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> The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. A company can bar the exits, letting you burn to death [0]. A company can send private militi

> The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. A company can bar the exits, letting you burn to death [0]. A company can send private militias to force you to work [1] (or because you were sent the wrong set of MtG cards [2]). A company can improperly store pesticide, until the resulting explosion kills thousands [3]. A company can own every house and store in a town, managing your expenses to ensure you can't leave [4]. A company can bribe judges to provide them with child labor [5]. Some of these were illegal at the time they were done. Some of these were made illegal as a result of these events. All of them are within the nature of companies, optimizing in pursuit of profit regardless of the human cost. That nature is useful for improving lives, but must be carefully controlled to prevent it from trampling us all. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) [2] https://gizmodo.com/magic-the-gathering-leaks-wizards-wotc-pinkertons-1850374546 https://gizmodo.com/magic-the-gathering-leaks-wizards-wotc-p... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

josephg 3y ago
Yep. And when I’m unhappy with my government, I can vote them out or, if I want to, get politically active. I can’t vote out Google. Their customers are advertisers, not me. And I don’t know which apps on my phone send my information to Facebook or what they do with it.
- konschubert 3y ago
  Then don't use google, duh.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Google ad-tech still tracks you as you browse non-google websites.
    - JAlexoid 3y ago
      They're not your websites. If you wish, we should make it way more clear about it. But telling a small newspaper to stop using ads for revenue, when you aren't willing to financially support them is... hypocritical. In short - just like a lot of "this ids good for you" laws, this will definitely impact smaller companies way more than you think.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >But telling a small newspaper to stop using ads for revenue, when you aren't willing to financially support them is... hypocritical. How do you know I am not willing to pay? OK, I'll be the millionth commenter to repeat this viewpoint for the millionth time on HN: nobody has issues with online ads to support their favorite newspaper or creator, people have an issue with tracking and targeting ads. We've had ad supported websites, forums and blogs since the 90's, but those were generic and harmless, and wouldn't track and target YOU. So if newspapers or any other websites want to use weaponized ad-tech on me, then excuse me, but I'm gonna block the shit out of them with no remorse, to protect myself.
        pb7 3y ago
        Targeted ads are more effective and therefore fetch a higher premium and therefore monetize the host site better than non-targeted ads. You would need 10x the ads to make up the revenue and there's not enough space or user patience for that.
        JAlexoid 3y ago
        > How do you know I am not willing to pay? Because we've been there, done that. How many local or small news outlet subscriptions do you have? I'm pretty sure it's not a lot. > We've had ad supported websites, forums and blogs since the 90's, but those were generic and harmless, and wouldn't track and target YOU. And as a result any website with reasonable traffic, would have to put up a million ads - to just break even. Attendance was rising, costs associated with maintenance as well. Advertisers don't want to pay just to show random individuals ads that have close to 0 chance of being useful. Generic advertising effectively excludes smaller companies from advertising space. If your advertising budget is $50k today, with targeted ads, you can effectively spend it to show your product to people who would be interested in it. Without, you have to spend $1mil on ads to show it to everyone and get results equal to spending $1k with targeted ads. > weaponized ad-tech Yes, yes... The "mid 20ies, IT person, with interest in HN" is definitely a weapon to take "you" down. Quit with the hyperbole, no ad tech keeps anything remotely interesting about you.
- pb7 3y ago
  It’s infinitely easier to avoid the companies you don’t like than it is to vote out any part of government. You have near zero power to remove someone you don’t like because your vote is worth next to nothing. However, you have full power to avoid the products and services of a company.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    I mean, if you know how. I once ran across a data product which was Bluetooth mac addresses as they moved through bust streets. Sure it's easy to turn off Bluetooth so that you don't show up in the data, but most people had no idea the collection was happening.
  - devsda 3y ago
    > It’s infinitely easier to avoid the companies you don’t like than it is to vote out any part of government. If you can avoid a company, the fact that there is an acceptable alternative itself says that the market is not monopolized and so there is less chance of abuse. In the markets where abuse is possible there are often monopolies, or there is illusion of choice like a (colluding or copycatting)duopoly or one where all the "competing" brands being owned by the same parent conglomerate etc. It is very difficult to participate in the modern economy/world while avoiding certain companies. It might be possible but there are both social and economical costs involved that majority cannot afford.
    - Capricorn2481 3y ago
      > If you can avoid a company, the fact that there is an acceptable alternative itself says that the market is not monopolized and so there is less chance of abuse Avoiding a company doesn't necessarily mean there's an acceptable alternative. I could use no social media and my life wouldn't be much worse or burdensome. There's very little I can do to prevent the government from doing what it's doing by myself.
      - devsda 3y ago
        Sure one can refuse to participate in the "market" altogether but like I said, it is a luxury that not everyone can afford to have due to various personal/social/economic reasons.
- data_monkey 3y ago
  [flagged]
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  I would like to vote out my homophobic government, but I can't. I can't avoid not paying taxes to fund the catholic church in my country, that uses that money to lobby homophobic laws... I can block Google and not use them. This is not a simple "just vote them out", unless you're part of the privileged majority that can affect the policy.
  - taway1237 3y ago
    You personally can't, but a majority can. My country just did that (voted out a regressive government).
    - JAlexoid 3y ago
      Barely, my Polish neighbor... And no, they're not going to magically stop funding the Catholic church or become a safe haven for LGBT people.
- savanaly 3y ago
  It's much easier to change what company you do business with than what government you're under. I can't believe you're managing to turn this simple fact on its head and imply the exact opposite.
  - lapetitejort 3y ago
    How can I stop doing business with Experian, Transunion, and Equifax?
    - idopmstuff 3y ago
      You can't, but that's not a particularly good example of why it's hard to stop doing business with private companies, because the reason you can't stop doing business with them is that the government has specifically mandated it.
  - _Algernon_ 3y ago
    That's not true. Governments most likely have your data within the management of private companies right at this moment (especially Microsoft through Azure, Amazon through AWS, or as a student Google, due to Chromebooks). Changing the private companies that have your data, in some cases has changing your government as a prerequisite.
  - abadpoli 3y ago
    It isn’t simple at all. You lack nuance. You can stop doing business with Mom&Pop’s coffee shop relatively easily, just like you can move to a different town to get away from your city government authority. But you’re practically never going to truly get away from Meta, Google, Amazon, Nestle, McKesson, ATT, and those behemoths due to their size, similar to how you’re going to struggle to get out from under the US Federal government.
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  > when I’m unhappy with my government, I can vote them out No, you actually can’t, in a very real and practical sense.
JAlexoid 3y ago
I understand that your culture may not be context heavy, but please remember that this is probably related to the context of advertising companies. I doubt that this relates to the online advertising space. Disregarding the personal data and other tracking, banning all targeted advertising is... not ideal. I genuinely would prefer to have ads that are relevant, than ads for table casters. One thing that we should also be aware, is that ads aren't going away. They're going to be more obnoxious as a result of this decision.
ActorNightly 3y ago
Try again, but keep things relevant within the past 10 years, and applicable to majority of the population.
- henry2023 3y ago
  As corporations get bigger. the issues described get more prevalent. South Korea is going through a birth collapse mostly because their corporations's shaping of civil life. We're going through a huge opioid crisis just because of our corporations. Systemic > Isolated instances but also harder to point out.
  - aegypti 3y ago
    Still quite the reach. An inverse correlation between income and fertility is observable across the entire developed world and across every form of economic organization present in developed/developing countries over the past century with zero exceptions.
- MereInterest 3y ago
  Sure! It isn't like negligence-induced explosions have stopped [0]. Companies spy on you [1] and collude to set your rent [2]. Companies decide if you get medical treatment [3], and whether that medical treatment is safe [4]. Companies even decide on whether your food is safe [5]. Now, for a productive conversation, I'd recommend you putting effort in as well, instead of just sea lioning [6]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#Privacy_issues_and_investigations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#Privacy_is... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/company-that-makes-rent-setting-software-for-landlords-sued-for-collusion/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/company-that-mak... [3] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/analysis-health-insurance-claim-denials-are-on-the-rise-to-the-detriment-of-patients https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/analysis-health-insuranc... [4] https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/07/not-again-bone-grafts-linked-to-another-deadly-bizarre-tb-outbreak/ https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/07/not-again-bone-grafts... [5] https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/poopy-lettuce-at-wendys-still-prime-suspect-in-outbreak-that-just-doubled/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/poopy-lettuce-at-wen... [6] https://wondermark.com/c/1k62/ https://wondermark.com/c/1k62/

josephg 3y ago

Yep. And when I’m unhappy with my government, I can vote them out or, if I want to, get politically active. I can’t vote out Google. Their customers are advertisers, not me. And I don’t know which apps on my phone send my information to Facebook or what they do with it.

konschubert 3y ago
Then don't use google, duh.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Google ad-tech still tracks you as you browse non-google websites.
  - JAlexoid 3y ago
    They're not your websites. If you wish, we should make it way more clear about it. But telling a small newspaper to stop using ads for revenue, when you aren't willing to financially support them is... hypocritical. In short - just like a lot of "this ids good for you" laws, this will definitely impact smaller companies way more than you think.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >But telling a small newspaper to stop using ads for revenue, when you aren't willing to financially support them is... hypocritical. How do you know I am not willing to pay? OK, I'll be the millionth commenter to repeat this viewpoint for the millionth time on HN: nobody has issues with online ads to support their favorite newspaper or creator, people have an issue with tracking and targeting ads. We've had ad supported websites, forums and blogs since the 90's, but those were generic and harmless, and wouldn't track and target YOU. So if newspapers or any other websites want to use weaponized ad-tech on me, then excuse me, but I'm gonna block the shit out of them with no remorse, to protect myself.
      - pb7 3y ago
        Targeted ads are more effective and therefore fetch a higher premium and therefore monetize the host site better than non-targeted ads. You would need 10x the ads to make up the revenue and there's not enough space or user patience for that.
      - JAlexoid 3y ago
        > How do you know I am not willing to pay? Because we've been there, done that. How many local or small news outlet subscriptions do you have? I'm pretty sure it's not a lot. > We've had ad supported websites, forums and blogs since the 90's, but those were generic and harmless, and wouldn't track and target YOU. And as a result any website with reasonable traffic, would have to put up a million ads - to just break even. Attendance was rising, costs associated with maintenance as well. Advertisers don't want to pay just to show random individuals ads that have close to 0 chance of being useful. Generic advertising effectively excludes smaller companies from advertising space. If your advertising budget is $50k today, with targeted ads, you can effectively spend it to show your product to people who would be interested in it. Without, you have to spend $1mil on ads to show it to everyone and get results equal to spending $1k with targeted ads. > weaponized ad-tech Yes, yes... The "mid 20ies, IT person, with interest in HN" is definitely a weapon to take "you" down. Quit with the hyperbole, no ad tech keeps anything remotely interesting about you.
pb7 3y ago
It’s infinitely easier to avoid the companies you don’t like than it is to vote out any part of government. You have near zero power to remove someone you don’t like because your vote is worth next to nothing. However, you have full power to avoid the products and services of a company.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  I mean, if you know how. I once ran across a data product which was Bluetooth mac addresses as they moved through bust streets. Sure it's easy to turn off Bluetooth so that you don't show up in the data, but most people had no idea the collection was happening.
- devsda 3y ago
  > It’s infinitely easier to avoid the companies you don’t like than it is to vote out any part of government. If you can avoid a company, the fact that there is an acceptable alternative itself says that the market is not monopolized and so there is less chance of abuse. In the markets where abuse is possible there are often monopolies, or there is illusion of choice like a (colluding or copycatting)duopoly or one where all the "competing" brands being owned by the same parent conglomerate etc. It is very difficult to participate in the modern economy/world while avoiding certain companies. It might be possible but there are both social and economical costs involved that majority cannot afford.
  - Capricorn2481 3y ago
    > If you can avoid a company, the fact that there is an acceptable alternative itself says that the market is not monopolized and so there is less chance of abuse Avoiding a company doesn't necessarily mean there's an acceptable alternative. I could use no social media and my life wouldn't be much worse or burdensome. There's very little I can do to prevent the government from doing what it's doing by myself.
    - devsda 3y ago
      Sure one can refuse to participate in the "market" altogether but like I said, it is a luxury that not everyone can afford to have due to various personal/social/economic reasons.
data_monkey 3y ago
[flagged]
JAlexoid 3y ago
I would like to vote out my homophobic government, but I can't. I can't avoid not paying taxes to fund the catholic church in my country, that uses that money to lobby homophobic laws... I can block Google and not use them. This is not a simple "just vote them out", unless you're part of the privileged majority that can affect the policy.
- taway1237 3y ago
  You personally can't, but a majority can. My country just did that (voted out a regressive government).
  - JAlexoid 3y ago
    Barely, my Polish neighbor... And no, they're not going to magically stop funding the Catholic church or become a safe haven for LGBT people.
savanaly 3y ago
It's much easier to change what company you do business with than what government you're under. I can't believe you're managing to turn this simple fact on its head and imply the exact opposite.
- lapetitejort 3y ago
  How can I stop doing business with Experian, Transunion, and Equifax?
  - idopmstuff 3y ago
    You can't, but that's not a particularly good example of why it's hard to stop doing business with private companies, because the reason you can't stop doing business with them is that the government has specifically mandated it.
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  That's not true. Governments most likely have your data within the management of private companies right at this moment (especially Microsoft through Azure, Amazon through AWS, or as a student Google, due to Chromebooks). Changing the private companies that have your data, in some cases has changing your government as a prerequisite.
- abadpoli 3y ago
  It isn’t simple at all. You lack nuance. You can stop doing business with Mom&Pop’s coffee shop relatively easily, just like you can move to a different town to get away from your city government authority. But you’re practically never going to truly get away from Meta, Google, Amazon, Nestle, McKesson, ATT, and those behemoths due to their size, similar to how you’re going to struggle to get out from under the US Federal government.
School-Cotton 3y ago
> when I’m unhappy with my government, I can vote them out No, you actually can’t, in a very real and practical sense.

JAlexoid 3y ago

I understand that your culture may not be context heavy, but please remember that this is probably related to the context of advertising companies. I doubt that this relates to the online advertising space. Disregarding the personal data and other tracking, banning all targeted advertising is... not ideal. I genuinely would prefer to have ads that are relevant, than ads for table casters. One thing that we should also be aware, is that ads aren't going away. They're going to be more obnoxious as a result of this decision.

ActorNightly 3y ago

Try again, but keep things relevant within the past 10 years, and applicable to majority of the population.

henry2023 3y ago
As corporations get bigger. the issues described get more prevalent. South Korea is going through a birth collapse mostly because their corporations's shaping of civil life. We're going through a huge opioid crisis just because of our corporations. Systemic > Isolated instances but also harder to point out.
- aegypti 3y ago
  Still quite the reach. An inverse correlation between income and fertility is observable across the entire developed world and across every form of economic organization present in developed/developing countries over the past century with zero exceptions.
MereInterest 3y ago
Sure! It isn't like negligence-induced explosions have stopped [0]. Companies spy on you [1] and collude to set your rent [2]. Companies decide if you get medical treatment [3], and whether that medical treatment is safe [4]. Companies even decide on whether your food is safe [5]. Now, for a productive conversation, I'd recommend you putting effort in as well, instead of just sea lioning [6]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#Privacy_issues_and_investigations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#Privacy_is... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/company-that-makes-rent-setting-software-for-landlords-sued-for-collusion/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/company-that-mak... [3] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/analysis-health-insurance-claim-denials-are-on-the-rise-to-the-detriment-of-patients https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/analysis-health-insuranc... [4] https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/07/not-again-bone-grafts-linked-to-another-deadly-bizarre-tb-outbreak/ https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/07/not-again-bone-grafts... [5] https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/poopy-lettuce-at-wendys-still-prime-suspect-in-outbreak-that-just-doubled/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/poopy-lettuce-at-wen... [6] https://wondermark.com/c/1k62/ https://wondermark.com/c/1k62/