4 ms·

It's not conspiracy or hypothesis that the only point of these products is ads, it's the straight up business model. When are we going to hold people accountabl

by gdulli 1y ago

It's not conspiracy or hypothesis that the only point of these products is ads, it's the straight up business model. When are we going to hold people accountable for being surprised by the obvious actions of these companies? It wastes our time and it's boring to keep responding with, what did you think was going to happen? We've tried not shaming these people, will shame get them to stop buying this stuff and actually creating change in the world? What will work? > “This is getting ridiculous and I'm about to just toss the whole thing and move back to Google,” one Redditor said of the “full-volume” ads for Alexa+ on their Echo Show. Any article that quotes this and doesn't point out the crushing stupidity of it has failed. Do it politely, if you must, Scharon Harding. But if I wanted to be exposed to Reddit quality ideas I'd be on Reddit.

ToucanLoucan 1y ago
> When are we going to hold people accountable for being surprised by the obvious actions of these companies? How should they know? Genuinely asking. Yeah WE know, we've known forever because we're the people who make this shit, both professionally and in our spare time. We know the costs associated with making these little magic devices, and we know the ongoing cost of powering them. Your average consumer does not. Not only do they not know, they do not care, until they feel their privacy is being eroded by it. Instead of being mad at people for taking a product advertised to them at face value to just be a useful thing for them to use, and not something actively designed to spy on them and then use that collected information to bombard them with ads, why don't we just say to companies: hey, it's no longer acceptable to sell loss-leader products that perform a handful of user-friendly functions that also then double as privacy violations and harass customers with ads? If we kill surveillance capitalism, not only do we de-fang the advertising industry which is actively making every tech product on the face of the earth worse to suit it's purposes, not only do we permanently end the privacy issue on the side of users, we also reduce climate threatening emissions and hideous power waste that is required to make all this atrocious shit work. And you might say "well they SHOULD care!" and yeah, I kinda agree, and also I recognize that people have a lot of shit they already have to care about, and frankly, I don't think they should have to care about this. I don't think you should have to worry if your new TV is spying on you, I just think you should be able to buy a fuckin' TV, and take it home, and plug some shit into it, and watch TV. I think that's a better world to strive for than all the consumer awareness we can muster. I am perfectly able to, but don't WANT to have to shop for electronics like I'm actively negotiating a hostage crisis where the hostage is my ability to jerk off in my living room without 3 ad agencies knowing about it, and I don't think that's an unreasonable position to take.
- roughly 1y ago
  > How should they know? Because they’ve got eyes, memory, and a working brain? Every product Amazon has ever put out has wound up with ads in it, as has Amazon itself, so why in gods name wouldn’t this new one be covered in ads? It’s not 2005, this stuff shouldn’t be surprising anymore - everyone is on Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram, and if you can’t recognize that those are ad platforms from ad companies and you somehow haven’t heard from anywhere anything about the surveillance capital aspect of this (not the term, but the actual practice), I’m not sure what to say at this point except we fucking tried. And I agree, we _shouldn’t_ have to worry about any of this crap, but were we’re well past the point where that should be considered a reasonable expectation by anyone. We’re a quarter century into this now, anyone who’s still surprised by it, yeah, that’s a “them” problem.
  - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
    > Because they’ve got eyes, memory, and a working brain? Every product Amazon has ever put out has wound up with ads in it, as has Amazon itself, so why in gods name wouldn’t this new one be covered in ads? Because not everyone has been immersed in that world the whole time. A whole lot of people don't know fucking anything about Amazon beyond it being the best store on the Internet. I've got relatives who still don't understand email requires Internet access brother, because when you're not a nerd, this computer shit just doesn't matter to you. I get that it's hard to empathize, but like, a HUGE swath of the public just doesn't fucking care. They don't know how computers work, they don't know how surveillance advertising works, all they know is the man at Verizon said email is this icon, and web browsing is this icon, and their grandchildren are in this other icon. That is the extent of their technical knowledge and they desire no more. And like, I don't they should need to have it. I don't need to know shit about plumbing, about electricity, about carpentry, or any one of dozens of specializations utterly crucial to my ongoing existence in this world. I know tech, because it's my job. People who's job it isn't shouldn't need to know shit to move safely through the world.
    - frm88 1y ago
      I completely agree with what you wrote. There is this, though: I don't need to know shit about plumbing, about electricity, about carpentry, or any one of dozens of specializations utterly crucial to my ongoing existence in this world. That's the crucial difference. In each of these cases you can contact a specialist to make sure your basement doesn't flood or you don't get decapitated by your roof caving in. More to the point: you know when it's time to contact a specialist and you can easily find one. With everything around consumer electronics and hostile practises neither is the case, so you somehow have to impart that information to the uninitiated with whatever means necessary, so they - at least - recognise the limitations of their knowledge. Then regulate away the extremes. If we don't act on these practises - and soon - we'll drown.
jader201 1y ago
To be fair: 1. I get a lot more value out of (some) Reddit threads than I get out of most online journalism, including Ars Technica, so I’m never surprised to see really bad quality from journalism. 2. I’ve had two Google displays in my home for over 5 years, and have never seen a single ad on mine (with default settings / no hacking). So it’s not that surprising (to me anyway) to see these reactions from customers (unless you already had higher expectations from Google vs. Amazon).
Gigachad 1y ago
Half the time they bait and switch you with a product which initially doesn't have ads, or has very minimally intrusive ones, and then they turn them on or make them full page banners long after you made the purchase. IMO you should be entitled to a refund in this situation.
like_any_other 1y ago
Solving problems by waiting for people to collectively stop making stupid choices (while well-paid marketing and research departments look for ways to trick them into making stupid choices, and business deals are struck to deprive them of better choices [1]) has a poor track record. If you want change, you have to vote and lobby for it. That's what your enemies are doing [2]. [1] https://www.theregister.com/2014/02/13/googles_secret_android_lockin_revealed/ https://www.theregister.com/2014/02/13/googles_secret_androi... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/isps-spent-235-million-on-lobbying-and-donations-more-than-320000-a-day/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/isps-spent-235-m...

by gdulli 1y ago

ToucanLoucan 1y ago

> When are we going to hold people accountable for being surprised by the obvious actions of these companies? How should they know? Genuinely asking. Yeah WE know, we've known forever because we're the people who make this shit, both professionally and in our spare time. We know the costs associated with making these little magic devices, and we know the ongoing cost of powering them. Your average consumer does not. Not only do they not know, they do not care, until they feel their privacy is being eroded by it. Instead of being mad at people for taking a product advertised to them at face value to just be a useful thing for them to use, and not something actively designed to spy on them and then use that collected information to bombard them with ads, why don't we just say to companies: hey, it's no longer acceptable to sell loss-leader products that perform a handful of user-friendly functions that also then double as privacy violations and harass customers with ads? If we kill surveillance capitalism, not only do we de-fang the advertising industry which is actively making every tech product on the face of the earth worse to suit it's purposes, not only do we permanently end the privacy issue on the side of users, we also reduce climate threatening emissions and hideous power waste that is required to make all this atrocious shit work. And you might say "well they SHOULD care!" and yeah, I kinda agree, and also I recognize that people have a lot of shit they already have to care about, and frankly, I don't think they should have to care about this. I don't think you should have to worry if your new TV is spying on you, I just think you should be able to buy a fuckin' TV, and take it home, and plug some shit into it, and watch TV. I think that's a better world to strive for than all the consumer awareness we can muster. I am perfectly able to, but don't WANT to have to shop for electronics like I'm actively negotiating a hostage crisis where the hostage is my ability to jerk off in my living room without 3 ad agencies knowing about it, and I don't think that's an unreasonable position to take.

roughly 1y ago
> How should they know? Because they’ve got eyes, memory, and a working brain? Every product Amazon has ever put out has wound up with ads in it, as has Amazon itself, so why in gods name wouldn’t this new one be covered in ads? It’s not 2005, this stuff shouldn’t be surprising anymore - everyone is on Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram, and if you can’t recognize that those are ad platforms from ad companies and you somehow haven’t heard from anywhere anything about the surveillance capital aspect of this (not the term, but the actual practice), I’m not sure what to say at this point except we fucking tried. And I agree, we _shouldn’t_ have to worry about any of this crap, but were we’re well past the point where that should be considered a reasonable expectation by anyone. We’re a quarter century into this now, anyone who’s still surprised by it, yeah, that’s a “them” problem.
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
  > Because they’ve got eyes, memory, and a working brain? Every product Amazon has ever put out has wound up with ads in it, as has Amazon itself, so why in gods name wouldn’t this new one be covered in ads? Because not everyone has been immersed in that world the whole time. A whole lot of people don't know fucking anything about Amazon beyond it being the best store on the Internet. I've got relatives who still don't understand email requires Internet access brother, because when you're not a nerd, this computer shit just doesn't matter to you. I get that it's hard to empathize, but like, a HUGE swath of the public just doesn't fucking care. They don't know how computers work, they don't know how surveillance advertising works, all they know is the man at Verizon said email is this icon, and web browsing is this icon, and their grandchildren are in this other icon. That is the extent of their technical knowledge and they desire no more. And like, I don't they should need to have it. I don't need to know shit about plumbing, about electricity, about carpentry, or any one of dozens of specializations utterly crucial to my ongoing existence in this world. I know tech, because it's my job. People who's job it isn't shouldn't need to know shit to move safely through the world.
  - frm88 1y ago
    I completely agree with what you wrote. There is this, though: I don't need to know shit about plumbing, about electricity, about carpentry, or any one of dozens of specializations utterly crucial to my ongoing existence in this world. That's the crucial difference. In each of these cases you can contact a specialist to make sure your basement doesn't flood or you don't get decapitated by your roof caving in. More to the point: you know when it's time to contact a specialist and you can easily find one. With everything around consumer electronics and hostile practises neither is the case, so you somehow have to impart that information to the uninitiated with whatever means necessary, so they - at least - recognise the limitations of their knowledge. Then regulate away the extremes. If we don't act on these practises - and soon - we'll drown.

jader201 1y ago

To be fair: 1. I get a lot more value out of (some) Reddit threads than I get out of most online journalism, including Ars Technica, so I’m never surprised to see really bad quality from journalism. 2. I’ve had two Google displays in my home for over 5 years, and have never seen a single ad on mine (with default settings / no hacking). So it’s not that surprising (to me anyway) to see these reactions from customers (unless you already had higher expectations from Google vs. Amazon).

Gigachad 1y ago

Half the time they bait and switch you with a product which initially doesn't have ads, or has very minimally intrusive ones, and then they turn them on or make them full page banners long after you made the purchase. IMO you should be entitled to a refund in this situation.

like_any_other 1y ago

Solving problems by waiting for people to collectively stop making stupid choices (while well-paid marketing and research departments look for ways to trick them into making stupid choices, and business deals are struck to deprive them of better choices [1]) has a poor track record. If you want change, you have to vote and lobby for it. That's what your enemies are doing [2]. [1] https://www.theregister.com/2014/02/13/googles_secret_android_lockin_revealed/ https://www.theregister.com/2014/02/13/googles_secret_androi... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/isps-spent-235-million-on-lobbying-and-donations-more-than-320000-a-day/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/isps-spent-235-m...