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I prefer these services free and have no problem being tracked for more personalized ads. I don't wanna pay with my wallet - I am OK with paying with my informa

I prefer these services free and have no problem being tracked for more personalized ads. I don't wanna pay with my wallet - I am OK with paying with my information.

pyre 13y ago
Lots of people are OK with something until it bites them. Plenty of people are 'ok' with not backing up their information (e.g. family photos), until a storage failure takes it all away.
- rogerchucker 13y ago
  Yes it's called taking risk. I am aware of it - people like you seem to get offended that we actually take that risk in exchange of the convenience (free and more or less stable services).
  - pyre 13y ago
    I'm not offended. - Not everyone that pays with their information is aware of the risk they are taking. - Many people that know the the risks are misjudged their probability of coming to bear.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    If you pay for it with information, it is no more "free" than if you payed for it with money.
white_devil 13y ago
> I am OK with paying with my information. To be more accurate, you're paying with your privacy. Of course, "information" does sound more pleasant.
- rogerchucker 13y ago
  That's where you (and by some extension most computer science people) are completely off-base. You don't get to define what is private for me or what privacy means for me. It is a social construct. I have a select set of information that I do not want in the hands of a select group of people - THAT constitutes MY privacy.
  - lucian1900 13y ago
    But by volunteering all the information you are privy to, you are almost certainly violating the idea of privacy of one of the people you know.
    - rogerchucker 13y ago
      That's not how it works. My privacy perception has nothing to do with another person's trust in me. And no I did not say I am volunteering ALL the information I am privy to - I did say that I have my boundaries. How I define those boundaries will obviously take into consideration what I think is a mutually understood contract between me and another person. But those boundaries vary from person to person and so it is futile to try to define someone else's privacy perception objectively.
      - lucian1900 13y ago
        You are implicitly volunteering most of the information you are privy to by using such services, in particular Facebook.
  - white_devil 13y ago
    > You don't get to define what is private for me or what privacy means for me No, but I'm sure most people see privacy in a roughly similar way. You want control over what people know about you and your life, and control over who know it. This control is being taken away from us at every turn, no matter what we do online. Most people have no idea it's happening, but most of those who do, would prefer it. You may be perfectly fine with losing your privacy, regardless of how you might personally want to define it, but most people aren't.
bad_user 13y ago
By principle I prefer software that's free as in freedom of speech and services that are managed by non-profits. However, you're not talking about "free as in freedom of speech", but rather about being a cheap bastard. Nothing wrong with that, I am and will always be a cheap bastard myself. BUT sometimes being cheap is different from being frugal and can have a negative effect on your bottom line. My Dropbox subscription costs as much as 2 Starbucks coffees and man, let me tell you, I drink a lot of coffee. In exchange I get a good Linux client, a good iPad client, plus unlimited history of changes. I also trust them with my data, for now at least. With Google Drive you may think that you'll always have alternatives to move in case they shut it down. However, by supporting Google, you're contributing to a possible future where no alternatives are left. Also, in case Google ever cuts you out of your account based on a malfunctioning script that calculated some probability that you may be violating their TOS for one of their dozens of services, you will not have the moral right to bitch about it, because you knew the associated risks.
- aw3c2 13y ago
  Using free software to host services yourself is hardly being a cheap bastard. You are paying for the hosting part yourself.
  - bad_user 13y ago
    The comment I replied to does NOT mention hosting free software by yourself, a route with which I agree if you're so inclined. The comment I replied to mentions preference towards Ads-enabled services, just because they are free of charge and when a subscription to a service that keeps your data is the same price as 2 coffees, that's being a cheap bastard dude. Also, in case this term offends anyone, it wasn't really meant to be insulting. As I said, I'm a cheap bastard myself. For instance I take advantage of a lot of available freebies, like Heroku's free dynos. I'm also a free Google Apps user and haven't made any attempts to escape Google's silo. Nothing wrong with that. But in regards to the price you end up paying, sometimes cheap stuff ends up costing more.
- jpadkins 13y ago
  what is inherently better about non-profit running a service? Functionally, the only difference is they can't pay dividends to shareholders. Non-profit's can (and do!) turn profits into executives bonus's or perks, or bloated organizations, etc. Why do you feel a non-profit would run a service better?
LaGrange 13y ago
For me, and a few other people, 'personalized ads' is something that sounds very, very bad in itself, even if separated from the privacy issues. There really is a point on the scale of ad effectiveness where it stops being useful information and becomes brainwashing.
angersock 13y ago
Ain't just paying with your information though, is it? You're also volunteering your interactions with other people, their conversations with you and whatnot. They may not be so spendthrift with their privacy.

I prefer these services free and have no problem being tracked for more personalized ads. I don't wanna pay with my wallet - I am OK with paying with my information.

pyre 13y ago

Lots of people are OK with something until it bites them. Plenty of people are 'ok' with not backing up their information (e.g. family photos), until a storage failure takes it all away.

rogerchucker 13y ago
Yes it's called taking risk. I am aware of it - people like you seem to get offended that we actually take that risk in exchange of the convenience (free and more or less stable services).
- pyre 13y ago
  I'm not offended. - Not everyone that pays with their information is aware of the risk they are taking. - Many people that know the the risks are misjudged their probability of coming to bear.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  If you pay for it with information, it is no more "free" than if you payed for it with money.

white_devil 13y ago

> I am OK with paying with my information. To be more accurate, you're paying with your privacy. Of course, "information" does sound more pleasant.

rogerchucker 13y ago
That's where you (and by some extension most computer science people) are completely off-base. You don't get to define what is private for me or what privacy means for me. It is a social construct. I have a select set of information that I do not want in the hands of a select group of people - THAT constitutes MY privacy.
- lucian1900 13y ago
  But by volunteering all the information you are privy to, you are almost certainly violating the idea of privacy of one of the people you know.
  - rogerchucker 13y ago
    That's not how it works. My privacy perception has nothing to do with another person's trust in me. And no I did not say I am volunteering ALL the information I am privy to - I did say that I have my boundaries. How I define those boundaries will obviously take into consideration what I think is a mutually understood contract between me and another person. But those boundaries vary from person to person and so it is futile to try to define someone else's privacy perception objectively.
    - lucian1900 13y ago
      You are implicitly volunteering most of the information you are privy to by using such services, in particular Facebook.
- white_devil 13y ago
  > You don't get to define what is private for me or what privacy means for me No, but I'm sure most people see privacy in a roughly similar way. You want control over what people know about you and your life, and control over who know it. This control is being taken away from us at every turn, no matter what we do online. Most people have no idea it's happening, but most of those who do, would prefer it. You may be perfectly fine with losing your privacy, regardless of how you might personally want to define it, but most people aren't.

bad_user 13y ago

By principle I prefer software that's free as in freedom of speech and services that are managed by non-profits. However, you're not talking about "free as in freedom of speech", but rather about being a cheap bastard. Nothing wrong with that, I am and will always be a cheap bastard myself. BUT sometimes being cheap is different from being frugal and can have a negative effect on your bottom line. My Dropbox subscription costs as much as 2 Starbucks coffees and man, let me tell you, I drink a lot of coffee. In exchange I get a good Linux client, a good iPad client, plus unlimited history of changes. I also trust them with my data, for now at least. With Google Drive you may think that you'll always have alternatives to move in case they shut it down. However, by supporting Google, you're contributing to a possible future where no alternatives are left. Also, in case Google ever cuts you out of your account based on a malfunctioning script that calculated some probability that you may be violating their TOS for one of their dozens of services, you will not have the moral right to bitch about it, because you knew the associated risks.

aw3c2 13y ago
Using free software to host services yourself is hardly being a cheap bastard. You are paying for the hosting part yourself.
- bad_user 13y ago
  The comment I replied to does NOT mention hosting free software by yourself, a route with which I agree if you're so inclined. The comment I replied to mentions preference towards Ads-enabled services, just because they are free of charge and when a subscription to a service that keeps your data is the same price as 2 coffees, that's being a cheap bastard dude. Also, in case this term offends anyone, it wasn't really meant to be insulting. As I said, I'm a cheap bastard myself. For instance I take advantage of a lot of available freebies, like Heroku's free dynos. I'm also a free Google Apps user and haven't made any attempts to escape Google's silo. Nothing wrong with that. But in regards to the price you end up paying, sometimes cheap stuff ends up costing more.
jpadkins 13y ago
what is inherently better about non-profit running a service? Functionally, the only difference is they can't pay dividends to shareholders. Non-profit's can (and do!) turn profits into executives bonus's or perks, or bloated organizations, etc. Why do you feel a non-profit would run a service better?

LaGrange 13y ago

For me, and a few other people, 'personalized ads' is something that sounds very, very bad in itself, even if separated from the privacy issues. There really is a point on the scale of ad effectiveness where it stops being useful information and becomes brainwashing.

angersock 13y ago

Ain't just paying with your information though, is it? You're also volunteering your interactions with other people, their conversations with you and whatnot. They may not be so spendthrift with their privacy.