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It's hard to be sympathetic to a company that operates morally dubious amounts of data harvesting. If a program enables you to gain more privacy while using th

by Taywee 4y ago

It's hard to be sympathetic to a company that operates morally dubious amounts of data harvesting. If a program enables you to gain more privacy while using the internet, it's a moral good. I don't consider it to be stealing any resources or services. It's little different than an ad and tracker blocker on a browser. Any client-side user agent should have the right to act on behalf of the user. If it's not illegal to build this kind of program yourself to protect yourself, it shouldn't be illegal for another company to build it and profit from it. A company like Facebook shouldn't have the right to strategically stifle innovation and improvement, in a way that makes the market better for the consumer. That undermines the entire point of capitalism, which is to benefit maximally for the consumer by forcing companies to out-do each other. It reads more like anti-competitive behavior to me, and Facebook refusing to try to properly adapt to somebody making their product better than they can do themselves. If Ford produced an on-board tracking device that tracked your use of the car to sell to advertisers, and another company sold a device that disabled the tracker permanently, there would be no good reason for Ford to be able to forcefully ban the company from buying their cars. Even if the car was sold at a loss because the ad revenue subsidized the remainder and then some. People are hungry for privacy and a better experience. Facebook needs to learn to adapt for the good of the consumer, or die by letting other companies eat their lunch. This is good capitalism. It sucks for Facebook, but it's good for the public.

etchalon 4y ago
You had an argument up and until the idea that Ford wouldn't have a "good reason" to retaliate against a company that was causing them to lose money. Not attempting to stop that act would be, for a public company, a violation of their duties to shareholders.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  We're not saying they shouldn't attempt to stop them. We're saying they shouldn't be able to stop them.
voidwtf 4y ago
I’m with you almost all the way. I’m just not going to say that any of us our entitled to the resources of someone else. I believe in what’s best for the commons, but not at the expense of stealing what’s not mine. Sure, take possession of what’s yours, your information, your privacy, your property. But don’t give it all away to receive some benefit, then insist on seizing it all back and keeping the benefit. The transaction you make with Meta is that you’ll give them a piece of your property, in exchange you get to use their machines. If you don’t want them to occupy your property, stop using their machines. I choose not to use Facebook/Instagram because I’m not so self important as to share my daily life with “friends” I only talk to out of convenience and lack of something better to do. I don’t feel like the benefit Facebook offers is worth the toll they exact. I don’t want my land to be part of their machine, and similarly I don’t feel entitled to it. When someone sends me a Facebook or Instagram link and I’m asked to login, I just let them know I can’t view that link. If I’m blocked from Instagram content, or increasingly Twitter content, because of my adblocker, then I just accept that the content isn’t available to me. I host content I want to share with friends and family on services that I either host or pay for so that I don’t have to subject them to that. So they don’t have to sign away their privacy to view my kids having fun at the park.
fsociety 4y ago
If you read the app’s official Twitter you will get several hints that this is likely not just a client-side app. https://twitter.com/theogapp_/status/1574811388823732233 https://twitter.com/theogapp_/status/1574811388823732233 https://twitter.com/theogapp_/status/1574816036645314561 https://twitter.com/theogapp_/status/1574816036645314561 And they are a venture backed startup. Does none of this alarm you?

by Taywee 4y ago

etchalon 4y ago

You had an argument up and until the idea that Ford wouldn't have a "good reason" to retaliate against a company that was causing them to lose money. Not attempting to stop that act would be, for a public company, a violation of their duties to shareholders.

josephcsible 4y ago
We're not saying they shouldn't attempt to stop them. We're saying they shouldn't be able to stop them.

voidwtf 4y ago

I’m with you almost all the way. I’m just not going to say that any of us our entitled to the resources of someone else. I believe in what’s best for the commons, but not at the expense of stealing what’s not mine. Sure, take possession of what’s yours, your information, your privacy, your property. But don’t give it all away to receive some benefit, then insist on seizing it all back and keeping the benefit. The transaction you make with Meta is that you’ll give them a piece of your property, in exchange you get to use their machines. If you don’t want them to occupy your property, stop using their machines. I choose not to use Facebook/Instagram because I’m not so self important as to share my daily life with “friends” I only talk to out of convenience and lack of something better to do. I don’t feel like the benefit Facebook offers is worth the toll they exact. I don’t want my land to be part of their machine, and similarly I don’t feel entitled to it. When someone sends me a Facebook or Instagram link and I’m asked to login, I just let them know I can’t view that link. If I’m blocked from Instagram content, or increasingly Twitter content, because of my adblocker, then I just accept that the content isn’t available to me. I host content I want to share with friends and family on services that I either host or pay for so that I don’t have to subject them to that. So they don’t have to sign away their privacy to view my kids having fun at the park.

fsociety 4y ago

If you read the app’s official Twitter you will get several hints that this is likely not just a client-side app. https://twitter.com/theogapp_/status/1574811388823732233 https://twitter.com/theogapp_/status/1574811388823732233 https://twitter.com/theogapp_/status/1574816036645314561 https://twitter.com/theogapp_/status/1574816036645314561 And they are a venture backed startup. Does none of this alarm you?