4 ms·

Because in reality, "meeting the needs of advertisers" is not a prerequisite to "protecting people's privacy." It's a false premise that Google constructed and

Because in reality, "meeting the needs of advertisers" is not a prerequisite to "protecting people's privacy." It's a false premise that Google constructed and which only exists because the dominant browser is created by an advertising company. A browser that truly protected people's privacy would definitionally not meet the needs of advertisers, because those needs are in direct opposition to people's need for privacy.

charcircuit 3y ago
Protecting people's privacy is not the sole job of a browser. The web in general needs to look at the needs of all of the stakeholders and come together to find a solution that all parties can find agreeable. A browser should care about not just the users, but also the rest of the people in the ecosystem. If Chrome shipped an update that blocked all ads it would kill many sites and would cause a disaster to the health of the web ecosystem. Chrome should try and improve the ecosystem.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > A browser should care about not just the users, but also the rest of the people in the ecosystem. Hard disagree. A browser is supposed to be my user agent. It is supposed to work for me. It should not be engaging in compromises to my wishes in order to benefit others. > Chrome should try and improve the ecosystem. I think that there is much disagreement about what "improving the ecosystem" would look like.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    >I think that there is much disagreement about what "improving the ecosystem" would look like. Sure, but enabling sites to be financially viable to run is almost universally considered good. If something is not viable on the web either it will be built on another ecosystem or it won't be built at all. It ends up making the web a worse place to be and strengthens the competitors to the web.
    - philistine 3y ago
      If an industry in a very competitive market is polluting rivers we don't find a way to maintain its ability to pollute, we stop the pollution through rigorous action while trying to keep it competitive. If collectively we decide that intrusive advertising has to go and we need to more directly pay for labour online, then so be it. It doesn't necessarily have to stay the old way forever.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > enabling sites to be financially viable to run is almost universally considered good. That isn't what's on the table, though. This impacts the ability to target ads. Targeted ads are absolutely not required for a website to be financially viable. > If something is not viable on the web either it will be built on another ecosystem or it won't be built at all. The history of the web demonstrates that this isn't true. There's an excluded middle there. > It ends up making the web a worse place to be and strengthens the competitors to the web. What are the competitors to the web? But aside from that, in my opinion, advertising has made the web a much worse place as it is. Advertising has made the web more like interactive cable TV, and limits the variety of activities because only the ones advertisers approve of are effectively allowed.
      - charcircuit 3y ago
        >Targeted ads are absolutely not required for a website to be financially viable. There is a subset of sites where it is required. Or at least it is with how much resources they are investing into the site and free services they offer. >What are the competitors to the web? The biggest competitors are Google's Play store and Apple's App store. >Advertising has made the web more like interactive cable TV, and limits the variety of activities because only the ones advertisers approve of are effectively allowed. The existence of sites with advertising doesn't mean that sites without advertising can't exist.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >Protecting people's privacy is not the sole job of a browser. I will never use a browser that serves anyone's desires over mine. That's absurd.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    The econmics don't work out for someone making a browser specifically for you and no one else. Products typically are designed to support the needs of many people instead of optimizing for a single person at the detriment of everyone else.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      If that is the metric you want to go by, users outnumber advertisers by several orders of magnitude, so in this sense, anything that makes online ads easier is optimizing for the few at the expense of the many.
      - charcircuit 3y ago
        It's trying to increase the privacy of the users while not upsetting the advertisers.
        justinclift 3y ago
        "The advertisers can go f*k themselves" is probably the nicest way to put things. ;)
        JohnFen 3y ago
        It's trying to make privacy invasions more palatable to people.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      That person isn't alone, though. In any case, why in the world would I want to use a browser that is working against my interests and in favor of the interests of an industry that has done nothing but been abusive for a very long time?
- qu4z-2 3y ago
  > If Chrome shipped an update that blocked all ads it would kill many sites and would cause a disaster to the health of the web ecosystem. I think this would be the best thing that could possibly happen for the health of the web, tbh. Imagine Google search results if every blogspam page plastered with ads no longer had a financial incentive to exist. EDIT: It would kill some useful sites too, undoubtedly, but I think it would be worth the cost.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    Blog spam sites are not expensive to host and they would just pivot to referral links. What it hurts are sites that generate user value and give it away for free by subsidizing it with ads.
    - philistine 3y ago
      Sure, the whole spam industry could just pivot to referral links, just like that. Referral links are a terrible business, with even less money and at the same mercy of the oligarch next door. Intrusive ads disappearing would be transformative and good for the web for a good long while.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > give it away for free by subsidizing it with ads. If those ads are targeted, then they're not giving it away for free at all. They're just demanding a different currency.
      - charcircuit 3y ago
        It costs $0. Happy?
- Karellen 3y ago
  Remember, the nickname "Browser" was invented after the fact, to describe the program that loads URLs and displays them to the user. The proper name of such a program is "User Agent". It is a program that acts as the agent, or the servant, of the user. My "browser" runs on my computer, by me, for me. It is not beholden to "all of the stakeholders", or "the rest of the people in the ecosystem". If my agent acting in a manner that User Agents were originally intended to, only fetching the URLs that I - the user - want it to fetch, "would cause a disaster to the health of the web ecosystem", then maybe the current web ecosystem is bad and deserves to meet with disaster. The web managed to explode in usefulness and popularity before surveillance capitalism became a thing, not because of it.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    A web browser implements the web standards. The web standards are put together by organizations that do respect all stakeholders. If the web ignores stakeholders then people will migrate off the web. This is how you get into a world where you have to use mobile apps and the web is near barren.
    - justinclift 3y ago
      > This is how you get into a world where you have to use mobile apps ... Are you meaning something different from the current state of affairs? Because, that seems to describe things currently.
      - charcircuit 3y ago
        Currently you often have the option to use either, but in theory the option to use the website could go away from many services if it's not worth it to have.
    - youngtaff 3y ago
      And the other browsers rejected Topics as an API so it’s not a standard
- justinclift 3y ago
  > If Chrome shipped an update that blocked all ads it would kill many sites and would cause a disaster to the health of the web ecosystem. That's complete bullshit.

charcircuit 3y ago

Protecting people's privacy is not the sole job of a browser. The web in general needs to look at the needs of all of the stakeholders and come together to find a solution that all parties can find agreeable. A browser should care about not just the users, but also the rest of the people in the ecosystem. If Chrome shipped an update that blocked all ads it would kill many sites and would cause a disaster to the health of the web ecosystem. Chrome should try and improve the ecosystem.

JohnFen 3y ago
> A browser should care about not just the users, but also the rest of the people in the ecosystem. Hard disagree. A browser is supposed to be my user agent. It is supposed to work for me. It should not be engaging in compromises to my wishes in order to benefit others. > Chrome should try and improve the ecosystem. I think that there is much disagreement about what "improving the ecosystem" would look like.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  >I think that there is much disagreement about what "improving the ecosystem" would look like. Sure, but enabling sites to be financially viable to run is almost universally considered good. If something is not viable on the web either it will be built on another ecosystem or it won't be built at all. It ends up making the web a worse place to be and strengthens the competitors to the web.
  - philistine 3y ago
    If an industry in a very competitive market is polluting rivers we don't find a way to maintain its ability to pollute, we stop the pollution through rigorous action while trying to keep it competitive. If collectively we decide that intrusive advertising has to go and we need to more directly pay for labour online, then so be it. It doesn't necessarily have to stay the old way forever.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > enabling sites to be financially viable to run is almost universally considered good. That isn't what's on the table, though. This impacts the ability to target ads. Targeted ads are absolutely not required for a website to be financially viable. > If something is not viable on the web either it will be built on another ecosystem or it won't be built at all. The history of the web demonstrates that this isn't true. There's an excluded middle there. > It ends up making the web a worse place to be and strengthens the competitors to the web. What are the competitors to the web? But aside from that, in my opinion, advertising has made the web a much worse place as it is. Advertising has made the web more like interactive cable TV, and limits the variety of activities because only the ones advertisers approve of are effectively allowed.
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      >Targeted ads are absolutely not required for a website to be financially viable. There is a subset of sites where it is required. Or at least it is with how much resources they are investing into the site and free services they offer. >What are the competitors to the web? The biggest competitors are Google's Play store and Apple's App store. >Advertising has made the web more like interactive cable TV, and limits the variety of activities because only the ones advertisers approve of are effectively allowed. The existence of sites with advertising doesn't mean that sites without advertising can't exist.
mrguyorama 3y ago
>Protecting people's privacy is not the sole job of a browser. I will never use a browser that serves anyone's desires over mine. That's absurd.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  The econmics don't work out for someone making a browser specifically for you and no one else. Products typically are designed to support the needs of many people instead of optimizing for a single person at the detriment of everyone else.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    If that is the metric you want to go by, users outnumber advertisers by several orders of magnitude, so in this sense, anything that makes online ads easier is optimizing for the few at the expense of the many.
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      It's trying to increase the privacy of the users while not upsetting the advertisers.
      - justinclift 3y ago
        "The advertisers can go f*k themselves" is probably the nicest way to put things. ;)
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        It's trying to make privacy invasions more palatable to people.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    That person isn't alone, though. In any case, why in the world would I want to use a browser that is working against my interests and in favor of the interests of an industry that has done nothing but been abusive for a very long time?
qu4z-2 3y ago
> If Chrome shipped an update that blocked all ads it would kill many sites and would cause a disaster to the health of the web ecosystem. I think this would be the best thing that could possibly happen for the health of the web, tbh. Imagine Google search results if every blogspam page plastered with ads no longer had a financial incentive to exist. EDIT: It would kill some useful sites too, undoubtedly, but I think it would be worth the cost.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  Blog spam sites are not expensive to host and they would just pivot to referral links. What it hurts are sites that generate user value and give it away for free by subsidizing it with ads.
  - philistine 3y ago
    Sure, the whole spam industry could just pivot to referral links, just like that. Referral links are a terrible business, with even less money and at the same mercy of the oligarch next door. Intrusive ads disappearing would be transformative and good for the web for a good long while.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > give it away for free by subsidizing it with ads. If those ads are targeted, then they're not giving it away for free at all. They're just demanding a different currency.
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      It costs $0. Happy?
Karellen 3y ago
Remember, the nickname "Browser" was invented after the fact, to describe the program that loads URLs and displays them to the user. The proper name of such a program is "User Agent". It is a program that acts as the agent, or the servant, of the user. My "browser" runs on my computer, by me, for me. It is not beholden to "all of the stakeholders", or "the rest of the people in the ecosystem". If my agent acting in a manner that User Agents were originally intended to, only fetching the URLs that I - the user - want it to fetch, "would cause a disaster to the health of the web ecosystem", then maybe the current web ecosystem is bad and deserves to meet with disaster. The web managed to explode in usefulness and popularity before surveillance capitalism became a thing, not because of it.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  A web browser implements the web standards. The web standards are put together by organizations that do respect all stakeholders. If the web ignores stakeholders then people will migrate off the web. This is how you get into a world where you have to use mobile apps and the web is near barren.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    > This is how you get into a world where you have to use mobile apps ... Are you meaning something different from the current state of affairs? Because, that seems to describe things currently.
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      Currently you often have the option to use either, but in theory the option to use the website could go away from many services if it's not worth it to have.
  - youngtaff 3y ago
    And the other browsers rejected Topics as an API so it’s not a standard
justinclift 3y ago
> If Chrome shipped an update that blocked all ads it would kill many sites and would cause a disaster to the health of the web ecosystem. That's complete bullshit.