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467 points bundie | 18 comments | | HN request time: 1.77s | source | bottom
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bix6 ◴[] No.44501849[source]
These big tech companies are so frustrating. Why does every single aspect of our digital lives need to be monitored? It’s like whack a mole trying to get the most basic of privacy.
replies(11): >>44501894 #>>44501898 #>>44501908 #>>44502015 #>>44502072 #>>44502187 #>>44502307 #>>44502354 #>>44502912 #>>44503006 #>>44503118 #
1. GiorgioG ◴[] No.44501898[source]
Monetization. If people aren’t willing to pay for the products, these companies have figured out how to make the customers’ data the product.
replies(6): >>44501956 #>>44501997 #>>44502007 #>>44502179 #>>44502763 #>>44504411 #
2. hmmokidk ◴[] No.44501956[source]
This is a dumb take. They will make money every way they can.
3. sudobash1 ◴[] No.44501997[source]
You can pay for Google services. But even if you pay for Google One or YouTube premium, I'm sure that Google will still track your behavior and mine your data. Why would a company not "double-dip"?
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4. ◴[] No.44502007[source]
5. 0cf8612b2e1e ◴[] No.44502016[source]
Even better, by paying you prove that you have disposable income. You are a more attractive cow for advertisers to milk.
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6. PaulHoule ◴[] No.44502147{3}[source]
My favorite example of this is the thoroughly craven New York Times which puts content behind a paywall and loads it with awful ads aimed at people who’ve proven they are made of money.

Contrast that certain TV dayparts saturated with subprime ads promoting Medicare scams and other offerings for people who can’t spend their own money on things except for an occasional ad for a car dealer because if people weren’t driving you’d have much less reason to call a personal injury lawyer.

Ad free tiers for Netflix and whatnot have the problem that people who won’t pay for ad free aren’t really worth advertising to.

replies(1): >>44502363 #
7. dockerd ◴[] No.44502179[source]
Most paid streaming services now started showing ads because they are looking for more revenue and profit.
replies(1): >>44509845 #
8. GiorgioG ◴[] No.44502346[source]
You can choose not to use Google at all. Pay other companies like FastMail. Kagi for search, etc.
9. GiorgioG ◴[] No.44502363{4}[source]
> My favorite example of this is the thoroughly craven New York Times which puts content behind a paywall and loads it with awful ads aimed at people who’ve proven they are made of money.

It's almost as if you don't remember the good old days when the NY Times sold you a physical newspaper...that was (and still is) stuffed with ads.

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10. PaulHoule ◴[] No.44502466{5}[source]
I do. And I remember exposes of the media business circa the 1970s that point out the synergistic relationship between subscriptions and ads, such as Ben Bagdikian pointing out that subscription revenue subsidized ads in daily papers or the fact that magazines like Vogue received much more revenue from advertising than subscriptions but wouldn't be viable if they were free because paying for a subscription qualified you as a consumer.

Lately the folks at my gas station have hit me up for a conversation whenever I was looking at newspapers, usually it is about how shocking it is how little paper you get in local papers for $2.50 or more. There are the funnies and the DBA listings and front-page articles about some chain store that isn't in our town going out of business. They don't bother to send reporters to public meetings like they did 25 years ago, and if there is a local election you might have to wait 36 hours after the results are posted by the board of elections. (Used to be a reason why I bought a paper)

Contrast that to the N.Y. Times which costs $6 or so but is a beast in terms of size (small print too!) although I'd say a lot of the content is vacuous.

11. CalChris ◴[] No.44502763[source]
We are paying for phones but we are still the product. Google Facebook etc were explicitly created to monetize privacy. What I search for is monetized. Who I know is monetized. Private companies will monetize what we perceive as public goods to our detriment.
12. LinXitoW ◴[] No.44504112[source]
You can pay not Google for services too. Most people don't, though. If ALL people that used free stuff (like gmail) suddenly started paying an appropriate amount to competitors, the problems may solve themselves. But people don't do that, because they're cheap or care more about their money than their data/privacy.

Now, all this is of course an inevitable consequence of capitalism, but that's not a conversation anyone herre seems ready for.

13. callmeal ◴[] No.44504411[source]
> If people aren’t willing to pay for the products, these companies have figured out how to make the customers’ data the product.

This happens even when people pay for the products. See for instance the enshittification of streaming "ad free" services.

14. antod ◴[] No.44504906{5}[source]
There are two main reasons people hate modern ads. One is the annoyance/distraction, the other is all the myriad privacy issues.

Printed newspaper ads were only the former (and an easily skippable version compared to tv), while this topic is mainly about the latter.

replies(1): >>44505575 #
15. PaulHoule ◴[] No.44505575{6}[source]
The personalization economy is pernicious because you have no idea what other people are being exposed to.

On the computer attached to my stereo YouTube offers recommendations for music videos from the likes of the Super Furry Animals [1], Kanye West [2], Brothers Johnson and such. Nice stuff, with solid support that I like it, never challenging, unlike the recommendations from my Plex server.

On another computer YouTube shows me videos about stereo equipment, sometimes video game music [3], and also of the genre "Why X sucks" where X could be private equity, "the economy", a movie studio, a video game studio, a fast food restaurant, a clothing brand, etc. I wonder why public sentiment about the economy is so bad despite inflation and unemployment numbers that aren't so bad and think, "How many people are watching these videos?"

Other people get nothing but blackpill incel hell.

Ben Bagdikian wrote a book The Information Machines in 1970 about how personalized news would be possible by 1980 that was quite prophetic and was influential to me when I found it almost 20 years ago. Only recently did I find The Effete Conspiracy, his next book, where he reveals how angry and bitter he was that the work that the media industry sponsored him to do for the RAND corporation was roundly rejected by media owners uninterested in investing in the future and introduced the true but unpopular model that newspapers have a left-wing bias because reporters are left-wing and a right-wing bias because the owners are right-wing.

[1] I get accused of being a furry but I'm not, really

[2] pre-Nazi

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk0A5uFoG3c

16. anton-c ◴[] No.44509845[source]
I know I'm a pig-headed stick in the mud, but if more people refused to watch it on principle because of this, we would see some changes in business models. It should be easy to pay and remove all ads. But I can't expect everyone to feel the same as me. It is a dream though.

Since I can't remove ads by paying, I don't pay for a single subscription content service. The pirate sites have stuff the day it premiers, and there's no nonsense about shows split between services. Also the broken promise of being able to change language easily is actually available on those sites. I had to buy then return shin godzilla from prime video - 2 separate versions. Haven't bought or rented on there since. Also had more than one service saying my stuff is not hdcp compliant when it is. Buggy, laggy messes.

I know im a minority but there is money on the table I would gladly pay for a decent service.

replies(1): >>44509876 #
17. cindyllm ◴[] No.44509876{3}[source]
"Buddy"...that's...not...mud...
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18. anton-c ◴[] No.44510129{4}[source]
I'm stuck wherever I get all my content for free so it might be dirty but it's tough to beat

I must be missing a reference or something