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I really don't like advertising. I use uBlock Origin in my browser, AdGuard on my phone and pi-hole in my home. I even take a seam ripper to my clothes to make

I really don't like advertising. I use uBlock Origin in my browser, AdGuard on my phone and pi-hole in my home. I even take a seam ripper to my clothes to make sure no logos remain. But I understand that advertising is the only viable business model for much of the internet. (Browsing HN and seeing that the top comment for every paywalled article is a pirated link confirms that.) If advertising must exist, I'd prefer it to be safe and private rather than the malware-ridden surveillance machine that exists today. Mozilla is working hard to make this happen and catching a lot of flak. It's notable that criticisms usually fall into three buckets. 1. It has "advertising" in the name, thus it is bad 2. Meta is involved, thus it is bad 3. Mozilla earns most of their revenue from Google, thus they are incapable of doing a good thing It would be much healthier if criticisms actually focused on the design and implementation of PPA. Perhaps things could be improved. Or maybe you have your own ideas for privacy preserving advertising. But it surprises me that even on a technical forum like HN, so many people endorse the awful advertising status quo. Yes, you can mostly opt out of advertising with uBlock Origin. You can still do that when PPA is enabled. The vast majority of browsers will continue to subsidize your browsing. What Mozilla is doing is working to provide the same level of privacy and security for the 90% of the population who does not use uBlock Origin. I think that's a noble goal.

perchlorate 2y ago
Advertisers are going to use it as just another data point, though. Why give them any more information than they already have? You know some of the best technical people we have waste their lives working for advertisers, and they _will_ find a way to extract more information from these technologies regardless of how supposedly private they are. I don't think there can be a technical solution to this problem unless advertisers are forced by government regulations to behave, with very heavy fines for non-compliance. I personally really hoped for Mozilla to take a strong stance against advertisers and introduce an aggressive ad blocker, but it was pretty obvious they're not going to do anything like that because of the conflict of interest (Google's money). Now we get another conflict of interest on top that makes it even less likely.
- roca 2y ago
  > I don't think there can be a technical solution to this problem unless advertisers are forced by government regulations to behave, with very heavy fines for non-compliance. Indeed, but such regulation is much more likely to happen if there already exist privacy-preserving solutions like PPA. "There's a good way to do it and a bad way, and we're making it illegal to do it the bad way" vs "There only way to do it is bad, and we're making that illegal, so sucks to be you"
  - bugtodiffer 2y ago
    This isn't an alternative, that's the argument
lpcvoid 2y ago
I personally don't care if 90% of websites which rely on advertising disappear or replace their monetization strategy with gated, paid access. I even think this is a good thing. As such, I will fight the ability of websites to monetize by tracking wherever I can.
- LunaSea 2y ago
  This means that people without means will automatically be excluded from the internet. Also most people don't want to pay for content. This just means that 99.99% of the web will instantly disappear.
  - pessimizer 2y ago
    > This means that people without means will automatically be excluded from the internet. No, they'll be relegated to the charitable internet, the advocacy internet, the nerdy obsessive internet, the public science internet, the FOSS internet, the public domain internet, and the piracy internet. And whenever any of these groups come up with a project they want to do, they won't have to ramp it up to billion dollar scale in order not to be drowned out by a terrible and loud commercial product. There will be plenty of broke users looking for alternatives. > This just means that 99.99% of the web will instantly disappear. I think the only risk of this happening is if free alternatives get so generous and useful that the commercial internet tries to raise the price of bandwidth somehow, or of running a server in general, or alternatively by lobbying for expensive regulatory stuff to get governments to do their dirty work for them. The US seems like it's on the verge of state licensing of speech and journalism, and that sentiment is easily moved to any sort of internet hosting of any service.
    - LunaSea 2y ago
      > And whenever any of these groups come up with a project they want to do, they won't have to ramp it up to billion dollar scale in order not to be drowned out by a terrible and loud commercial product. There will be plenty of broke users looking for alternatives. They absolutely will have to since they won't have the means to serve the content to the community otherwise. Niche websites won't stay niche for very long if they are the only free option. > I think the only risk of this happening is if free alternatives get so generous and useful that the commercial internet tries to raise the price of bandwidth somehow, or of running a server in general, or alternatively by lobbying for expensive regulatory stuff to get governments to do their dirty work for them. I don't see most of these free alternatives even existing in the first place. For example: free news reporting (not even talking about foreign correspondents & co).
kerkeslager 2y ago
> But I understand that advertising is the only viable business model for much of the internet. 1. Much of the internet simply doesn't need to exist. If nobody is willing to pay for something, maybe it doesn't have value. 2. For a lot of what does have value, the problem might be your idea of what a "viable business model" is. If I write a weekly blog post and it makes $2000 a month, that's a viable business model. It's more than a lot of writing jobs pay. But it doesn't scale into some sort of multinational content corp so half of the people involved in the conversation are willing to write it off. 3. A lot of sites simply don't need to be businesses. I've paid hosting costs and helped moderate to help run forums, with no expectation of financial recompense, simply because I enjoyed the community. The best forums nearly universally work this way, still. The real value of Reddit, for example, comes from subreddit moderators who are typically volunteers. Everything I value about Reddit is provided by people who don't work for Reddit, and the hosting/software could easily be swapped out with minimal impact for most of these communities. In fact, all the problems I've had with Reddit are caused by Reddit's decisions--I've never had a problem with an AskScience or ProgrammingLanguages moderator policy change, but Reddit makes some decision that harms their users significantly probably twice a year.
ajsnigrutin 2y ago
We had safe and private advertising back in the 90s. Local computer store in Cityville would pay money to local Cityville forum, and when you'd open the "computers" subforum, the Computer store banner would be at the top. Then advertisers and websites went beserk, covered every square centimeter with ads, including the content of the websites themselves, and started tracking everything, from location, age, gender to shoe and penis size, and the only way to browse the internet as a sane person is with an adblock. They had the possibility to work with a few ads that didn't bother people, but that wasn't enough, so now, blocking just some of the ads isn't enough for us. They started with the shitty behaviour, and I don't care if they go bankrupt and websites switch to a new way of surviving.
- godshatter 2y ago
  I keep hoping that enough people will start ad blocking and tracking script blocking that advertisers or companies wishing to advertise will have to find ways to deliver ads that doesn't involve tracking users, but that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. People I know are mostly indifferent to ads or actually like seeing them sometimes so they can buy whatever the latest craze is. I find this situation absolutely maddening.
autoexec 2y ago
> It would be much healthier if criticisms actually focused on the design and implementation of PPA. Let's start with the fact that they've added their spying as opt out instead of opt in because they know that if people were asked they would not consent to it. They're already disrespecting users by trying to slip this unwanted thing into their browser largely unnoticed. There is no way to exploit and manipulate people that is safe and private. A browser is a user-agent. It's supposed to be working for you, the user. Not for advertisers who will try to manipulate you and take your money. Mozilla is not working to protect your privacy and security. They are trying to come up with a scheme that will trick users who object to ads and reject surveillance capitalism into accepting them along with the violations of privacy and security they depend on. There is nothing "noble" about this. This is just about making money at your expense. It's the exact same goal every other ad-tech company has.

perchlorate 2y ago

Advertisers are going to use it as just another data point, though. Why give them any more information than they already have? You know some of the best technical people we have waste their lives working for advertisers, and they _will_ find a way to extract more information from these technologies regardless of how supposedly private they are. I don't think there can be a technical solution to this problem unless advertisers are forced by government regulations to behave, with very heavy fines for non-compliance. I personally really hoped for Mozilla to take a strong stance against advertisers and introduce an aggressive ad blocker, but it was pretty obvious they're not going to do anything like that because of the conflict of interest (Google's money). Now we get another conflict of interest on top that makes it even less likely.

roca 2y ago
> I don't think there can be a technical solution to this problem unless advertisers are forced by government regulations to behave, with very heavy fines for non-compliance. Indeed, but such regulation is much more likely to happen if there already exist privacy-preserving solutions like PPA. "There's a good way to do it and a bad way, and we're making it illegal to do it the bad way" vs "There only way to do it is bad, and we're making that illegal, so sucks to be you"
- bugtodiffer 2y ago
  This isn't an alternative, that's the argument

lpcvoid 2y ago

I personally don't care if 90% of websites which rely on advertising disappear or replace their monetization strategy with gated, paid access. I even think this is a good thing. As such, I will fight the ability of websites to monetize by tracking wherever I can.

LunaSea 2y ago
This means that people without means will automatically be excluded from the internet. Also most people don't want to pay for content. This just means that 99.99% of the web will instantly disappear.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  > This means that people without means will automatically be excluded from the internet. No, they'll be relegated to the charitable internet, the advocacy internet, the nerdy obsessive internet, the public science internet, the FOSS internet, the public domain internet, and the piracy internet. And whenever any of these groups come up with a project they want to do, they won't have to ramp it up to billion dollar scale in order not to be drowned out by a terrible and loud commercial product. There will be plenty of broke users looking for alternatives. > This just means that 99.99% of the web will instantly disappear. I think the only risk of this happening is if free alternatives get so generous and useful that the commercial internet tries to raise the price of bandwidth somehow, or of running a server in general, or alternatively by lobbying for expensive regulatory stuff to get governments to do their dirty work for them. The US seems like it's on the verge of state licensing of speech and journalism, and that sentiment is easily moved to any sort of internet hosting of any service.
  - LunaSea 2y ago
    > And whenever any of these groups come up with a project they want to do, they won't have to ramp it up to billion dollar scale in order not to be drowned out by a terrible and loud commercial product. There will be plenty of broke users looking for alternatives. They absolutely will have to since they won't have the means to serve the content to the community otherwise. Niche websites won't stay niche for very long if they are the only free option. > I think the only risk of this happening is if free alternatives get so generous and useful that the commercial internet tries to raise the price of bandwidth somehow, or of running a server in general, or alternatively by lobbying for expensive regulatory stuff to get governments to do their dirty work for them. I don't see most of these free alternatives even existing in the first place. For example: free news reporting (not even talking about foreign correspondents & co).

kerkeslager 2y ago

> But I understand that advertising is the only viable business model for much of the internet. 1. Much of the internet simply doesn't need to exist. If nobody is willing to pay for something, maybe it doesn't have value. 2. For a lot of what does have value, the problem might be your idea of what a "viable business model" is. If I write a weekly blog post and it makes $2000 a month, that's a viable business model. It's more than a lot of writing jobs pay. But it doesn't scale into some sort of multinational content corp so half of the people involved in the conversation are willing to write it off. 3. A lot of sites simply don't need to be businesses. I've paid hosting costs and helped moderate to help run forums, with no expectation of financial recompense, simply because I enjoyed the community. The best forums nearly universally work this way, still. The real value of Reddit, for example, comes from subreddit moderators who are typically volunteers. Everything I value about Reddit is provided by people who don't work for Reddit, and the hosting/software could easily be swapped out with minimal impact for most of these communities. In fact, all the problems I've had with Reddit are caused by Reddit's decisions--I've never had a problem with an AskScience or ProgrammingLanguages moderator policy change, but Reddit makes some decision that harms their users significantly probably twice a year.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago

We had safe and private advertising back in the 90s. Local computer store in Cityville would pay money to local Cityville forum, and when you'd open the "computers" subforum, the Computer store banner would be at the top. Then advertisers and websites went beserk, covered every square centimeter with ads, including the content of the websites themselves, and started tracking everything, from location, age, gender to shoe and penis size, and the only way to browse the internet as a sane person is with an adblock. They had the possibility to work with a few ads that didn't bother people, but that wasn't enough, so now, blocking just some of the ads isn't enough for us. They started with the shitty behaviour, and I don't care if they go bankrupt and websites switch to a new way of surviving.

godshatter 2y ago
I keep hoping that enough people will start ad blocking and tracking script blocking that advertisers or companies wishing to advertise will have to find ways to deliver ads that doesn't involve tracking users, but that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. People I know are mostly indifferent to ads or actually like seeing them sometimes so they can buy whatever the latest craze is. I find this situation absolutely maddening.

autoexec 2y ago

> It would be much healthier if criticisms actually focused on the design and implementation of PPA. Let's start with the fact that they've added their spying as opt out instead of opt in because they know that if people were asked they would not consent to it. They're already disrespecting users by trying to slip this unwanted thing into their browser largely unnoticed. There is no way to exploit and manipulate people that is safe and private. A browser is a user-agent. It's supposed to be working for you, the user. Not for advertisers who will try to manipulate you and take your money. Mozilla is not working to protect your privacy and security. They are trying to come up with a scheme that will trick users who object to ads and reject surveillance capitalism into accepting them along with the violations of privacy and security they depend on. There is nothing "noble" about this. This is just about making money at your expense. It's the exact same goal every other ad-tech company has.