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> I tried to avoid doing these things for awhile but nobody pays me to be ethical. it's because any way to make money that is currently legal (but some might c

by chii 4y ago

> I tried to avoid doing these things for awhile but nobody pays me to be ethical. it's because any way to make money that is currently legal (but some might consider unethical) is the fittest agent in the darwinian natural selection of economic competition. So any ethical businesses who forgo a more profitable, but slightly less ethical method, would be out-competed. Over time, therefore, what remains must be businesses whose ethical consideration is trumped by profit considerations. Instagram is following this exactly - tiktok has better retention and user engagement using the dark patterns, and instagram would not survive if they can't keep up. So it's really up to the law to set the standard. Akin to how in the old days, environmental protection laws don't exist, and the environment is polluted, there needs to be laws to protect the consumer's "digital environment". Unfortunately, the law is slow to catchup - i doubt i will see it in my life time, and often, the law only catches up after significant damage has been done.

lrvick 4y ago
It is not up to the law to set the standard. That is giving people ethical permission to sell their skill to the highest bidder. No one makes you work for casinos, big pharma, anti-human-rights political groups, or surveillance capitalism companies. If you work for an unethical company you share responsibility for the harm they do. If a company you work for is behaving unethically, quit, and find another job. I promise it is an option.
- JonShartwell 4y ago
  It absolutely is up to the law to set the standard. Wishing people would all live up to your ethical standards for no reason will always have the same result: no difference. You can wish it all you want but it’s never going to actually cause an improvement to the world. Making unethical behavior illegal actually does have an impact on what people do because it changes their cost/reward decision
- monista 4y ago
  This is a funny example of a dark pattern: along with undoubtedly evil entities like anti-human-rights groups, you mentioned big pharma, probably to promote your anti-scientific agenda.
ineedtoknowmore 4y ago
- Many of these business models have been subsidized by governments. - I'm not sure, though the reasoning may be that their future existence is ultimately more valuable as a population control system than merely an ad network. - Some have argued that online ads are in a bubble. I don't know. - A free market does not seem to exist though. Thoughts?
- citizenpaul 4y ago
  I think its less an ad bubble and more like something similar to government use it or lose it spending. There is a sort of global hot potato/musical chairs thing going on. No one wants to be the first or last one to cut their ad spending so its a stand off. I've looked at some ad spending stuff at companies in the past and while their official numbers always "added up" there always seemed to me to be huge logic gaps that missed lots of obvious overspending. Those things are always hand-waved away as some sort of force multiplier or other nonsense. AKA don't cut our budget or sales will go away we dare you! I've posted a longer comment on here about an adventure in cutting ad spending at a company I was at because of a minor feud I had with the marketing manager. There were huge areas where the cost/profit from ads was destroying profit margin. I made some tremendous efforts to prove we could make major spending cuts on advertising without losing sales to the owner and ceo and was successful. I probably would not have been able to do it if the marketing guy was not constantly blaming their failures on IT so I stood up for us by spending my personal time making accurate reports and dashboards about the spending and proved him wrong. (he and a couple others lost their job) (no they didn't stand up and clap its a real story)
  - gsatic 4y ago
    This doesn't happen enough. Past 10-15 years or so, thanks to tech overwhelming them, Marketing depts have lost their way. Its not their fault. They get all their training from google, youtube, fb etc on how to think about these systems and when things dont work out the usual reaction is, but we are just doing what Google/FB told us to do.
    - 4y ago

by chii 4y ago

lrvick 4y ago

It is not up to the law to set the standard. That is giving people ethical permission to sell their skill to the highest bidder. No one makes you work for casinos, big pharma, anti-human-rights political groups, or surveillance capitalism companies. If you work for an unethical company you share responsibility for the harm they do. If a company you work for is behaving unethically, quit, and find another job. I promise it is an option.

JonShartwell 4y ago
It absolutely is up to the law to set the standard. Wishing people would all live up to your ethical standards for no reason will always have the same result: no difference. You can wish it all you want but it’s never going to actually cause an improvement to the world. Making unethical behavior illegal actually does have an impact on what people do because it changes their cost/reward decision
monista 4y ago
This is a funny example of a dark pattern: along with undoubtedly evil entities like anti-human-rights groups, you mentioned big pharma, probably to promote your anti-scientific agenda.

ineedtoknowmore 4y ago

- Many of these business models have been subsidized by governments. - I'm not sure, though the reasoning may be that their future existence is ultimately more valuable as a population control system than merely an ad network. - Some have argued that online ads are in a bubble. I don't know. - A free market does not seem to exist though. Thoughts?

citizenpaul 4y ago
I think its less an ad bubble and more like something similar to government use it or lose it spending. There is a sort of global hot potato/musical chairs thing going on. No one wants to be the first or last one to cut their ad spending so its a stand off. I've looked at some ad spending stuff at companies in the past and while their official numbers always "added up" there always seemed to me to be huge logic gaps that missed lots of obvious overspending. Those things are always hand-waved away as some sort of force multiplier or other nonsense. AKA don't cut our budget or sales will go away we dare you! I've posted a longer comment on here about an adventure in cutting ad spending at a company I was at because of a minor feud I had with the marketing manager. There were huge areas where the cost/profit from ads was destroying profit margin. I made some tremendous efforts to prove we could make major spending cuts on advertising without losing sales to the owner and ceo and was successful. I probably would not have been able to do it if the marketing guy was not constantly blaming their failures on IT so I stood up for us by spending my personal time making accurate reports and dashboards about the spending and proved him wrong. (he and a couple others lost their job) (no they didn't stand up and clap its a real story)
- gsatic 4y ago
  This doesn't happen enough. Past 10-15 years or so, thanks to tech overwhelming them, Marketing depts have lost their way. Its not their fault. They get all their training from google, youtube, fb etc on how to think about these systems and when things dont work out the usual reaction is, but we are just doing what Google/FB told us to do.
  - 4y ago