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The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be

The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads, or if it does have ads/tracking, that you are trivially capable of blocking them while still totally enjoying the service/product. xcancel, archive, whatever are all tools almost solely meant to access monetized content without having to contribute to the monetize part. Then those companies are told they "suck" when they don't like it. Most importantly, the competitors that the internet endlessly cries for to show up to dethrone these giants, see what is going on and say "lol, nope".

swed420 1mo ago
> The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". There's no reason you can't abolish login walls while still serving ads. > The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free Capital interests have this innate expectation that everything must be profitable. This vision is ripe for the picking: https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/ https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/
- WarmWash 1mo ago
  >Capital interests have this innate expectation that everything must be profitable. What rubs me the wrong way about statements like this, is that it is almost always said by people who totally miss that they are advocating for things that are personally profitable for them. A website that allows you to skirt paywalls, is immensely profitable to the end user. That same end user, who detests the idea of having to spend money, then complains loudly that corporations just want their money. And it is completely lost on them they are playing the exact same game as corporations. The actual break from "corporate profits" is to not engage with the corporations products at all. But that overwhelming is not what we see. Instead it is just two entities fighting over money, because they both have the same root motivation to maximize money.
  - swed420 1mo ago
    > A website that allows you to skirt paywalls, is immensely profitable to the end user. login wall != paywall As for your apples:oranges comparison about maximizing money, which group do you suppose has an unfair advantage these days? Modern Capitalism Is Weirder Than You Think: It also no longer works as advertised https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/how-asset-managers-have-upended-how-modern-capitalism-works.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/how-asset-managers-h... (https://archive.is/wSmtd https://archive.is/wSmtd)
    - WarmWash 1mo ago
      All the evidence in the world that corporations are greedy doesn't detract from the fact the end users are also greedy. It's all greed, all the ways down. I also can't read the article, not going to make an account, and I stand by not backdooring.
      - immibis2 1mo ago
        What's wrong with that? Capitalism is about everyone being as greedy as possible. If you aren't greedy while your adversary is greedy, you give up everything you have.
        cindyllm 1mo ago
        [dead]
        WarmWash 1mo ago
        The wrong part is fooling yourself that you are above those principles while actively devoting all your energy too them. And I'm not talking food, water, medicine here. I'm talking entertainment and general internet stuff.
        immibis2 1mo ago
        If you aren't being maximally greedy in all things, including entertainment and general internet stuff, you aren't doing capitalism right. The current global power imbalance was shaped to a large part by us not being greedy while the rich people were being greedy. It only resulted in them owning all of our stuff. It's about time we tried to own their stuff, to restore balance.
thewebguyd 1mo ago
> The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". Or in the case of X, how about just let me browse without creating an account? Likewise with meta/FB, IG, etc. The reality is businesses and other services post here, share status updates, etc. often before their main pages. I'd like to read those, and yet I have no desire to actually post or interact with any of the content, just read it. I should not need an account for that.
- WarmWash 1mo ago
  Then the correct action is to either create a competitor, or point money/ad views at a competitor. But like I said, the internet is largely unwilling to do this. You won't make a competitor that is a charity, and the internet at large won't point dollars and ad-views at a nascent start-up in the space.
  - thewebguyd 1mo ago
    None of that has to do with blocking the content behind a login wall. X can still serve ads just fine to non-logged in users. I'm against the site running ads, at all, I'm against mandatory account creation. The internet ran ad supported without mandatory accounts for years.
    - arjie 1mo ago
      True, and Britain ruled the waves with wooden warships for a long time. But if they went back to wooden warships they would not rule the waves. The world has changed. Adblock, archive.is, third party mirrors all exist today.
    - WarmWash 1mo ago
      You can rest assured, 100%, that account walls are also there for money. I'd be tickled if you argue that corporations create friction for any other reason than money.
    - bigfishrunning 1mo ago
      The login wall provides one more avenue for profit: selling the data of logged-in users. A profile with a history of likes, read-times, etc is more valuable then a pair of eyeballs that are glazed-over and not clicking on an ad...
afavour 1mo ago
> The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads I don't think we always need to broaden this out to industry wide levels. We can talk about things specifically. In this case, X/Twitter has put a login wall in front of posts to boost signups. It never used to. That's a meaningful difference that people seek alternatives to.
- fragmede 1mo ago
  They went login only in the wake of Hi-Q vs LinkedIn, which established that scraping a login-free site is legal.
  - input_sh 1mo ago
    Sure, it definitely didn't happen in the wake of its new owner feeling like it in one of his first major changes to the platform because of his "concerns" with bot traffic. Luckily, he won that fight, and nowadays nobody thinks of bots when thinking of X, The Everything App.
throwaway894345 1mo ago
Your comment seems to implicitly assume that X has some ethical claim to the content they're monetizing, when in fact they're trying to monetize _others'_ content.
- WarmWash 29d ago
  It's trivially easy to spin up a website and host your own content. Especially today with LLMs to handhold even the most tech illiterate person through it. I'd imagine you are totally confused why they don't do this. If you aren't confused why, well then you have your answer for why X has a right to monetize it.
  - throwaway894345 29d ago
    I'm not disputing that X has a legal right to monetize the content, but I am not remotely convinced that (1) X has the _exclusive_ legal right to monetize the content (content creators add no value and thus have no right to the content, which seems obviously absurd) (2) X has the exclusive legal right to prevent others from distributing the content for free or (3) your "network-effects-derived moats justify a legal right to monetize content". You seem to be depending on a whole lot of assumptions to get to your "XCancel/Nitter/etc shouldn't be allowed to exist" conclusion.
wolrah 1mo ago
> The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". I feel like way too many people forget that there was a great middle ground for the longest time, in the form of Google AdWords. Text only, no animations, flash, iframes serving malware, or any of the other bullshit that had already taken over banner ad networks like Doubleclick at the time. I recall at the time one of the early adblock plugins even had the ability to allowlist AdWords while still blocking the shitware providers with the intent of encouraging the use of "good" ad networks instead of the bad ones. It's a perfectly sustainable business model, it just requires people who actually care about not being annoying more than they care about maximizing profits, and at some point Google lost those people. That's pretty much the general problem with our society as a whole, when given the choice between "profitable and sustainable" or "profitable and high quality" versus "more profitable now but will cause problems in a few years" the incentives of capitalism are all in favor of getting all the profits now and getting out before the consequences catch up.
- layla5alive 29d ago
  Scalar Monomania (profit maximization in this case) is the root of so much evil :/
  - account42 29d ago
    It's usury that's the root of this evil. Always has been. Whether it's private equity or public shareholders, when you have someone getting more and more money for simply putting in money then that value has to be extracted from somewhere.
Barrin92 29d ago
>everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads, that's not a realistic expectation for everything but it's completely realistic for text based short form communication given how affordable it is to run. That's why there's ad and tracking free alternatives to twitter already. the competitors don't say "lol nope" they'd gladly take the users, it's the latter who stay on twitter like lambs running to the slaughter
troupo 29d ago
Instagram is filled with ads, and it sucks. Facebook? Same. Xitter? Same. Youtube? Enshittified beyond measure. Google? Unusable. So tell me. Where are these great amazing services supported by ads?
account42 29d ago
The "content" in twitter largely isn't monetized, only the platform profits via rent seeking on other people's writings.
GrinningFool 29d ago
Personally I have no problem with ads if they're based on the content. But your post inadvertantly sums the problem: tracking and ads have become inseparable. If you talk about removing tracking, people come out of the woodwork and say how ads are critical for the business model. There was a time where ads were based on the thing you were looking at, and assumptions around your demographics and intentions. It actually worked though returns were lower. (Which makes sense since the psychological warfare was limited to what advertisers thought they knew about the viewer. ) Now, though, if you want to block tracking you're a freeloader, siphoning off resources that other people pay for. And since targeted ads are so (relatively) effective, there is no discussion of separation.
fuzzfactor 29d ago
So many people tend to forget what made the internet great. >The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads Roger. I guess you had to be there, either that or have above-average powers of observation, but That's. The. Foundation. Of. The. Internet. And that's how "doesn't suck" has always been defined, except for people who are just trying to make shit up that is quite a bit removed from reality. Now I've accepted ads when I feel like it although lots of times I prefer none, regardless commercial websites have always been less worthwhile than non-commercial, it's not like there's any question. This was settled way before the 1990s were over. I know perfection can not be achieved and I settle for less as much as anybody, plus "absolutely doesn't suck" may not be reached either but it is not a movable goalpost, more like a brick wall where the closer you get the better. If you are willing and able you might be able to do an outstanding job. Otherwise you're going to end up some distance away on the spectrum of "sucks more than it should." You were always already paying plenty to your ISP, and last time I checked you still are. Anything less has always been less than the whole internet you were paying for. The math is not that hard :\

swed420 1mo ago

> The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". There's no reason you can't abolish login walls while still serving ads. > The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free Capital interests have this innate expectation that everything must be profitable. This vision is ripe for the picking: https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/ https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/

WarmWash 1mo ago
>Capital interests have this innate expectation that everything must be profitable. What rubs me the wrong way about statements like this, is that it is almost always said by people who totally miss that they are advocating for things that are personally profitable for them. A website that allows you to skirt paywalls, is immensely profitable to the end user. That same end user, who detests the idea of having to spend money, then complains loudly that corporations just want their money. And it is completely lost on them they are playing the exact same game as corporations. The actual break from "corporate profits" is to not engage with the corporations products at all. But that overwhelming is not what we see. Instead it is just two entities fighting over money, because they both have the same root motivation to maximize money.
- swed420 1mo ago
  > A website that allows you to skirt paywalls, is immensely profitable to the end user. login wall != paywall As for your apples:oranges comparison about maximizing money, which group do you suppose has an unfair advantage these days? Modern Capitalism Is Weirder Than You Think: It also no longer works as advertised https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/how-asset-managers-have-upended-how-modern-capitalism-works.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/how-asset-managers-h... (https://archive.is/wSmtd https://archive.is/wSmtd)
  - WarmWash 1mo ago
    All the evidence in the world that corporations are greedy doesn't detract from the fact the end users are also greedy. It's all greed, all the ways down. I also can't read the article, not going to make an account, and I stand by not backdooring.
    - immibis2 1mo ago
      What's wrong with that? Capitalism is about everyone being as greedy as possible. If you aren't greedy while your adversary is greedy, you give up everything you have.
      - cindyllm 1mo ago
        [dead]
      - WarmWash 1mo ago
        The wrong part is fooling yourself that you are above those principles while actively devoting all your energy too them. And I'm not talking food, water, medicine here. I'm talking entertainment and general internet stuff.
        immibis2 1mo ago
        If you aren't being maximally greedy in all things, including entertainment and general internet stuff, you aren't doing capitalism right. The current global power imbalance was shaped to a large part by us not being greedy while the rich people were being greedy. It only resulted in them owning all of our stuff. It's about time we tried to own their stuff, to restore balance.

thewebguyd 1mo ago

> The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". Or in the case of X, how about just let me browse without creating an account? Likewise with meta/FB, IG, etc. The reality is businesses and other services post here, share status updates, etc. often before their main pages. I'd like to read those, and yet I have no desire to actually post or interact with any of the content, just read it. I should not need an account for that.

WarmWash 1mo ago
Then the correct action is to either create a competitor, or point money/ad views at a competitor. But like I said, the internet is largely unwilling to do this. You won't make a competitor that is a charity, and the internet at large won't point dollars and ad-views at a nascent start-up in the space.
- thewebguyd 1mo ago
  None of that has to do with blocking the content behind a login wall. X can still serve ads just fine to non-logged in users. I'm against the site running ads, at all, I'm against mandatory account creation. The internet ran ad supported without mandatory accounts for years.
  - arjie 1mo ago
    True, and Britain ruled the waves with wooden warships for a long time. But if they went back to wooden warships they would not rule the waves. The world has changed. Adblock, archive.is, third party mirrors all exist today.
  - WarmWash 1mo ago
    You can rest assured, 100%, that account walls are also there for money. I'd be tickled if you argue that corporations create friction for any other reason than money.
  - bigfishrunning 1mo ago
    The login wall provides one more avenue for profit: selling the data of logged-in users. A profile with a history of likes, read-times, etc is more valuable then a pair of eyeballs that are glazed-over and not clicking on an ad...

afavour 1mo ago

> The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads I don't think we always need to broaden this out to industry wide levels. We can talk about things specifically. In this case, X/Twitter has put a login wall in front of posts to boost signups. It never used to. That's a meaningful difference that people seek alternatives to.

fragmede 1mo ago
They went login only in the wake of Hi-Q vs LinkedIn, which established that scraping a login-free site is legal.
- input_sh 1mo ago
  Sure, it definitely didn't happen in the wake of its new owner feeling like it in one of his first major changes to the platform because of his "concerns" with bot traffic. Luckily, he won that fight, and nowadays nobody thinks of bots when thinking of X, The Everything App.

throwaway894345 1mo ago

Your comment seems to implicitly assume that X has some ethical claim to the content they're monetizing, when in fact they're trying to monetize _others'_ content.

WarmWash 29d ago
It's trivially easy to spin up a website and host your own content. Especially today with LLMs to handhold even the most tech illiterate person through it. I'd imagine you are totally confused why they don't do this. If you aren't confused why, well then you have your answer for why X has a right to monetize it.
- throwaway894345 29d ago
  I'm not disputing that X has a legal right to monetize the content, but I am not remotely convinced that (1) X has the _exclusive_ legal right to monetize the content (content creators add no value and thus have no right to the content, which seems obviously absurd) (2) X has the exclusive legal right to prevent others from distributing the content for free or (3) your "network-effects-derived moats justify a legal right to monetize content". You seem to be depending on a whole lot of assumptions to get to your "XCancel/Nitter/etc shouldn't be allowed to exist" conclusion.

wolrah 1mo ago

> The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". I feel like way too many people forget that there was a great middle ground for the longest time, in the form of Google AdWords. Text only, no animations, flash, iframes serving malware, or any of the other bullshit that had already taken over banner ad networks like Doubleclick at the time. I recall at the time one of the early adblock plugins even had the ability to allowlist AdWords while still blocking the shitware providers with the intent of encouraging the use of "good" ad networks instead of the bad ones. It's a perfectly sustainable business model, it just requires people who actually care about not being annoying more than they care about maximizing profits, and at some point Google lost those people. That's pretty much the general problem with our society as a whole, when given the choice between "profitable and sustainable" or "profitable and high quality" versus "more profitable now but will cause problems in a few years" the incentives of capitalism are all in favor of getting all the profits now and getting out before the consequences catch up.

layla5alive 29d ago
Scalar Monomania (profit maximization in this case) is the root of so much evil :/
- account42 29d ago
  It's usury that's the root of this evil. Always has been. Whether it's private equity or public shareholders, when you have someone getting more and more money for simply putting in money then that value has to be extracted from somewhere.

Barrin92 29d ago

>everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads, that's not a realistic expectation for everything but it's completely realistic for text based short form communication given how affordable it is to run. That's why there's ad and tracking free alternatives to twitter already. the competitors don't say "lol nope" they'd gladly take the users, it's the latter who stay on twitter like lambs running to the slaughter

troupo 29d ago

Instagram is filled with ads, and it sucks. Facebook? Same. Xitter? Same. Youtube? Enshittified beyond measure. Google? Unusable. So tell me. Where are these great amazing services supported by ads?

account42 29d ago

The "content" in twitter largely isn't monetized, only the platform profits via rent seeking on other people's writings.

GrinningFool 29d ago

Personally I have no problem with ads if they're based on the content. But your post inadvertantly sums the problem: tracking and ads have become inseparable. If you talk about removing tracking, people come out of the woodwork and say how ads are critical for the business model. There was a time where ads were based on the thing you were looking at, and assumptions around your demographics and intentions. It actually worked though returns were lower. (Which makes sense since the psychological warfare was limited to what advertisers thought they knew about the viewer. ) Now, though, if you want to block tracking you're a freeloader, siphoning off resources that other people pay for. And since targeted ads are so (relatively) effective, there is no discussion of separation.

fuzzfactor 29d ago

So many people tend to forget what made the internet great. >The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads Roger. I guess you had to be there, either that or have above-average powers of observation, but That's. The. Foundation. Of. The. Internet. And that's how "doesn't suck" has always been defined, except for people who are just trying to make shit up that is quite a bit removed from reality. Now I've accepted ads when I feel like it although lots of times I prefer none, regardless commercial websites have always been less worthwhile than non-commercial, it's not like there's any question. This was settled way before the 1990s were over. I know perfection can not be achieved and I settle for less as much as anybody, plus "absolutely doesn't suck" may not be reached either but it is not a movable goalpost, more like a brick wall where the closer you get the better. If you are willing and able you might be able to do an outstanding job. Otherwise you're going to end up some distance away on the spectrum of "sucks more than it should." You were always already paying plenty to your ISP, and last time I checked you still are. Anything less has always been less than the whole internet you were paying for. The math is not that hard :\