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Just because we somehow ended up in a situation where spyware got effectively decriminalised doesn't mean it's a good situation especially in the long-term. If

Just because we somehow ended up in a situation where spyware got effectively decriminalised doesn't mean it's a good situation especially in the long-term. If nobody is willing to pay for your product, maybe it shouldn't exist?

stickfigure 4y ago
How much do you pay for HN?
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  I'd be more than happy to pay for HN, but I think it's a very bad example as it's not funded by any kind of ads/tracking (not directly at the very least).
  - ericpauley 4y ago
    The entire site is one giant ad for YC. The only difference is that HN has achieved an extremely effective content marketing strategy so tracking isn't needed.
    - stickfigure 4y ago
      It keeps a permanent list of your votes, comments, and submissions. It maintains your social credit score ("karma"). HN is absolutely tracking the hell out of you.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    HN does have ads: they look like posts, but you can't vote or comment on them. They're job ads for YC companies. You can see a list of recent ones at https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs
- rpastuszak 4y ago
  I'm not sure if I get the point of your question. Not everything needs to be monetised (or directly monetised) to serve a purpose.
- timeon 4y ago
  Too much.
wahnfrieden 4y ago
Can Meta cover its operational costs without personalized ads? Re: its ability to exist. Or is the issue that it’s unpalatable to wall st and investors and advertisers without ad personalization driven growth
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Almost certainly not, imo. Unpalatable to Walk St? No, using a service that does not have personalization is unpalatable to the small businesses that pay for Meta's services.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  The profiles and text communication, yes absolutely. That has been a solved problem on much less powerful & more expensive hardware than what we have now. Media might be a bit of an issue, but maybe less so if the lack of ad revenue means there is no incentive for publishers to pump out infinite quantities of low-quality media-heavy content.
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  No idea if they can, but there are better ways to deliver personalized ads without spying on users; for example I am interested in some areas (motorcycles, home improvement/DYI, indie music) and not at all in others (fashion, clothing and perfumes). I am no Meta user at all, but if I would be then I would love to set my ads preferences and get only adds that have value to me and to the companies paying for these ads and get right of the ones I never act on. That brings a lot of value for all parties.
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  The thing is, if Facebook fails to deliver ad revenue growth, the investors will move to extract value and disinvest from the company, which will kill it. All of the major tech giants were sold to Wall St. as a monopolization play - i.e. you are buying into the company that will own the future. If that turns out to not be the case and Facebook is merely a chat and blogging service, then why not move your money to more lucrative places? Of course, there are some interesting complications to this. Mark Zuckerberg specifically structured Facebook so that he would have majority control over the company. The other shareholders are just along for the ride. He can't make radical changes in the ownership structure without minority shareholder consensus, but that's not that meaningful since Zuckerberg is already running what is effectively a privately-owned company on shareholder money. Compare this to Twitter, which did a 180 on Musk's buyout offer so quickly that Musk spent months trying to fruitlessly wriggle his way out of the deal. They did not have a concentrated ownership structure, so the alternative would have been a slow shutdown or pivot away from microblogging. Instead we get to see a rich playboy destroy the company in real time. The continued viability of the underlying business is probably not in question yet. Advertising existed before tracking, after all; and text and images are cheap to distribute. But there are other headwinds that could absolutely devastate these businesses: - If CDA 230, DMCA 512, or equivalent regulations abroad were to be altered to favor copyright owners and creators over platforms, then that would massively increase moderation costs. Part of the reason why text and images are cheap to distribute at scale is because the platform does not have to account for copyright liability over billions of posts. - Noncopyright censorship[0] laws (i.e. EU TERREG) impose similar costs and risks onto these businesses. - The US might start enforcing their antitrust laws again, and if that does happen then Facebook is particularly vulnerable since their acquisition strategy was buying up all their competition. [0] My personal opinion is that violence is not speech. However, there is enough of a risk of misidentification at scale that I'm fine using the word "censorship" here.
whimsicalism 4y ago
Spyware? This is about logging activity of users on the same app that you built, not tracking them across the internet. Writing down what someone does while interacting with your own business was never "criminalized" to begin with. Businesses do pay for this product. Unilaterally making tech products illegal after backlash in the media is precisely why capital is deallocated from Europe to other places with less reactive regulatory environments and leaves the people in those countries poorer than they would have been, less able to afford vacations with their family, higher quality housing, air conditioning, appropriate medical care. These effects all spill over to every day life in Europe.
- burkaman 4y ago
  It's not illegal, they just need to ask their users if it's ok. If there's nothing wrong with this practice, why would the users say no?
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    If I am understanding this correctly, GDPR means that you must legally accept free riders, ie. you cannot deny service if they don't want it. Mandating companies to serve users who provide no value at all is an example of the regulatory requirements that spill down to hurting regular consumers and workers in Europe. You can see this across all sorts of fields, youth unemployment in Europe (for example) is a mess.
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      Courts so far seem to mostly have decided that if you are clear and upfront, you can offer "track me" and "I’ll pay you not to track me" as the two options. Very common in Germany.
      - whimsicalism 4y ago
        > Users must be able to withdraw consent at any time and Meta may not limit the service if users choose to do so. Not in this decision they did not. Meta is required to provide service even if you don't agree to the transaction.
friedman23 4y ago
> If nobody is willing to pay for your product, maybe it shouldn't exist? Hm, so you think it's better for the world for poor people to not have access to information via tools like Google? I think the fact that you need to use emotionally loaded language like spyware to make your argument really detracts from it.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Advertisers aren't altruistic and don't voluntarily subsidise poor people's access; advertisers want to target people with money. Poor people being able to "freeload" is a side effect of imperfect ad targeting - if advertisers could reliably identify someone's financial standing without hurting conversion rates they'd absolutely do so and deny access to poor people. If nothing gets done against ad targeting and non-consensual data collection & processing it's likely that there will be a point that poor people will lose access to ad-supported content (despite said content being free to someone much richer).
  - rpastuszak 4y ago
    > Advertisers aren't altruistic and don't voluntarily subsidise poor people's access; advertisers want to target people with money. Yes and no, since at the same time _almost everyone can be monetised_, just at a lower CPM. Everyone, almost everyone has _some_ money they could spend on useless crap. The goal of advertising is not to inform (or "connect people with the brands they love") but to create a need. This is not much different from poor people spending money on lotteries or in-app purchases in shitty mobile games.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      > just at a lower CPM Yes, but if you can accurately predict the CPM ahead of time (without hurting conversion rates for high-CPM users), you could deny service to those users whose CPM wouldn't cover costs or required profit margins. Of course, in reality the marginal cost of serving any given user is near-zero so ad-supported services are happy to serve just about anyone. That's why they'd survive just as well in an ad-less world as long as some minority of users is willing to pay.
greggarious 4y ago
> Just because we somehow ended up in a situation where spyware got effectively decriminalised doesn't mean it's a good situation especially in the long-term. Spyware is just newspeak for “I feel immune from being prosecuted under the computer fraud and abuse act and the senator I paid for agrees”

stickfigure 4y ago

How much do you pay for HN?

Nextgrid 4y ago
I'd be more than happy to pay for HN, but I think it's a very bad example as it's not funded by any kind of ads/tracking (not directly at the very least).
- ericpauley 4y ago
  The entire site is one giant ad for YC. The only difference is that HN has achieved an extremely effective content marketing strategy so tracking isn't needed.
  - stickfigure 4y ago
    It keeps a permanent list of your votes, comments, and submissions. It maintains your social credit score ("karma"). HN is absolutely tracking the hell out of you.
- jefftk 4y ago
  HN does have ads: they look like posts, but you can't vote or comment on them. They're job ads for YC companies. You can see a list of recent ones at https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs
rpastuszak 4y ago
I'm not sure if I get the point of your question. Not everything needs to be monetised (or directly monetised) to serve a purpose.
timeon 4y ago
Too much.

wahnfrieden 4y ago

Can Meta cover its operational costs without personalized ads? Re: its ability to exist. Or is the issue that it’s unpalatable to wall st and investors and advertisers without ad personalization driven growth

whimsicalism 4y ago
Almost certainly not, imo. Unpalatable to Walk St? No, using a service that does not have personalization is unpalatable to the small businesses that pay for Meta's services.
Nextgrid 4y ago
The profiles and text communication, yes absolutely. That has been a solved problem on much less powerful & more expensive hardware than what we have now. Media might be a bit of an issue, but maybe less so if the lack of ad revenue means there is no incentive for publishers to pump out infinite quantities of low-quality media-heavy content.
AdrianB1 4y ago
No idea if they can, but there are better ways to deliver personalized ads without spying on users; for example I am interested in some areas (motorcycles, home improvement/DYI, indie music) and not at all in others (fashion, clothing and perfumes). I am no Meta user at all, but if I would be then I would love to set my ads preferences and get only adds that have value to me and to the companies paying for these ads and get right of the ones I never act on. That brings a lot of value for all parties.
kmeisthax 4y ago
The thing is, if Facebook fails to deliver ad revenue growth, the investors will move to extract value and disinvest from the company, which will kill it. All of the major tech giants were sold to Wall St. as a monopolization play - i.e. you are buying into the company that will own the future. If that turns out to not be the case and Facebook is merely a chat and blogging service, then why not move your money to more lucrative places? Of course, there are some interesting complications to this. Mark Zuckerberg specifically structured Facebook so that he would have majority control over the company. The other shareholders are just along for the ride. He can't make radical changes in the ownership structure without minority shareholder consensus, but that's not that meaningful since Zuckerberg is already running what is effectively a privately-owned company on shareholder money. Compare this to Twitter, which did a 180 on Musk's buyout offer so quickly that Musk spent months trying to fruitlessly wriggle his way out of the deal. They did not have a concentrated ownership structure, so the alternative would have been a slow shutdown or pivot away from microblogging. Instead we get to see a rich playboy destroy the company in real time. The continued viability of the underlying business is probably not in question yet. Advertising existed before tracking, after all; and text and images are cheap to distribute. But there are other headwinds that could absolutely devastate these businesses: - If CDA 230, DMCA 512, or equivalent regulations abroad were to be altered to favor copyright owners and creators over platforms, then that would massively increase moderation costs. Part of the reason why text and images are cheap to distribute at scale is because the platform does not have to account for copyright liability over billions of posts. - Noncopyright censorship[0] laws (i.e. EU TERREG) impose similar costs and risks onto these businesses. - The US might start enforcing their antitrust laws again, and if that does happen then Facebook is particularly vulnerable since their acquisition strategy was buying up all their competition. [0] My personal opinion is that violence is not speech. However, there is enough of a risk of misidentification at scale that I'm fine using the word "censorship" here.

whimsicalism 4y ago

Spyware? This is about logging activity of users on the same app that you built, not tracking them across the internet. Writing down what someone does while interacting with your own business was never "criminalized" to begin with. Businesses do pay for this product. Unilaterally making tech products illegal after backlash in the media is precisely why capital is deallocated from Europe to other places with less reactive regulatory environments and leaves the people in those countries poorer than they would have been, less able to afford vacations with their family, higher quality housing, air conditioning, appropriate medical care. These effects all spill over to every day life in Europe.

burkaman 4y ago
It's not illegal, they just need to ask their users if it's ok. If there's nothing wrong with this practice, why would the users say no?
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  If I am understanding this correctly, GDPR means that you must legally accept free riders, ie. you cannot deny service if they don't want it. Mandating companies to serve users who provide no value at all is an example of the regulatory requirements that spill down to hurting regular consumers and workers in Europe. You can see this across all sorts of fields, youth unemployment in Europe (for example) is a mess.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    Courts so far seem to mostly have decided that if you are clear and upfront, you can offer "track me" and "I’ll pay you not to track me" as the two options. Very common in Germany.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      > Users must be able to withdraw consent at any time and Meta may not limit the service if users choose to do so. Not in this decision they did not. Meta is required to provide service even if you don't agree to the transaction.

friedman23 4y ago

> If nobody is willing to pay for your product, maybe it shouldn't exist? Hm, so you think it's better for the world for poor people to not have access to information via tools like Google? I think the fact that you need to use emotionally loaded language like spyware to make your argument really detracts from it.

Nextgrid 4y ago
Advertisers aren't altruistic and don't voluntarily subsidise poor people's access; advertisers want to target people with money. Poor people being able to "freeload" is a side effect of imperfect ad targeting - if advertisers could reliably identify someone's financial standing without hurting conversion rates they'd absolutely do so and deny access to poor people. If nothing gets done against ad targeting and non-consensual data collection & processing it's likely that there will be a point that poor people will lose access to ad-supported content (despite said content being free to someone much richer).
- rpastuszak 4y ago
  > Advertisers aren't altruistic and don't voluntarily subsidise poor people's access; advertisers want to target people with money. Yes and no, since at the same time _almost everyone can be monetised_, just at a lower CPM. Everyone, almost everyone has _some_ money they could spend on useless crap. The goal of advertising is not to inform (or "connect people with the brands they love") but to create a need. This is not much different from poor people spending money on lotteries or in-app purchases in shitty mobile games.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    > just at a lower CPM Yes, but if you can accurately predict the CPM ahead of time (without hurting conversion rates for high-CPM users), you could deny service to those users whose CPM wouldn't cover costs or required profit margins. Of course, in reality the marginal cost of serving any given user is near-zero so ad-supported services are happy to serve just about anyone. That's why they'd survive just as well in an ad-less world as long as some minority of users is willing to pay.

greggarious 4y ago

> Just because we somehow ended up in a situation where spyware got effectively decriminalised doesn't mean it's a good situation especially in the long-term. Spyware is just newspeak for “I feel immune from being prosecuted under the computer fraud and abuse act and the senator I paid for agrees”