5 ms·
Well, I for one don't want to pay $15/mo for my browser: I'm happy for it to be the complement of some company's product.
by fiddlerwoaroof 2y ago
Well, I for one don't want to pay $15/mo for my browser: I'm happy for it to be the complement of some company's product.
- CaffeineLD50 2y agoYet you pay for Netflix and your internet and phone bill. But these could be given away by surveillance advertising firms to snoop your watching, surfing, and calling habits. As the saying goes, if the product is free, YOU are the product.
- fiddlerwoaroof 2y agoI think the saying is oversimplified (or else, chrome isn’t a product but a byproduct). It makes a company to make the complement of their product cheap or free so that people can use their product more effectively. Google Search and Ads rely on people having a browser. Similarly, Apple’s Phones and laptops are benefited by including a good first party browser. Imo, a lot of technologies are better as free byproducts of monetized technology than as being some company’s products: there are endless lists of great technologies that never found a market or disappeared post-acquisition.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- adrr 2y agoMy ISP is selling my data as well. Netflix is snooping on what i watch for their ads. Chrome is free. Bigger fish to fry than my web browser snooping on me like your bank selling all credit card transactions your car snooping on your driving and your mobile carrier selling your location.
- blfr 2y agoI don't pay for Netflix and a rival good (like ISP infra) is completely different from some compiled computer code (like a browser).
- Mindwipe 2y agoYour phone provider does sell your information. The majority of Netflix users over the next few years will be advertising based users. That just doesn't bring in enough profit because people are not willing to pay enough subscription to cover what those things actually cost. Your hypothesis has a bit of a gaping hole where "real world user behaviour" sits.
- Jensson 2y ago> Yet you pay for Netflix and your internet and phone bill. But these could be given away by surveillance advertising firms to snoop your watching, surfing, and calling habits. You do know most of those companies do both charge you and sell your data? Almost the only companies that don't sell your data are big tech advertising companies. "When you don't pay you are the product" doesn't mean "If you pay you aren't the product", you still are the product the company is just double dipping.
- thfuran 2y agoRight. The ISPs and cellphone providers and TV manufacturers are all in on the data collection game.
- dns_snek 2y agoI'm so confused when I read takes like that. The only way advertising can be sustainable under capitalism is if every $1 spent on advertising generates >= $1 of profit for advertisers, keeping in mind that ad networks take a share of revenue, say 30%. This means that you as a consumer have to spend at least $1 (likely more - profit not revenue) for every $0.70 of value you receive in "free" services. Being supportive of ad-supported services is therefore financially irrational.
- arccy 2y agoThey only need to make money in aggregate, they might make $0 out of you, but $2 out of someone else.
- consteval 2y agoThis is where tech arrogance comes in. We very much like to believe we’re the zero. Judging by how much hyper-consumerist behavior I see in myself and my coworkers, we’re not. Everyone is constantly buying shit they don’t need and then justifying it.
- fooker 2y agoReminder than when you use seemingly impeccable logic and arrive at the wrong conclusion, it's the logic that is wrong somewhere because of a missed assumption. No, people are not going to pay much for browsers and websites, that's why ad supported products and services exist. Otherwise someone would make better software and charge for it. The only way this works is government intervention, which is what's happening here.