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Those people will be given a choice (assuming Meta doesn’t throw a tantrum and decide to leave the EU in Brexit fashion - which they are more than welcome to do

Those people will be given a choice (assuming Meta doesn’t throw a tantrum and decide to leave the EU in Brexit fashion - which they are more than welcome to do!). “Do you want us to use [extensive list of all of the kinds of information we have meticulously gathered about you] to show you more relevant ads? Yes/no” I have a personal belief on what most people will answer to that question. You may disagree. But it doesn’t really matter - the key is that people will be given the chance to make an informed decision.

int_19h 4y ago
I very much doubt that people will actually get that choice, because if Facebook does give it to them, the response numbers won't look good for the model. It's easier to remove the choice altogether and then spread FUD about how it's forced on them.
therealdrag0 4y ago
You don’t have to guess. We know. How many people use Gmail vs paying for a provider not owned by an advertiser company? How many people use Hulu free/lite tier vs paying more for zero ads? How many people are flocking to use a paid privacy focused search engine like Neeva? Hell even DDG hasn’t taken over and it’s free! People have choices and their preferences are clear: “give me free shit!”
- jdiez17 4y ago
  > How many people use Gmail vs paying for a provider not owned by an advertiser company? Ads shown in Gmail are not based on the contents of the emails, rather on other characteristics inferred from the associated Google account [0]. It's a bit of a "splitting hairs" thing, but it's not an apples-to-apples comparison in this case. I'm not familiar with Hulu. > How many people are flocking to use a paid privacy focused search engine like Neeva? Hell even DDG hasn’t taken over and it’s free! Those search engines are not as good as Google. All things being equal, I posit that people would prefer products that respect their privacy. > You don’t have to guess. Again, that's beside the point. The point is that people should be given the opportunity to make an informed choice about whether a company is allowed to process their personal data for the purpose of showing "more relevant" advertisements, and that is a Good Thing. [0] https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en
- nine_k 4y ago
  A ton of people use Outlook.com. The choice is usually not about the presence of ads (these are very moderate with both providers), but about the UX one finds more convenient / used to. When something like Protonmail supports tags, I may give them a try. I do pay for Youtube premium, because without that, the amount of ads really annoys me. I usually buy ad-free versions of freemium Android apps. There must be some value to pay for; making the free version annoying subtracts enough value that paying for the uncrippled version becomes a reasonable choice. (I usually buy paid versions of open-source apps to keep them open-source; that's also a value.) Also, a lot of people are very much not well off. They often don't have that extra $5; I remember being in that state myself as a student. So they will put up with free shit, even if it has a noticeable shit component :(
- bobbruno 4y ago
  I’m not so sure. My observations are certainly not statistically significant, but I’m a Brazilian who moved to Germany. One of the things I noticed when using email here is that the amount of people who have an email not @gmail.com, but whatever German provider that has to follow GDPR is much higher than what I saw back in Brazil. This suggests that the population in general in Europe is indeed more privacy-conscious.
  - therealdrag0 4y ago
    Were those not-gmails free or paid services?

int_19h 4y ago

I very much doubt that people will actually get that choice, because if Facebook does give it to them, the response numbers won't look good for the model. It's easier to remove the choice altogether and then spread FUD about how it's forced on them.

therealdrag0 4y ago

You don’t have to guess. We know. How many people use Gmail vs paying for a provider not owned by an advertiser company? How many people use Hulu free/lite tier vs paying more for zero ads? How many people are flocking to use a paid privacy focused search engine like Neeva? Hell even DDG hasn’t taken over and it’s free! People have choices and their preferences are clear: “give me free shit!”

jdiez17 4y ago
> How many people use Gmail vs paying for a provider not owned by an advertiser company? Ads shown in Gmail are not based on the contents of the emails, rather on other characteristics inferred from the associated Google account [0]. It's a bit of a "splitting hairs" thing, but it's not an apples-to-apples comparison in this case. I'm not familiar with Hulu. > How many people are flocking to use a paid privacy focused search engine like Neeva? Hell even DDG hasn’t taken over and it’s free! Those search engines are not as good as Google. All things being equal, I posit that people would prefer products that respect their privacy. > You don’t have to guess. Again, that's beside the point. The point is that people should be given the opportunity to make an informed choice about whether a company is allowed to process their personal data for the purpose of showing "more relevant" advertisements, and that is a Good Thing. [0] https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en
nine_k 4y ago
A ton of people use Outlook.com. The choice is usually not about the presence of ads (these are very moderate with both providers), but about the UX one finds more convenient / used to. When something like Protonmail supports tags, I may give them a try. I do pay for Youtube premium, because without that, the amount of ads really annoys me. I usually buy ad-free versions of freemium Android apps. There must be some value to pay for; making the free version annoying subtracts enough value that paying for the uncrippled version becomes a reasonable choice. (I usually buy paid versions of open-source apps to keep them open-source; that's also a value.) Also, a lot of people are very much not well off. They often don't have that extra $5; I remember being in that state myself as a student. So they will put up with free shit, even if it has a noticeable shit component :(
bobbruno 4y ago
I’m not so sure. My observations are certainly not statistically significant, but I’m a Brazilian who moved to Germany. One of the things I noticed when using email here is that the amount of people who have an email not @gmail.com, but whatever German provider that has to follow GDPR is much higher than what I saw back in Brazil. This suggests that the population in general in Europe is indeed more privacy-conscious.
- therealdrag0 4y ago
  Were those not-gmails free or paid services?