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They need to just ban the ad model and make subscriptions (including free with no ads, if the provider wants it) mandatory. I don't think people understand how

They need to just ban the ad model and make subscriptions (including free with no ads, if the provider wants it) mandatory. I don't think people understand how the economics of these apps (and websites) work, and it's been so long now that their incorrect assumptions (the feeds are free and the greedy providers shove ads in them) have turned into bedrock beliefs. You pay for instagram with your personal data, which is used to target you with high value ads. Which covers the cost of your continued usage. If you don't like it, don't use instagram. If you really don't like it, lobby for the law to make it illegal, but get your credit card ready for another monthly subscription.

odux 1y ago
Exactly. The very existence of these apps and websites is based on such “user hostile” behavior. Same with the cat and mouse game between YouTube ads and ad blockers and third party YouTube apps. If the side wanting to completely stop Youtube ads becomes successful, YouTube will cease to exist (as a free app). I am not arguing for this model, my feed is getting more useless every day, but the only other model is subscription based like you say. And for Facebook, Meta and the like, I don’t think the subscription revenue will be anywhere close due to economies of scale on the free model.
- ilovetux 1y ago
  YouTube offers an ad-free subscription called YouTube premium. It's reasonably priced and includes access to YouTube Music. I like the hybrid approach of being able to be ad-supported or paid with no ads. I would like to see more of it. What I don't like is a paid service like Amazon Prime that also includes ads. They include ads in their search results and they include tons of ads in their video library. FWIW: Hulu offers paid access to content with ads but offers an upgrade to get rid of most of the ads, so there seems to be a whole lot of testing what works in this area going on right now, which I see as a good thing, I just hope that once everything settles the predominant model will be fair and respect user privacy.
  - wintermutestwin 1y ago
    > It's reasonably priced and includes access to YouTube Music. The “price” includes giving your data to the data vampires and is thereby incredibly unreasonable.
    - inquirerGeneral 1y ago
      [dead]
  - dvdkon 1y ago
    YouTube is a good example here, because at least in the EU, you can disable any tracking. You then don't get front-page recommendations, which would normally use that tracking information, but otherwise you can use YouTube just fine.
- throawayonthe 1y ago
  tbf facebook is the only (mainstream) social media i know that offers a subscription in the first place actually i forgot about youtube
- account42 1y ago
  You are ignoring that people give away things for free all them time if the cost to them is small enough. But currently those genuinely free options have to compete with ad-funded services for attention and getting that attention requires more effort than just providing the service so this happens less than it otherwise would. Or to put it another way, most of the content on the internet is already unpaid with the creator not receiving any compensation. What's left is the hosting/distribution and we can find many different ways to (collectively) pay for that besides ads and user subscriptions.
jfengel 1y ago
I think people more or less understand that. Nobody likes ads. Everyone realizes that the ads they're seeing are targeted. But I think every web designer knows that putting even the slightest barrier between the user and the content drives away vast numbers of people. Making them enter a credit card -- even if you told them it would never be charged -- would send enormous numbers away. Many won't even create a free account. Tracking tech is so sneaky because just the effort of logging in is too much. Maybe the world would be a better place if we bit the bullet, nuked the vast majority of web sites, and built a better web on what's left. But it's not going to be an instant, ad-free privacy paradise.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- rightbyte 1y ago
  > Everyone realizes that the ads they're seeing are targeted. Really? It took me until like 2012-2013 to realize Google searches stalked me to other websites. Then again much critics at that time of big tech was disregarded as lunatic crackpots. And nowadays your are a crackpot if you claim they are not spying on you. I guess that matters.
  - arethuza 1y ago
    When I watch YouTube on an Apple TV the ads seem slightly relevant - when I watch on a mobile device they are completely awful, literally no idea why I'm being shown most of them.
    - gbalduzzi 1y ago
      You probably disabled some privacy settings on your mobile (or you are not logged in with your user).
      - arethuza 1y ago
        Definitely logged in using the same account.
Hilift 1y ago
> I don't think people understand how the economics of these apps (and websites) work That is unfortunate, due to Mark Zuckerberg has redefined the successful business model. META is on track to clear $80 billion per year in net profit. Like it or not, they have a mutually beneficial relationship with advertisers and investors. It's like a Unicorn reproduced with an ATM. It's one of the stocks that seem like neutral ground for institutions, like TSLA. There has to be a high table where those guys talk on phones carried in suitcases. To put $80 billion per year in perspective, that is approximately the amount of annual federal Medicare matching funds reimbursement for the state of California (Cal-Aid).
- Hilift 1y ago
  *Medicaid, not Medicare. And the actual amount is $85 billion, due to Medicaid is available to nearly anyone, and it is only a coincidence it is the reason for the government shutdown.
foofoo12 1y ago
I'm totally convinced that even if you'd pay for Meta based social media account, they'd still harvest as much data on you as possible. The data is extraordinarily valuable and the morals of Meta is so utterly low.
- wkat4242 1y ago
  This, exactly. They stop showing the highly visible annoyance. But the more insidious and lucrative datamining to sell ads everywhere else still goes on.
lopis 1y ago
But at same time, Facebook & co need so much ad revenue and tracking because a) they are greedy and want to profit a lot, b) their tracking and ad apparatus is very complex and expensive to run, possibly more expensive than the actual product. People don't need half the shit that facebook offers, which is why people moved to instagram without a problem; then instagram became equally bloated. So yeah, I understand that Meta wants a lot of money, but I reject the idea that we need to suffer this much to have the social features we need.
duxup 1y ago
I don't disagree about the structure problems with apps and sites that are free with ads. I do worry that without that free option users just simply wouldn't ever try anything new and just stay where they are new. If everything costs money to move ... I worry nobody moves and everything stagnates. Facebook and similar, now in an even stronger position. Users, for worse, like it this way and make free with ads the best route because of their choices. Users with their choices incentivize this system too ...
- gnramires 1y ago
  I think another model could help here. Like an automatic/anonymous micropayment when you access a website. This could be a fraction of your internet subscription reserved for micropayments. It should be possible, and cryptocurrencies aren't necessary either (although similar cryptographic constructions may be used, no need for proof of work).
  - duxup 1y ago
    I really like the idea of micropayments, especially for news sites, but social media works too. Wish someone could get it to work.
BigglesB 1y ago
I suspect it will be politically difficult to outright ban the ad model... might the same effect be achieved however by enforcing strict online advertising requirements & making websites (specifically the owner of the domain name used to access the site?) liable for all ads that they host as well as liable for all data gathering activities that drive those ads? Ideally with a requirement that all ads shown must contain a link to information about all parties involved in producing the ad & any profiling used to determine whether or not to show it to the user viewing it. So if any ad is shown based on user profiling from data gathered illegally (i.e. without a proper opt-in as per GDPR etc) then the site showing the ad could potentially be sued? Essentially, make it so onerous to legally advertise without risking a large class action lawsuit that the practice more or less dies out without technically being "banned" per se...
ludicrousdispla 1y ago
They are not just selling ads, they are also selling 'targeting' services for those ad campaigns.
2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
I'm not entirely against ads. Ads in my print media don't piss me off because they're clearly ads and separate from other content.
lbhdc 1y ago
https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-offer-subscription-for-no-ads-in-europe/ https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-... Don't they already offer this? Did it get canceled?
- graeme 1y ago
  The EU thought the price should be cheap enough that people would pay instead of choosing ads.
- graeme 1y ago
  The EU thought the price should be cheap enough that people would pay instead of choosing ads. I think they rejected this plan.
- doctorpangloss 1y ago
  people didn't choose to subscribe... kind of a no brainer basic history one google search away for the top ranking comment on Hacker News
- timeon 1y ago
  When Facebook offered me this option: "will you pay with your money or your data?" I was like: "do I really need this?" I just deleted the account since I was already not really using it. Everyone I know went with "yeah just track me" instead.
AtlasBarfed 1y ago
Certainly the company like Facebook, even if you're paying them for data security privacy, how can you trust them? That they will respect it? These companies are filled to the brim with utter sociopaths, Especially Facebook. Companies that internal metrics with them fully aware of the mental health damage they're doing at a massive scale to young children, and buried it. Companies that did psychological manipulation AB tests.
motoxpro 1y ago
So pay ~$30 a month (the LTV of a user on facebook). No way.
hypercube33 1y ago
There was a time I'd sub to YouTube. however they ditched the sub for that and force YouTube music as well with all of its enshitified user experience I want none of it.
kylecazar 1y ago
What I can't understand is how the ads are still effective, targeted or otherwise. I've long thought we are going to reach a point where the return on social advertising isn't worth the investment, these models have a crisis and pivot, but it still seems to be going strong.
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  Enough people to sustain the model still click. At Meta's scale, you only need a small fraction of clicks and conversions to make it worth it. Meta reaches billions of people, so even a small slice of that is still a huge chunk of people. There's also a bit of competitive pressure. Even if people get numb to ads, business, especially small businesses, can't afford to not show up if their competitors are still showing up in feeds. The usual advertising psychology tricks still apply also which is why ads still work. Even if the ad itself doesn't result in a conversion, there's still the exposure effect of someone seeing your brand over and over again in their feed. The more times someone sees it, they'll subconsciously start preferring that brand or see it as more trustworthy. Among other tricks.
  - kylecazar 1y ago
    Thanks for the thoughts -- the points you make align with my understanding. It still seems so... frail? At least given how much money is circulating in that world. Attribution, for example, has to be an absolute mess. Especially in the case of the psychology tricks you mention... If I was shown an ad for Subway, and then ate a Subway sandwich a few days later -- it had absolutely nothing to do with the ad. I only eat there when there aren't better options. Yet, I bet some ad conversion counter ticked up somewhere. I see ads for ShopRite all the time, but it's the only grocery store in my area, so of course I shop there. When you repeat this millions of times, it's surprising to me that ads are still provably effective to the point of being a trillion dollar industry. I wonder if it will become less so as older generations go offline.
thewebguyd 1y ago
> If you don't like it, don't use instagram. Even that's not enough with the shadow profiles they build on people without accounts. It's more like "if you don't like it, don't use instagram and also make sure none of your friends, coworkers, family, associates, or anywhere you go doesn't use it either. Also make sure you, nor the others mentioned, visit any website using Meta's pixel." We definitely need laws when an individual effectively can't opt out because of network effects.
yoyohello13 1y ago
I actually think ad based funding models is probably one of the most destructive forces in our society. Do you think politics would be so insane right now if fear based click baiting wasn’t so profitable?
crowcroft 1y ago
> You pay for instagram with your personal data, which is used to target you with high value ads. It's not quite that simple though. The problem is that they are not simply showing you relevant ads, they actively attempt to deliver an outcome the ad is trying to achieve. On the surface this is relatively benign, Nike wants to sell shoes, they run ads and optimise towards shoe sales, and Meta makes that happen. But what happens when people run political advertising? What happens when crypto companies promote scams?
sim7c00 1y ago
the only solution is not yo consume things that operate on the model. the difficulty there is that the model is generally adopted. so a massive amount of users will go from 1 to another system only to get rug pulled out from under them again and again. this can be a business model, economic circumstance, mgmt change. a lot can trigger such a shift in services up to then just fine to use. most companies did not start out on these premises, and its really hard to tell what service will turn next. i hope maybe ISPs could handle it and offer it as a service. like an ad free internet. but then they will just more deeply embed the ads and it will still get past. changes in designs of the apps will lead to blocking being ineffective. so really then all that is left is not to use anything that has potential to identify you and your use of it. thats not a lot of things currently. most are frowned upon if you use it in a lot of regions.
- sim7c00 1y ago
  a last point would be that another problem is that the apps feed into ad networks. so using 1 is already an issue, mostly the same as using all of them. maybe less data but they can get a lot from little anyway.
mgraczyk 1y ago
This is also a misunderstanding. Not how it works economically. You do not pay for Instagram with your personal data. The data is elsewhere, not on Instagram. For example with your local retailer or credit card company. Instagram pays for data about you, which they buy from other people. You do not have a say in this for the most part. Whether or not Instagram buys this data does not affect its collection. You pay for Instagram with your time spent watching ads. The data they collect about you is mostly not for ads, it's to get you to spend more time on Instagram To make it clear why this matters: If you banned advertising on social media, the amount of data collected about you would not decrease
- thfuran 1y ago
  If they're not making money from ads, they don't have incentive to manipulate you into spending as much time as possible watching ads. Maybe if it's some kind of micropayment based model, but if it's subscription the profit motive would be to get you to use the service as little as possible without unsubscribing.
  - mgraczyk 1y ago
    That's completely wrong, and nobody who has ever worked on a subscription business would believe that. Talk to somebody who works at Netflix or Spotify The reason is that retention is much, much more important than reducing usage cost for almost every business
npc_anon 1y ago
"If you don't like it, don't use instagram." I get what you're saying but by current EU privacy law interpretation this approach is not allowed. You can of course charge for services but you cannot charge people just to get rid of tracking. This is not to be confused with ads. You can run ads and offer a paid version without ads. It's about the tracking.
wkat4242 1y ago
Not just that. If you pay Instagram to turn off the ads, they're still tracking you so they can show you targeted ads elsewhere. For me the tracking is a lot more harmful than the ads. Ads are much more noticeable but tracking is a lot more insidious. It's really that tracking that I want to see gone
yason 1y ago
Am I weird because I don't consider, in particular, the tracking nature of ads the biggest problem? Sure, I my browser doesn't share data between websites, I delete cookies automatically except whitelisted, and I don't give apps permissions for no good reason. But the problem with ads is their display, not the contents. Early Google style text box ads were fine. Any ad put on the side of the page with no animated elements is probably fine. But in reality ads are intrusive and those block my mental process when I'm trying to read about of focus on something. Especially ads in videos would just make me focus really, really hard on blocking off the message until I can restore my mental stack and continue with the original video. (I can't watch youtube with ads, for that reason.) Anything that pops up, takes space, or requires me to find an X button to shut them off gets me to C-w the browser tab nearly without exception. If the ads do behave I don't particularly mind. I even used to peruse ads in print magazines. In fact, untargetted ads are generally complete shit and if the "inter Net cloud thing" has even an inkling of what I might be interested at all, that's all the better I think. I don't ever click on ads though, so I'm probably not part of the prime target audience. But meaningful ads may make me add their products in the comparison set if I'm in the process of buying something similar.

odux 1y ago

Exactly. The very existence of these apps and websites is based on such “user hostile” behavior. Same with the cat and mouse game between YouTube ads and ad blockers and third party YouTube apps. If the side wanting to completely stop Youtube ads becomes successful, YouTube will cease to exist (as a free app). I am not arguing for this model, my feed is getting more useless every day, but the only other model is subscription based like you say. And for Facebook, Meta and the like, I don’t think the subscription revenue will be anywhere close due to economies of scale on the free model.

ilovetux 1y ago
YouTube offers an ad-free subscription called YouTube premium. It's reasonably priced and includes access to YouTube Music. I like the hybrid approach of being able to be ad-supported or paid with no ads. I would like to see more of it. What I don't like is a paid service like Amazon Prime that also includes ads. They include ads in their search results and they include tons of ads in their video library. FWIW: Hulu offers paid access to content with ads but offers an upgrade to get rid of most of the ads, so there seems to be a whole lot of testing what works in this area going on right now, which I see as a good thing, I just hope that once everything settles the predominant model will be fair and respect user privacy.
- wintermutestwin 1y ago
  > It's reasonably priced and includes access to YouTube Music. The “price” includes giving your data to the data vampires and is thereby incredibly unreasonable.
  - inquirerGeneral 1y ago
    [dead]
- dvdkon 1y ago
  YouTube is a good example here, because at least in the EU, you can disable any tracking. You then don't get front-page recommendations, which would normally use that tracking information, but otherwise you can use YouTube just fine.
throawayonthe 1y ago
tbf facebook is the only (mainstream) social media i know that offers a subscription in the first place actually i forgot about youtube
account42 1y ago
You are ignoring that people give away things for free all them time if the cost to them is small enough. But currently those genuinely free options have to compete with ad-funded services for attention and getting that attention requires more effort than just providing the service so this happens less than it otherwise would. Or to put it another way, most of the content on the internet is already unpaid with the creator not receiving any compensation. What's left is the hosting/distribution and we can find many different ways to (collectively) pay for that besides ads and user subscriptions.

jfengel 1y ago

I think people more or less understand that. Nobody likes ads. Everyone realizes that the ads they're seeing are targeted. But I think every web designer knows that putting even the slightest barrier between the user and the content drives away vast numbers of people. Making them enter a credit card -- even if you told them it would never be charged -- would send enormous numbers away. Many won't even create a free account. Tracking tech is so sneaky because just the effort of logging in is too much. Maybe the world would be a better place if we bit the bullet, nuked the vast majority of web sites, and built a better web on what's left. But it's not going to be an instant, ad-free privacy paradise.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
rightbyte 1y ago
> Everyone realizes that the ads they're seeing are targeted. Really? It took me until like 2012-2013 to realize Google searches stalked me to other websites. Then again much critics at that time of big tech was disregarded as lunatic crackpots. And nowadays your are a crackpot if you claim they are not spying on you. I guess that matters.
- arethuza 1y ago
  When I watch YouTube on an Apple TV the ads seem slightly relevant - when I watch on a mobile device they are completely awful, literally no idea why I'm being shown most of them.
  - gbalduzzi 1y ago
    You probably disabled some privacy settings on your mobile (or you are not logged in with your user).
    - arethuza 1y ago
      Definitely logged in using the same account.

Hilift 1y ago

> I don't think people understand how the economics of these apps (and websites) work That is unfortunate, due to Mark Zuckerberg has redefined the successful business model. META is on track to clear $80 billion per year in net profit. Like it or not, they have a mutually beneficial relationship with advertisers and investors. It's like a Unicorn reproduced with an ATM. It's one of the stocks that seem like neutral ground for institutions, like TSLA. There has to be a high table where those guys talk on phones carried in suitcases. To put $80 billion per year in perspective, that is approximately the amount of annual federal Medicare matching funds reimbursement for the state of California (Cal-Aid).

Hilift 1y ago
*Medicaid, not Medicare. And the actual amount is $85 billion, due to Medicaid is available to nearly anyone, and it is only a coincidence it is the reason for the government shutdown.

foofoo12 1y ago

I'm totally convinced that even if you'd pay for Meta based social media account, they'd still harvest as much data on you as possible. The data is extraordinarily valuable and the morals of Meta is so utterly low.

wkat4242 1y ago
This, exactly. They stop showing the highly visible annoyance. But the more insidious and lucrative datamining to sell ads everywhere else still goes on.

lopis 1y ago

But at same time, Facebook & co need so much ad revenue and tracking because a) they are greedy and want to profit a lot, b) their tracking and ad apparatus is very complex and expensive to run, possibly more expensive than the actual product. People don't need half the shit that facebook offers, which is why people moved to instagram without a problem; then instagram became equally bloated. So yeah, I understand that Meta wants a lot of money, but I reject the idea that we need to suffer this much to have the social features we need.

duxup 1y ago

I don't disagree about the structure problems with apps and sites that are free with ads. I do worry that without that free option users just simply wouldn't ever try anything new and just stay where they are new. If everything costs money to move ... I worry nobody moves and everything stagnates. Facebook and similar, now in an even stronger position. Users, for worse, like it this way and make free with ads the best route because of their choices. Users with their choices incentivize this system too ...

gnramires 1y ago
I think another model could help here. Like an automatic/anonymous micropayment when you access a website. This could be a fraction of your internet subscription reserved for micropayments. It should be possible, and cryptocurrencies aren't necessary either (although similar cryptographic constructions may be used, no need for proof of work).
- duxup 1y ago
  I really like the idea of micropayments, especially for news sites, but social media works too. Wish someone could get it to work.

BigglesB 1y ago

I suspect it will be politically difficult to outright ban the ad model... might the same effect be achieved however by enforcing strict online advertising requirements & making websites (specifically the owner of the domain name used to access the site?) liable for all ads that they host as well as liable for all data gathering activities that drive those ads? Ideally with a requirement that all ads shown must contain a link to information about all parties involved in producing the ad & any profiling used to determine whether or not to show it to the user viewing it. So if any ad is shown based on user profiling from data gathered illegally (i.e. without a proper opt-in as per GDPR etc) then the site showing the ad could potentially be sued? Essentially, make it so onerous to legally advertise without risking a large class action lawsuit that the practice more or less dies out without technically being "banned" per se...

ludicrousdispla 1y ago

They are not just selling ads, they are also selling 'targeting' services for those ad campaigns.

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago

I'm not entirely against ads. Ads in my print media don't piss me off because they're clearly ads and separate from other content.

lbhdc 1y ago

https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-offer-subscription-for-no-ads-in-europe/ https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-... Don't they already offer this? Did it get canceled?

graeme 1y ago
The EU thought the price should be cheap enough that people would pay instead of choosing ads.
graeme 1y ago
The EU thought the price should be cheap enough that people would pay instead of choosing ads. I think they rejected this plan.
doctorpangloss 1y ago
people didn't choose to subscribe... kind of a no brainer basic history one google search away for the top ranking comment on Hacker News
timeon 1y ago
When Facebook offered me this option: "will you pay with your money or your data?" I was like: "do I really need this?" I just deleted the account since I was already not really using it. Everyone I know went with "yeah just track me" instead.

AtlasBarfed 1y ago

Certainly the company like Facebook, even if you're paying them for data security privacy, how can you trust them? That they will respect it? These companies are filled to the brim with utter sociopaths, Especially Facebook. Companies that internal metrics with them fully aware of the mental health damage they're doing at a massive scale to young children, and buried it. Companies that did psychological manipulation AB tests.

motoxpro 1y ago

So pay ~$30 a month (the LTV of a user on facebook). No way.

hypercube33 1y ago

There was a time I'd sub to YouTube. however they ditched the sub for that and force YouTube music as well with all of its enshitified user experience I want none of it.

kylecazar 1y ago

What I can't understand is how the ads are still effective, targeted or otherwise. I've long thought we are going to reach a point where the return on social advertising isn't worth the investment, these models have a crisis and pivot, but it still seems to be going strong.

thewebguyd 1y ago
Enough people to sustain the model still click. At Meta's scale, you only need a small fraction of clicks and conversions to make it worth it. Meta reaches billions of people, so even a small slice of that is still a huge chunk of people. There's also a bit of competitive pressure. Even if people get numb to ads, business, especially small businesses, can't afford to not show up if their competitors are still showing up in feeds. The usual advertising psychology tricks still apply also which is why ads still work. Even if the ad itself doesn't result in a conversion, there's still the exposure effect of someone seeing your brand over and over again in their feed. The more times someone sees it, they'll subconsciously start preferring that brand or see it as more trustworthy. Among other tricks.
- kylecazar 1y ago
  Thanks for the thoughts -- the points you make align with my understanding. It still seems so... frail? At least given how much money is circulating in that world. Attribution, for example, has to be an absolute mess. Especially in the case of the psychology tricks you mention... If I was shown an ad for Subway, and then ate a Subway sandwich a few days later -- it had absolutely nothing to do with the ad. I only eat there when there aren't better options. Yet, I bet some ad conversion counter ticked up somewhere. I see ads for ShopRite all the time, but it's the only grocery store in my area, so of course I shop there. When you repeat this millions of times, it's surprising to me that ads are still provably effective to the point of being a trillion dollar industry. I wonder if it will become less so as older generations go offline.

thewebguyd 1y ago

> If you don't like it, don't use instagram. Even that's not enough with the shadow profiles they build on people without accounts. It's more like "if you don't like it, don't use instagram and also make sure none of your friends, coworkers, family, associates, or anywhere you go doesn't use it either. Also make sure you, nor the others mentioned, visit any website using Meta's pixel." We definitely need laws when an individual effectively can't opt out because of network effects.

yoyohello13 1y ago

I actually think ad based funding models is probably one of the most destructive forces in our society. Do you think politics would be so insane right now if fear based click baiting wasn’t so profitable?

crowcroft 1y ago

> You pay for instagram with your personal data, which is used to target you with high value ads. It's not quite that simple though. The problem is that they are not simply showing you relevant ads, they actively attempt to deliver an outcome the ad is trying to achieve. On the surface this is relatively benign, Nike wants to sell shoes, they run ads and optimise towards shoe sales, and Meta makes that happen. But what happens when people run political advertising? What happens when crypto companies promote scams?

sim7c00 1y ago

the only solution is not yo consume things that operate on the model. the difficulty there is that the model is generally adopted. so a massive amount of users will go from 1 to another system only to get rug pulled out from under them again and again. this can be a business model, economic circumstance, mgmt change. a lot can trigger such a shift in services up to then just fine to use. most companies did not start out on these premises, and its really hard to tell what service will turn next. i hope maybe ISPs could handle it and offer it as a service. like an ad free internet. but then they will just more deeply embed the ads and it will still get past. changes in designs of the apps will lead to blocking being ineffective. so really then all that is left is not to use anything that has potential to identify you and your use of it. thats not a lot of things currently. most are frowned upon if you use it in a lot of regions.

sim7c00 1y ago
a last point would be that another problem is that the apps feed into ad networks. so using 1 is already an issue, mostly the same as using all of them. maybe less data but they can get a lot from little anyway.

mgraczyk 1y ago

This is also a misunderstanding. Not how it works economically. You do not pay for Instagram with your personal data. The data is elsewhere, not on Instagram. For example with your local retailer or credit card company. Instagram pays for data about you, which they buy from other people. You do not have a say in this for the most part. Whether or not Instagram buys this data does not affect its collection. You pay for Instagram with your time spent watching ads. The data they collect about you is mostly not for ads, it's to get you to spend more time on Instagram To make it clear why this matters: If you banned advertising on social media, the amount of data collected about you would not decrease

thfuran 1y ago
If they're not making money from ads, they don't have incentive to manipulate you into spending as much time as possible watching ads. Maybe if it's some kind of micropayment based model, but if it's subscription the profit motive would be to get you to use the service as little as possible without unsubscribing.
- mgraczyk 1y ago
  That's completely wrong, and nobody who has ever worked on a subscription business would believe that. Talk to somebody who works at Netflix or Spotify The reason is that retention is much, much more important than reducing usage cost for almost every business

npc_anon 1y ago

"If you don't like it, don't use instagram." I get what you're saying but by current EU privacy law interpretation this approach is not allowed. You can of course charge for services but you cannot charge people just to get rid of tracking. This is not to be confused with ads. You can run ads and offer a paid version without ads. It's about the tracking.

wkat4242 1y ago

Not just that. If you pay Instagram to turn off the ads, they're still tracking you so they can show you targeted ads elsewhere. For me the tracking is a lot more harmful than the ads. Ads are much more noticeable but tracking is a lot more insidious. It's really that tracking that I want to see gone

yason 1y ago

Am I weird because I don't consider, in particular, the tracking nature of ads the biggest problem? Sure, I my browser doesn't share data between websites, I delete cookies automatically except whitelisted, and I don't give apps permissions for no good reason. But the problem with ads is their display, not the contents. Early Google style text box ads were fine. Any ad put on the side of the page with no animated elements is probably fine. But in reality ads are intrusive and those block my mental process when I'm trying to read about of focus on something. Especially ads in videos would just make me focus really, really hard on blocking off the message until I can restore my mental stack and continue with the original video. (I can't watch youtube with ads, for that reason.) Anything that pops up, takes space, or requires me to find an X button to shut them off gets me to C-w the browser tab nearly without exception. If the ads do behave I don't particularly mind. I even used to peruse ads in print magazines. In fact, untargetted ads are generally complete shit and if the "inter Net cloud thing" has even an inkling of what I might be interested at all, that's all the better I think. I don't ever click on ads though, so I'm probably not part of the prime target audience. But meaningful ads may make me add their products in the comparison set if I'm in the process of buying something similar.