into mouths of engineers who created it. I find it disgusting actually.
- bayindirh 5y ago
  Is the comic lying? I don't think so. So, it might be tasteless, but agitation is a valid style to push ideas across for some people. Did you look to the comic? Seems yes. Did you read it? Seems yes. So it pushed its ideas across. So, it was successful in a sense.
  - mda 5y ago
    I only looked at a few pages and closed. Not worth it.
    - bayindirh 5y ago
      Seems like you're missing a lot (of information to digest).
      - mda 5y ago
        Oh I know all about this, but definitely I prefer reading about it not in this tasteless format and not from out of context half truths and injected propaganda.
        bayindirh 5y ago
        So, if you're happy with all the ways your information is used against you, then I wish you the best of luck and eternal happiness in your endeavors and life.
- infp_arborist 5y ago
  Disgusting? Because they mixed a comics style (which is usually associated with a happy childhood) with the most brutal of truths about surveillance capitalism? Welcome.
- andybak 5y ago
  > defiled That word implies something was originally good and pure. Which seems an unusual take. > I find it disgusting actually. Why do you find it more disgusting than the behaviour it is calling out? I think there's a moral imperative to challenge bad behaviour and satire is an effective method.
  - mda 5y ago
    Are you sure all the rants that the author inserted there are true?
    - andybak 5y ago
      You've already admitted you gave up after a couple of pages. Which parts are you disputing?
      - mda 5y ago
        Even the first page, it implies it is made by the original designer. It is disingenuous from the start. And actually i looked a few more pages, the quality of the content is quite bad.
        bayindirh 5y ago
        Let's look at what the PDF file says: Leah Elliott Contra Chrome ... a little down in the address bar: "Remixed from Scott McCloud's Google Chrome Comic" Next page: Again "Leah Elliott" and "Remixed from..." notice. So the actual "remixer" isn't hiding or anything. On the actual webpage, there's an "About" link, which is not hidden or anything either.
        jefftk 5y ago
        If you click through the link to the website (instead of the PDF) it starts you off on the first page of the comic (not the introduction) with no indication that there are earlier pages. Which means it starts off sounding like it is something Scott McCloud wrote.
- detaro 5y ago
  So if an author has made a work about something they then can't make a second work criticizing it, because doing so is "defiling" the first?
- darkwater 5y ago
  "Personal rant"? It is just describing in an easier to undertand way what a basic Chrome installation on any OS does out of the box. Why do you find it disgusting? Because it mocks the original Chrome comic? That's it?
  - native_samples 5y ago
    It's definitely quite ranty. I didn't make it to the end. It really only makes sense if you take as axiomatic the assumption that ad targeting is very bad, but most people really don't agree with that. Ad targeting has been a fact of life since the earliest days of newspapers, radio and TV, it just wasn't particularly well targeted. Now it's much better targeted but where are the people actually hurt by it? Discussions about adtech and privacy always have this kind of ultra-abstract feel to them, for that reason. Finding concrete, specific people who have suffered concrete, specific harms due to better ad tech is nearly impossible, so the space gets ignored by all except middle class activist types who have to resort to ever more manipulative stunts (like this comic book "remix") to try and get attention, to convince people that this is what matters and not other issues. Also, opposing advertising is kind of a luxury belief. It's reminiscent of the sort of champagne /r/antiwork socialists who earnestly ask, why do people have to work? These people would certainly blanche if suddenly asked to pay the full ad-free rates for all the services they enjoy, especially because the average person's internet experience is being subsidized to the tune of hundreds of dollars a month by advertisers (I saw stats on this once, how much is being bid in the ad auctions on a per-person basis but you can also just work out crude averages from Google's revenue and guesstimated click traffic). And finally it's also somehow internally contradictory. What would it take to have a world free of annoying ads? Well, people would still need to find out about services, including those they maybe didn't even realize existed. Basically you'd need to replace broadcast brand-style ads with very specific "pull ads" where they're only seen by the people who need to see them. Which is ... exactly what search advertising is.
    - darkwater 5y ago
      > Discussions about adtech and privacy always have this kind of ultra-abstract feel to them, for that reason. Finding concrete, specific people who have suffered concrete, specific harms due to better ad tech is nearly impossible, so the space gets ignored by all except middle class activist types who have to resort to ever more manipulative stunts (like this comic book "remix") to try and get attention, to convince people that this is what matters and not other issues. I don't really want to this sounds like a reductio ad absurdum but really, this is like saying that you don't need to have written down privacy or free speech rights in a country which is truly democratic because it has been impossible "Finding concrete, specific people who have suffered concrete specific harms". Under your point of view the GDPR is a completely useless law as well, because it protects the user from a phantom menace. > And finally it's also somehow internally contradictory. What would it take to have a world free of annoying ads? Well, people would still need to find out about services, including those they maybe didn't even realize existed. Basically you'd need to replace broadcast brand-style ads with very specific "pull ads" where they're only seen by the people who need to see them. Which is ... exactly what search advertising is. There is GIANT difference between advertising and tracking individuals en masse. I have no problem with billboard advertisement or passive one. I still don't like them and personally try to filter them out as much as possible (by paying for services directly or using adblockers) but I don't see them as a big moral issue. With tracking, it's a whole different story! Also, most of the good things that tracking can give users, could nowadays be done on the edge, local to the user device, without reporting it back to the central servers.
- pebble 5y ago
  I think you should examine your feelings. Perhaps the reason you find this so uncomfortable is that it's revealing a truth you don't want to admit is true.
- vvillena 5y ago
  Please consider the fact that anyone here can click on your name, look at your comment+submission history, and place a value on your arguments. It's actually a good exercise that puts in practice some of the claims made in the comic.