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Exactly! You can _pay_ not to be inconvenienced and harmed. Whereas they could simply be less greedy and make money from the folks for whom advertisements are

Exactly! You can _pay_ not to be inconvenienced and harmed. Whereas they could simply be less greedy and make money from the folks for whom advertisements are a harmless convenience. That's precisely what makes YouTube (and therefore Google) an unethical company. I mean, you made the case for me! I was avoiding saying that Google are wicked and evil by presenting a rational win-win - along with the possibility that they might have missed the rational solution :) But your observation that they _exploit_ the discomfort of others (rather than providing a valued product) , when there is no need to, says everything that needs to be said. TFA presents Google as being "conflicted" by a "complex landscape". So much so that they "sponsor" ad-blocking researchers. And we are supposed to be sympathetic and say; "geee yah, ain't business hard" The reality is that they're just greedy and totally full of shit.

beej71 3y ago
I think they're unethical for other reasons (e.g. WEI and other attempts to break interoperability). But just asking for money or ads is pretty common in business. And basically no one likes either. Just because people don't want to part with their cash doesn't make it unethical to demand it in exchange for goods or services, does it? Or to demand money for a higher-value product. I figure a lot of this seemingly contradictory behavior is out there for plausible deniability when they go before the judge. "No, see we weren't trying to force people into a certain product by leveraging our majority market position. We're trying to give them options!" But their number one goal is to make money, so, yes, they are greedy in that regard.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  Sure. Let's not start enumerating all the ways that Google are unethical, because I am not sure how well Dang and the team have hardened $max_post_length against buffer overflows. > Just because people don't want to part with their cash doesn't make it unethical to demand it in exchange for goods or services, does it? I don't think I said or even implied that. There are many ways to provide value and run a good business. And "cash"! I'm probably one of the biggest advocates of that around here :) > I figure a lot of this seemingly contradictory behaviour is out there for plausible deniability when they go before the judge. "No, see we weren't trying to force people into a certain product by leveraging our majority market position. We're trying to give them options!" That, very much. So, in Cantor's style, let's add dishonesty to the infinite set of all ways Google are unethical :)

beej71 3y ago

I think they're unethical for other reasons (e.g. WEI and other attempts to break interoperability). But just asking for money or ads is pretty common in business. And basically no one likes either. Just because people don't want to part with their cash doesn't make it unethical to demand it in exchange for goods or services, does it? Or to demand money for a higher-value product. I figure a lot of this seemingly contradictory behavior is out there for plausible deniability when they go before the judge. "No, see we weren't trying to force people into a certain product by leveraging our majority market position. We're trying to give them options!" But their number one goal is to make money, so, yes, they are greedy in that regard.

nonrandomstring 3y ago
Sure. Let's not start enumerating all the ways that Google are unethical, because I am not sure how well Dang and the team have hardened $max_post_length against buffer overflows. > Just because people don't want to part with their cash doesn't make it unethical to demand it in exchange for goods or services, does it? I don't think I said or even implied that. There are many ways to provide value and run a good business. And "cash"! I'm probably one of the biggest advocates of that around here :) > I figure a lot of this seemingly contradictory behaviour is out there for plausible deniability when they go before the judge. "No, see we weren't trying to force people into a certain product by leveraging our majority market position. We're trying to give them options!" That, very much. So, in Cantor's style, let's add dishonesty to the infinite set of all ways Google are unethical :)