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Is it really surprising? Our primary role in society is to distort the internet, a platform who could be used for the most outstanding purposes of cooperation a

Is it really surprising? Our primary role in society is to distort the internet, a platform who could be used for the most outstanding purposes of cooperation and advancement of the collective human condition, into an increasingly restrictive and mundane collection of computerised schemes to translate our attention into advertisement revenue.

pc86 4y ago
I've been working in software development for about 15 years now and have yet to work for a single company funded through advertising dollars. It's not a foregone conclusion, you just have to choose to work for better companies.
- sdiacom 4y ago
  I have never worked in a company directly funded through advertising dollars, either. But I have worked in companies that make software for the marketing people to bother their advertising-found customers with, companies that make software that ensures the uptime of the attention-grabbing platform... These are first-derivative bullshit jobs. My job provides an useful service in that it enables other people to do their bullshit jobs. Those jobs do not need to exist, and if they didn't, my job would not need to exist, either.
- thisarticle 4y ago
  How do you propose we fund the internet without advertising dollars?
  - sdiacom 4y ago
    What happens if we don't "fund the internet"? What if we let projects with genuine usefulness flourish on their own, being funded directly by those who want them to exist, and we let the advertisement-funded internet fall by its own weight? Just like advertisement tricks you into buying things you don't need, the advertisement-funded internet tricks you into paying attention to things you don't care about. We're better off without.
    - willnonya 4y ago
      This comment seems to fundamentally misunderstand the dynamic that they're saying should just fall away.
      - sdiacom 4y ago
        Please elaborate? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. My perspective is that advertising sets a perverse incentive to create content that is indexable and clickable (machine-translated Stack Overflow answers, recipes with twelve paragraphs of backstory, fake download links for the latest Marvel movie) instead of content that is valuable.
        willnonya 4y ago
        To start with who will be the arbiter of value? While I would agree that advertising can result in distorted priorities it isn't inherently evil. We used to have an internet with both ads and rational incentives. Even then the value of the internet service could not cover itself without advertising. The main point though was that the cost of the internet is a mix of direct and indirect cost. I seriously doubt there will be enough people willing into incur the direct cost for modern services at a level that will co er those indirect cost incurred by the network and content providers. While an ad free internet sounds great it isn't very practical or necessary. The answer is on the user end rather than the provider end though. Stop rewarding the perverse incentives instead of pretending we can wish them away.

pc86 4y ago

I've been working in software development for about 15 years now and have yet to work for a single company funded through advertising dollars. It's not a foregone conclusion, you just have to choose to work for better companies.

sdiacom 4y ago
I have never worked in a company directly funded through advertising dollars, either. But I have worked in companies that make software for the marketing people to bother their advertising-found customers with, companies that make software that ensures the uptime of the attention-grabbing platform... These are first-derivative bullshit jobs. My job provides an useful service in that it enables other people to do their bullshit jobs. Those jobs do not need to exist, and if they didn't, my job would not need to exist, either.
thisarticle 4y ago
How do you propose we fund the internet without advertising dollars?
- sdiacom 4y ago
  What happens if we don't "fund the internet"? What if we let projects with genuine usefulness flourish on their own, being funded directly by those who want them to exist, and we let the advertisement-funded internet fall by its own weight? Just like advertisement tricks you into buying things you don't need, the advertisement-funded internet tricks you into paying attention to things you don't care about. We're better off without.
  - willnonya 4y ago
    This comment seems to fundamentally misunderstand the dynamic that they're saying should just fall away.
    - sdiacom 4y ago
      Please elaborate? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. My perspective is that advertising sets a perverse incentive to create content that is indexable and clickable (machine-translated Stack Overflow answers, recipes with twelve paragraphs of backstory, fake download links for the latest Marvel movie) instead of content that is valuable.
      - willnonya 4y ago
        To start with who will be the arbiter of value? While I would agree that advertising can result in distorted priorities it isn't inherently evil. We used to have an internet with both ads and rational incentives. Even then the value of the internet service could not cover itself without advertising. The main point though was that the cost of the internet is a mix of direct and indirect cost. I seriously doubt there will be enough people willing into incur the direct cost for modern services at a level that will co er those indirect cost incurred by the network and content providers. While an ad free internet sounds great it isn't very practical or necessary. The answer is on the user end rather than the provider end though. Stop rewarding the perverse incentives instead of pretending we can wish them away.