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I don't think the choice is "surveillance vs privacy", but rather "free-with-ads" vs "paid-with-privacy" People choose to watch youtube with ads rather than pa

I don't think the choice is "surveillance vs privacy", but rather "free-with-ads" vs "paid-with-privacy" People choose to watch youtube with ads rather than pay for youtube premium without ads. People buy the kindle with ads on the lockscreen over paying $20 or whatever more for an ad-free one. When given the choice of a $3 app store app with no ads vs an identical free one with ads, users pick the ads. Picking ads is effectively the same as choosing a lower price (free) over privacy, and people seem to consistently pick in this direction. Because of that, I don't think it's fair to say that users aren't actually making any choice here. Users are choosing free services over privacy.

int_19h 3y ago
People pick ads, it is true. They do not explicitly pick "track you everywhere to build a hyper-accurate profile of you that can then push precisely tuned ads at you", though. That part is buried in the EULAs.
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slavik81 3y ago
You cannot buy privacy with a credit card. You tie your identity to an account when you pay for it. Ads are orthogonal to privacy. We've had privacy-preserving ads in physical newspapers for hundreds of years. There is no reasonable way for a normal person to consistently choose privacy these days.
CatWChainsaw 3y ago
I have never heard of an ad-free lockscreen on Kindle and I pay for Kindle Unlimited. So I have to pay even more to get ad-free, if that's even possible. And I'm sure that's just for Kindle. Need to cough up a few more dollars for ad-free Prime Video. And ad-free shopping on Amazon. And that's just one service. Can't wait to hear what I'd need to spend for the same if I used Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and a Quest even though Meta owns all of them. And I can just imagine the hellscape Microsoft will create when you have to pay a subscription fee to use Windows 12 Home With Ads, as your baseline option. The average American isn't exactly awash in cash to spend on privacy, you know.

int_19h 3y ago

People pick ads, it is true. They do not explicitly pick "track you everywhere to build a hyper-accurate profile of you that can then push precisely tuned ads at you", though. That part is buried in the EULAs.

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slavik81 3y ago

You cannot buy privacy with a credit card. You tie your identity to an account when you pay for it. Ads are orthogonal to privacy. We've had privacy-preserving ads in physical newspapers for hundreds of years. There is no reasonable way for a normal person to consistently choose privacy these days.

CatWChainsaw 3y ago

I have never heard of an ad-free lockscreen on Kindle and I pay for Kindle Unlimited. So I have to pay even more to get ad-free, if that's even possible. And I'm sure that's just for Kindle. Need to cough up a few more dollars for ad-free Prime Video. And ad-free shopping on Amazon. And that's just one service. Can't wait to hear what I'd need to spend for the same if I used Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and a Quest even though Meta owns all of them. And I can just imagine the hellscape Microsoft will create when you have to pay a subscription fee to use Windows 12 Home With Ads, as your baseline option. The average American isn't exactly awash in cash to spend on privacy, you know.