5 ms·

Anyone bothered enough by advertising can stop using whatever product has been ruined by ads, or find ways to remove the advertising. More laws and larger gove

Anyone bothered enough by advertising can stop using whatever product has been ruined by ads, or find ways to remove the advertising. More laws and larger governments doesn't have to be the answer to all problems. If consumers care enough they'll change their usage, if they don't change their usage they likely don't care enough.

dspillett 2y ago
> Anyone bothered enough by advertising I don't particularly have an issue with advertising itself. If adverts get on my nerves on a product or page I just leave, as you suggest: problem solved. The actual issue is the stalky tracking of me throughout my life that is currently inseparable from the advertising. I can't just walk away from that: it happens behind my back, it has happened before I get the chance to walk away. > can stop using whatever product has been ruined by ads Which will not stop the stalky behaviour of the ad industry. They'll still track me if I happen to click the wrong thing, or track me through my connections to other people. I suppose I could walk away from life and become a hermit, but that would be just a little extreme. > or find ways to remove the advertising. Which is, while I do take part, an ultimately fruitless task. Every block we make for the stalky behaviour, be it technical or legislative (other than outright banning the tracking of personal data except with explicit opt-in without exceptions, and properly enforcing punishments for breaking the ban), they'll find a way around. Removing it is not a long term solution, it is a war or attrition where we have to have our guard up all the time and they only have to get lucky, or just be particularly sneaky, every now and again. > More laws and larger governments doesn't have to be the answer to all problems. This has often been said by companies and their shills. Oddly, they are all in favour of extra laws and government reach when it is, for example, to protect what they consider to be their intellectual property.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  > Which will not stop the stalky behaviour of the ad industry. They'll still track me if I happen to click the wrong thing, or track me through my connections to other people. I suppose I could walk away from life and become a hermit, but that would be just a little extreme. You could make some real progress without being a hermit though, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Don't use a smartphone, limit as much of your time online as you can, and pay in cash when you can. Those wouldn't make you a hermit but would seriously limit the data you make available to be gobbled up in the first place. > This has often been said by companies and their shills. Oddly, they are all in favour of extra laws and government reach when it is, for example, to protect what they consider to be their intellectual property. Well that's actually what I see as a better approach, remove protections for those companies and industries rather than trying to create new laws to limit them. Its a strange balancing act to attempt to both protect and limit an industry with different laws, we would be better off not doing either.
sloowm 2y ago
If I walk outside I'm bombarded by ads. Almost all websites have been tailored to include ads and hide information. You're tracked on all devices you touch. Vaguely referencing more laws or larger government doesn't mean anything. We're not talking about all problems but a specific one. There is an obvious imbalance between the power and information an individual consumer can use to shield themselves from activities by companies that are detrimental to them. We are also not expected to test our own food for toxins. More platitudes and soundbites doesn't have to be the answer to all problems.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  Seeing ads outside likely doesn't harm you though, you can ignore them. If your city is plastered with ads to a point at where you can't stand it you can always move, that's just another part of a city that someone may decide they don't like and want something different. > Almost all websites have been tailored to include ads and hide information. You're tracked on all devices you touch. That's really the crux of it though. The problem isn't just that companies are gobbling up all this data, it's also that we make the data available in the first place. Stop using a smartphone and taking it everywhere with you, limit what you do online in general, and pay cash when you can. A few simple changes would really reduce the data you make available, I'm sure there are other simple changes I'm missing here but the point is that we don't have to protect data that doesn't exist.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
    << Seeing ads outside likely doesn't harm you though, you can ignore them. I honestly do not think it is possible to ignore ads unless you do not see/smell/hear/experience them. Even if you dismiss them, you have received an impression of that ad. Your mind has been affected. It just happens that we normalized it as a normal function of society ( not completely unlike how we normalized cameras everywhere including on doorbell ). I have no interest in dating farmers, but I still remember being exposed to farmers only ad. edit: << Stop using a smartphone and taking it everywhere with you. It seems less and less of an option. Amtrak gatekeeps its best prices behind an app. Parking lot wants me to use an app. My workplace now effectively forced me to have phone on me ( even if I come into office.. I can understand the need for it while remote ). The current societal construct practically requires a smartphone. You could technically go on without it the same way you COULD technically not have a car. It is possible, but very, very limiting. And I would argue that not having a car now is way more forgiving than not having a cell and that is saying something.
A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
We can, but, as OP noted, the change is only temporary, while political change is harder, but also tends to last longer. I still remember when pihole worked on most things. These days it is just a part of adblocking approach for me. tldr: Some of us are tired of fiddling with things where were we shouldn't have to. << More laws and larger governments doesn't have to be the answer to all problems. If market participants can't behave ( and they clearly can't help themselves ), it is the only real answer. << If consumers care enough they'll change their usage, if they don't change their usage they likely don't care enough. Or.. options for consumers are limited, which affects what they do. In all seriousness, streaming execs seemed to admit the ads simply bring more money for them so they don't care if non-ad version is profitable. It is not enough. My household dropped Netflix and Prime over their silliness. We currently still have Disney until they get too greedy. And that is just streaming. Regular net is soooo much worse without a way to scrub the ads away.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  > My household dropped Netflix and Prime over their silliness. We currently still have Disney until they get too greedy. And that is just streaming. Regular net is soooo much worse without a way to scrub the ads away. Isn't that a good example of consumers exercising their right to not patronize companies they don't agree with? You didn't need a law stopping you from using Prime, and you don't have a right to use it, you just decided you didn't like their product anymore. The blindspot missing in a ban of advertising is what that does to the viability and price of a product. Prime and Netflix as it is today is built based partly on the advertising revenue. Presumably if that money disappears the product would get worse, disappear, or become more expensive.
  - jcynix 2y ago
    >Regular net is soooo much worse without a way to scrub the ads away. Hmm, there are ways: I browse with NoScript and unlock Origin installed and see almost no ads. If a website doesn't work and I really need to visit it for some reason, I selectively enable part of the JS they want me to load. Other sites simply don't get my attention.
throw10920 2y ago
> More laws and larger governments doesn't have to be the answer to all problems More laws and larger governments are generally undesirable (for obvious reasons) but saying that we shouldn't make any laws at all is throwing the baby out of the bathwater. If you're thoughtful and deliberate about how you write your legislation, you can have a disproportionately positive impact with a very small amount of additional weight. For instance, instead of trying to enumerate every single way that data could be leaked and forbid that (see: HIPAA), you should just make the end state (PII in the hands of someone the user didn't explicitly authorize it to be in) illegal and mandate a fine per unit of information (e.g. 1% of the median US salary for SSN) to every entity in the leak chain (because a chain of custody for personal information is just about mandatory at this point). Details will vary, but this general approach is vastly better than the crazy laws we have in other areas that attempt to "enumerate badness" in the intermediate rather than the end state.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  I wasn't arguing for no laws though, only that we don't need to resch for them as quickly as we often do or want to do. I thought the topic here was about banning advertising as a whole, if we want to zoom into privacy concerns relates to the retention of PII data that is more doable and we already have a framework to start with based on the EU. > If you're thoughtful and deliberate about how you write your legislation, you can have a disproportionately positive impact with a very small amount of additional weight. Unfortunately that really is a non-starter in the US today. I have very little faith that Congress is interested in carefully considering and clarifying. I have even less faith that any bill with thousands of pages of text, which is how they appear to do business these days, could ever be clearly defined and scoped to avoid obvious unintended consequences or misplaced boundaries.

dspillett 2y ago

> Anyone bothered enough by advertising I don't particularly have an issue with advertising itself. If adverts get on my nerves on a product or page I just leave, as you suggest: problem solved. The actual issue is the stalky tracking of me throughout my life that is currently inseparable from the advertising. I can't just walk away from that: it happens behind my back, it has happened before I get the chance to walk away. > can stop using whatever product has been ruined by ads Which will not stop the stalky behaviour of the ad industry. They'll still track me if I happen to click the wrong thing, or track me through my connections to other people. I suppose I could walk away from life and become a hermit, but that would be just a little extreme. > or find ways to remove the advertising. Which is, while I do take part, an ultimately fruitless task. Every block we make for the stalky behaviour, be it technical or legislative (other than outright banning the tracking of personal data except with explicit opt-in without exceptions, and properly enforcing punishments for breaking the ban), they'll find a way around. Removing it is not a long term solution, it is a war or attrition where we have to have our guard up all the time and they only have to get lucky, or just be particularly sneaky, every now and again. > More laws and larger governments doesn't have to be the answer to all problems. This has often been said by companies and their shills. Oddly, they are all in favour of extra laws and government reach when it is, for example, to protect what they consider to be their intellectual property.

_heimdall 2y ago
> Which will not stop the stalky behaviour of the ad industry. They'll still track me if I happen to click the wrong thing, or track me through my connections to other people. I suppose I could walk away from life and become a hermit, but that would be just a little extreme. You could make some real progress without being a hermit though, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Don't use a smartphone, limit as much of your time online as you can, and pay in cash when you can. Those wouldn't make you a hermit but would seriously limit the data you make available to be gobbled up in the first place. > This has often been said by companies and their shills. Oddly, they are all in favour of extra laws and government reach when it is, for example, to protect what they consider to be their intellectual property. Well that's actually what I see as a better approach, remove protections for those companies and industries rather than trying to create new laws to limit them. Its a strange balancing act to attempt to both protect and limit an industry with different laws, we would be better off not doing either.

sloowm 2y ago

If I walk outside I'm bombarded by ads. Almost all websites have been tailored to include ads and hide information. You're tracked on all devices you touch. Vaguely referencing more laws or larger government doesn't mean anything. We're not talking about all problems but a specific one. There is an obvious imbalance between the power and information an individual consumer can use to shield themselves from activities by companies that are detrimental to them. We are also not expected to test our own food for toxins. More platitudes and soundbites doesn't have to be the answer to all problems.

_heimdall 2y ago
Seeing ads outside likely doesn't harm you though, you can ignore them. If your city is plastered with ads to a point at where you can't stand it you can always move, that's just another part of a city that someone may decide they don't like and want something different. > Almost all websites have been tailored to include ads and hide information. You're tracked on all devices you touch. That's really the crux of it though. The problem isn't just that companies are gobbling up all this data, it's also that we make the data available in the first place. Stop using a smartphone and taking it everywhere with you, limit what you do online in general, and pay cash when you can. A few simple changes would really reduce the data you make available, I'm sure there are other simple changes I'm missing here but the point is that we don't have to protect data that doesn't exist.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
  << Seeing ads outside likely doesn't harm you though, you can ignore them. I honestly do not think it is possible to ignore ads unless you do not see/smell/hear/experience them. Even if you dismiss them, you have received an impression of that ad. Your mind has been affected. It just happens that we normalized it as a normal function of society ( not completely unlike how we normalized cameras everywhere including on doorbell ). I have no interest in dating farmers, but I still remember being exposed to farmers only ad. edit: << Stop using a smartphone and taking it everywhere with you. It seems less and less of an option. Amtrak gatekeeps its best prices behind an app. Parking lot wants me to use an app. My workplace now effectively forced me to have phone on me ( even if I come into office.. I can understand the need for it while remote ). The current societal construct practically requires a smartphone. You could technically go on without it the same way you COULD technically not have a car. It is possible, but very, very limiting. And I would argue that not having a car now is way more forgiving than not having a cell and that is saying something.

A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago

We can, but, as OP noted, the change is only temporary, while political change is harder, but also tends to last longer. I still remember when pihole worked on most things. These days it is just a part of adblocking approach for me. tldr: Some of us are tired of fiddling with things where were we shouldn't have to. << More laws and larger governments doesn't have to be the answer to all problems. If market participants can't behave ( and they clearly can't help themselves ), it is the only real answer. << If consumers care enough they'll change their usage, if they don't change their usage they likely don't care enough. Or.. options for consumers are limited, which affects what they do. In all seriousness, streaming execs seemed to admit the ads simply bring more money for them so they don't care if non-ad version is profitable. It is not enough. My household dropped Netflix and Prime over their silliness. We currently still have Disney until they get too greedy. And that is just streaming. Regular net is soooo much worse without a way to scrub the ads away.

_heimdall 2y ago
> My household dropped Netflix and Prime over their silliness. We currently still have Disney until they get too greedy. And that is just streaming. Regular net is soooo much worse without a way to scrub the ads away. Isn't that a good example of consumers exercising their right to not patronize companies they don't agree with? You didn't need a law stopping you from using Prime, and you don't have a right to use it, you just decided you didn't like their product anymore. The blindspot missing in a ban of advertising is what that does to the viability and price of a product. Prime and Netflix as it is today is built based partly on the advertising revenue. Presumably if that money disappears the product would get worse, disappear, or become more expensive.
- jcynix 2y ago
  >Regular net is soooo much worse without a way to scrub the ads away. Hmm, there are ways: I browse with NoScript and unlock Origin installed and see almost no ads. If a website doesn't work and I really need to visit it for some reason, I selectively enable part of the JS they want me to load. Other sites simply don't get my attention.

throw10920 2y ago

> More laws and larger governments doesn't have to be the answer to all problems More laws and larger governments are generally undesirable (for obvious reasons) but saying that we shouldn't make any laws at all is throwing the baby out of the bathwater. If you're thoughtful and deliberate about how you write your legislation, you can have a disproportionately positive impact with a very small amount of additional weight. For instance, instead of trying to enumerate every single way that data could be leaked and forbid that (see: HIPAA), you should just make the end state (PII in the hands of someone the user didn't explicitly authorize it to be in) illegal and mandate a fine per unit of information (e.g. 1% of the median US salary for SSN) to every entity in the leak chain (because a chain of custody for personal information is just about mandatory at this point). Details will vary, but this general approach is vastly better than the crazy laws we have in other areas that attempt to "enumerate badness" in the intermediate rather than the end state.

_heimdall 2y ago
I wasn't arguing for no laws though, only that we don't need to resch for them as quickly as we often do or want to do. I thought the topic here was about banning advertising as a whole, if we want to zoom into privacy concerns relates to the retention of PII data that is more doable and we already have a framework to start with based on the EU. > If you're thoughtful and deliberate about how you write your legislation, you can have a disproportionately positive impact with a very small amount of additional weight. Unfortunately that really is a non-starter in the US today. I have very little faith that Congress is interested in carefully considering and clarifying. I have even less faith that any bill with thousands of pages of text, which is how they appear to do business these days, could ever be clearly defined and scoped to avoid obvious unintended consequences or misplaced boundaries.