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People who want it to be like this are those who make money from it being like this. It's the same for every other unliked aspect of life. Poverty, war, famine

People who want it to be like this are those who make money from it being like this. It's the same for every other unliked aspect of life. Poverty, war, famine - they all exist because that condition makes some other group of people richer than they otherwise would be. I am aware some parts of the World consider this observation to be a statement of socialist or communist support. It isn't meant to be. Advertising is no different. There's a lot of money in the adtech business, and it drives and is driven by a large consumer economy. Most of the people working in it hate being advertised to (being "victims"), but are happy to make money from it (being "perpetrators"). Most of us don't get to make money from advertising, so are more likely to see it for the problems it imposes on us. Morally there are huge differences, but logically you can see parallels in other disliked industries: arms dealing, modern slavery, enterprise IT sales...

Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
So this is a big problem then. Potentially insurmountable. There are in fact people then that want a privacy-invading ad-soaked shit internet and profit wildly from it. These people have outsized power and every incremental win leads to more power that results in more wins in a positive feedback loop. How can this be stopped?
- account42 2y ago
  > How can this be stopped? https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/576cb32f05aae_louisette.jpg https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/... Power comes from the people and can be taken away by the people. Modern surveillance and control technology will make this harder but ultimately the possibility revolution is always there.
robertlagrant 2y ago
> People who want it to be like this are those who make money from it being like this. There's no reason why this is true. Advertising means you look at stuff in exchange for a service you don't pay for, and removes friction in visiting sites. Lots of people want that. How many would choose a world where you pay for every website you look at, other than payments processors charging transaction fees? > Poverty, war, famine - they all exist because that condition makes some other group of people richer than they otherwise would be. Capitalism is the thing that's lifted more and more of the world out of poverty, so I don't see this being the case. People got wealthy by making and selling stuff other people need and want. That's fine. The key to lifting people out of poverty instead of starving millions of people to death in the name of equality is: inequality isn't important; the base level of poverty being raised is.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  > and removes friction in visiting sites. Advertising seriously increases that friction. > How many would choose a world where you pay for every website you look at Nobody, but that's not the alternative. That's not how it worked before advertising came in and degraded the web.
- account42 2y ago
  > Advertising means you look at stuff in exchange for a service you don't pay for, and removes friction in visiting sites. Lots of people want that. Except the "free" here is a lie because the advertisers pay for you and they are only going to do that when they can (on average) get their money back and more. There is no free lunch, just a lunch paid with the money you were robbed.
openrisk 2y ago
The difference is that we are not talking about advertising as a sandboxed economic activity, but digital advertising on a common internet platform that is evolving into the only platform for practically everything that happens. Old style phone, radio, print communications are dissapearing in real time, everything is routed digitally over the internet. Adtech with its "move fast and break things" morality conquered the internet hill, but it cannot defend that hill for much longer. Integrating vital functionalities for the digital economy (identity, payments, exchange of sensitive data etc.) cannot all be driven and controlled by adtech interests and designs. The dog is much, much bigger than the tail. If Mozilla cannot help precipitate the new normal it should at least make sure it has ongoing relevance when the inevitable happens.

Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago

So this is a big problem then. Potentially insurmountable. There are in fact people then that want a privacy-invading ad-soaked shit internet and profit wildly from it. These people have outsized power and every incremental win leads to more power that results in more wins in a positive feedback loop. How can this be stopped?

account42 2y ago
> How can this be stopped? https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/576cb32f05aae_louisette.jpg https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/... Power comes from the people and can be taken away by the people. Modern surveillance and control technology will make this harder but ultimately the possibility revolution is always there.

robertlagrant 2y ago

> People who want it to be like this are those who make money from it being like this. There's no reason why this is true. Advertising means you look at stuff in exchange for a service you don't pay for, and removes friction in visiting sites. Lots of people want that. How many would choose a world where you pay for every website you look at, other than payments processors charging transaction fees? > Poverty, war, famine - they all exist because that condition makes some other group of people richer than they otherwise would be. Capitalism is the thing that's lifted more and more of the world out of poverty, so I don't see this being the case. People got wealthy by making and selling stuff other people need and want. That's fine. The key to lifting people out of poverty instead of starving millions of people to death in the name of equality is: inequality isn't important; the base level of poverty being raised is.

JohnFen 2y ago
> and removes friction in visiting sites. Advertising seriously increases that friction. > How many would choose a world where you pay for every website you look at Nobody, but that's not the alternative. That's not how it worked before advertising came in and degraded the web.
account42 2y ago
> Advertising means you look at stuff in exchange for a service you don't pay for, and removes friction in visiting sites. Lots of people want that. Except the "free" here is a lie because the advertisers pay for you and they are only going to do that when they can (on average) get their money back and more. There is no free lunch, just a lunch paid with the money you were robbed.

openrisk 2y ago

The difference is that we are not talking about advertising as a sandboxed economic activity, but digital advertising on a common internet platform that is evolving into the only platform for practically everything that happens. Old style phone, radio, print communications are dissapearing in real time, everything is routed digitally over the internet. Adtech with its "move fast and break things" morality conquered the internet hill, but it cannot defend that hill for much longer. Integrating vital functionalities for the digital economy (identity, payments, exchange of sensitive data etc.) cannot all be driven and controlled by adtech interests and designs. The dog is much, much bigger than the tail. If Mozilla cannot help precipitate the new normal it should at least make sure it has ongoing relevance when the inevitable happens.