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In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

wired.co.uk

431–437 of 437 posts

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cute that you're pretending like you understood the conversation all along, but you started your comment with "why would I care?", in response to a conversation where two goal-aligned people were discussing tactics for reaching that goal.

Thank you for your help in how to have a conversation online. It's been very useful.

Delighted to have been of service

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is not discrimination. Genuinely curious, how isn't that discrimination? Since when did it being his own money in his free time stop it being a discriminatory stance?

It may be a discriminatory stance, I am not certain since I am not an US citizen and haven't really dug into the details of what that law would imply. It is not discrimination because there is not any individual being discriminated against. He did not use his position to discriminate against gay people for example. He outright did the exact opposite and wrote that he was going to push for equality at Mozilla. I do no…

This seems like a very 'pick and choose' definition of discrimination. I don't think it holds up — professional courtesy within one particular job and an outward political attempt, using his vast wealth and influence, to prevent a certain group of people from having certain rights, these don't have any relation to each other.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#433
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Diversity" in tech means "we should have programmers with skin colour X or genital configuration Y". But I don't care about people's skin colour or genitals. It turns out people are diverse anyway and that's why not everyone end up in tech.

> It turns out people are diverse anyway and that's why not everyone end up in tech That's true but also ignores the problem that many people drop out of tech due to discrimination or feeling like they don't belong even though they are interested. "While a majority of the men in the study reported that their internship experiences were positive, women’s experiences were much more of a mixed bag, full of ageism, sexis…

What if they are dropping out because they are not good at it? I like playing music but I'll never be good enough for any orchestra. If I had been told ever since I was a child that a) I can be a professional musician if I want to (in fact, that I should become one because there aren't enough with my kind of genitals), and b) that I will face discrimination, then when I inevitably fail what do you think I will attribute it to?

It should be abundantly clear that certain groups, especially white women, are actually preferentially selected. There is no discrimination against them. Other groups, like black women, may have a stronger case, but you can't just take an individual's word that they failed due to discrimination. There needs to be evidence far beyond self-reported victimisation.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Diversity" in tech means "we should have programmers with skin colour X or genital configuration Y". But I don't care about people's skin colour or genitals. It turns out people are diverse anyway and that's why not everyone end up in tech.

Yeah, and it is insane how much amount of money you can receive in the name of diversity. I am pretty sure people who are getting fat rich from it are perfectly aware of this. Slightly off-topic but it is also funny that X would praise diversity, and at the same time imply that we should balance some things out when it is the people themselves who are the cause for the imbalance. They make the assumption that imbalan…

I live right next to a major highway construction project. They work in all weathers (or at least try to) and 24 hours a day. 100% male. Funny how nobody is crying foul about this clear case of discrimination. Yet in tech/IT we're failing if the numbers are not 50/50 apparently.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#435
post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The block might appeal to users, but is potentially worrying to publishers This is idiotic because tracking is GOOD FOR GOOGLE and BAD FOR PUBLISHERS. If the saying in advertising is that half of your budget is wasted, why the hell would publishers want to tell advertisers which half?

Advertisers aren't going to pay more than the traffic is worth. If 1/2 of your advertising is going to people who would never be interested in the product and you can cut that group out you're willing to pay approximately 2x as much. If all users were equally of interest to all advertisers this wouldn't matter, but that's very much not the case. Imagine you're a publisher, and your audience can be divided as 50% coff…

That logic would work great if Google were the publisher. Unfortunately, there are a lot of companies that think they are “publishers” but are actually meaningless now that Google is effectively a publisher, except that they don’t pay for content. Those companies—newspaper, magazines, basically anything middlebrow but not for rich people—are all getting cut out because why would you pay to staff Runners World or Car & Driver when you know who runs (because they post pictures of themselves running) and who wants a car (because they search for it)?

So, yes, in the end, the ad market has a certain size, independent of the advertising companies in it, but now the link between that market and actual writers making actual content people want is broken and everything is turning to shit.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#436
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wired is a (particularly) tracking-reliant publisher, so I'm not particularly surprised that they adopted this tone. I also hope that any sort of tracking-based business model goes extinct. Unfortunately, in the case of online publishing, consumers have repeatedly rejected micropayments (most recently Blendle[1]), which I believe is the only viable alternative. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blendle

Traditional media never needed individual tracking for advertisements nor "micropayments". Just because we have the technology to track advertisement spends to the exact person doesn't mean we have to. Just because we because we have the technology charge (fractions of) pennies per article read doesn't invalidate the traditional subscriber model. (In fact both microtargeting and micropayments are arguably much worse,…

You're completely right, publishers don't need to use the micropayment model. I meant, and should have said, that publishers aren't adopting a low-friction, single-account payment service, of which micropayments are only one.

This is still a massive issue, however. Because the internet makes most online publishers global, consumers have access to many more content sources, and so if even if publishers adjust their subscription prices to match the lower distribution costs and larger audiences that they have access to, the effort of signing up for more than just one or two subscriptions will be much more than most consumers (including me) want to invest.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps OP feels that the specific strategy Mozilla employee for helping diversity is ineffective; in the same manner that refusing to donate to ineffective anti-poverty charities, is not the same as supporting poverty. Edit: rather than trying to read OP's mind or surmise what they may be thinking, I'll give my own experience on this. I have seen companies spend money on diversity as lip-service, or targeting groups…

The irony is, females/LGBTQ/race rights compromise, statistically, a large majority of the lower socio-economic class and are poorly educated (especially with regards to race). It's very perplexing that you make this conclusion as a legitimate opposition to diversity.

I think particularly in the US, there is certainly a link between race rights and socio-economic class, but I think to that end ,improving access to education and helping lift those in the least-privileged socio-economic class out of poverty would do a lot more to combat racial imbalance than anything else. As far as female/LGBTQ rights, I'm not aware of them being statistically more likely to come from a lower socio-economic class, but I could well be wrong!
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