2 ms·

> The main reason email is free is that Google fucked it all up by offering a good email service for free. Yikes, no. Email definitely wasn't free in the past.

by nunez 4y ago

> The main reason email is free is that Google fucked it all up by offering a good email service for free. Yikes, no. Email definitely wasn't free in the past. If you didn't use Hotmail (which I believe had paid tiers), you paid through your ISP. Gmail being free and giving you, at the time, a huge inbox was why it became as popular as it did. Even now, I'm paying for email via Google Workspace. Truth is, people largely don't care about being tracked or being served ads

jqpabc123 4y ago
Truth is, people largely don't care about being tracked or being served ads Don't care or don't understand? If "pay by privacy" was opt in only, I suspect there would be a lot fewer participants. A lot of people just don't understand how their privacy is being abused --- out of sight, out of mind.
- fragmede 4y ago
  Don't care. Facebook has an advertising profile for me? Big whoop, all they want to do with it is show me mores ads while I argue with my uncle online. I'm free to step away from the keyboard at any time. If I see an ad on Instagram and buy the product, yeah it's kind of annoying that the advertising worked but it's not like it's a scam. I get the product I bought, that I didn't know existed before the ad. If I didn't want the product I wouldn't buy it. That's not to say Facebook hasn't done great crimes against humanity, but I don't really care that Facebook's ad profile knows I'm into computers. I'll happily tell you that in person that's one of my hobbies. I'll get annoyed if you're constantly trying to sell me stuff but Instagram ads are easy enough to scroll past.
  - jqpabc123 4y ago
    They're not actually selling the data to anyone. You really have no way to know this do you? A political consulting firm got full access to 87 million Facebook accounts. Are you sure no money changed hands in the process? Every time you click on a Facebook ad, Facebook sells data on you to another company. I wouldn't bet that they are just ignoring such an obvious opportunity --- even though they may describe it as sharing data with their "affiliates" --- aka, anyone willing to pay the right price.
    - fragmede 4y ago
      you're right. I deleted that sentence as it detracts from my point

by nunez 4y ago

jqpabc123 4y ago

Truth is, people largely don't care about being tracked or being served ads Don't care or don't understand? If "pay by privacy" was opt in only, I suspect there would be a lot fewer participants. A lot of people just don't understand how their privacy is being abused --- out of sight, out of mind.

fragmede 4y ago
Don't care. Facebook has an advertising profile for me? Big whoop, all they want to do with it is show me mores ads while I argue with my uncle online. I'm free to step away from the keyboard at any time. If I see an ad on Instagram and buy the product, yeah it's kind of annoying that the advertising worked but it's not like it's a scam. I get the product I bought, that I didn't know existed before the ad. If I didn't want the product I wouldn't buy it. That's not to say Facebook hasn't done great crimes against humanity, but I don't really care that Facebook's ad profile knows I'm into computers. I'll happily tell you that in person that's one of my hobbies. I'll get annoyed if you're constantly trying to sell me stuff but Instagram ads are easy enough to scroll past.
- jqpabc123 4y ago
  They're not actually selling the data to anyone. You really have no way to know this do you? A political consulting firm got full access to 87 million Facebook accounts. Are you sure no money changed hands in the process? Every time you click on a Facebook ad, Facebook sells data on you to another company. I wouldn't bet that they are just ignoring such an obvious opportunity --- even though they may describe it as sharing data with their "affiliates" --- aka, anyone willing to pay the right price.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    you're right. I deleted that sentence as it detracts from my point