Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product • Hacker News Board

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#41

Post by Spivak » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

corpdrone2021 wrote: post #13

I realized this when Microsoft started reading the emails and attachments in my office 365 account, and having Cortana "helpfully" suggest various to-do items from them. The degree to which this seems to be the case has me convinced that the only way I will actually have any control of my data is if it's on a hard drive in my physical possession. And frankly I don't have time to maintain my own IT infrastructure.

I feel like the rule for these kinds of features goes like this: if it would be fine and useful for a self-hosted version of the app to do something then it's fine if a cloud-hosted version to do it as well.

If you don't like that o365 is scanning your emails for todos and potential calendar events but it would be a non-issue on your Mail-in-a-Box then you have a problem with MS not the scanning.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#42

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

nonameiguess wrote: post #18

pdpi wrote: post #9

The next to last paragraph bothers me: On Hackernews, they think it's "entitlement" to think that you can use free email and search engines and expect not to be tracked. The main problem with this line of thinking is that even if you had the option to pay for your email and for your search engine, some G**gle executive somewhere would mention during a meeting that they could add an extra $X million of revenue if they…

That doesn't seem like a fair representation. The quote there isn't saying you should expect totally free services. It's saying you have the right to expect not to be tracked . Advertising up until 20 years ago relied entirely upon context and behavioral and engagement studies were conducted on an opt-in basis on Nielsen families and focus groups composed either of volunteers or people being compensated for participa…

If you set up Gmail on your phone you’re not being advertised to at all when you check your mail. It seems hard to imagine any way providing that service for free would be worth their while if they couldn’t harvest the data.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#43

Post by JohnFen » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

agloeregrets wrote: post #3

While entirely true, I cant help but think that the overall title effectively equates what happens on Facebook to what happens on a paid service of sorts when that is a bit unfair.

I don't think it's unfair. The number of services that will stop spying on you because you are paying money for them is distressingly small.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#44

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

benjaminjosephw wrote: post #28

pdpi wrote: post #9

The next to last paragraph bothers me: On Hackernews, they think it's "entitlement" to think that you can use free email and search engines and expect not to be tracked. The main problem with this line of thinking is that even if you had the option to pay for your email and for your search engine, some G**gle executive somewhere would mention during a meeting that they could add an extra $X million of revenue if they…

Wow, I thought you were about to object to the generalization of an end-usr denigrating HN perspective! Okay, even if it is "entitled" to expect something for nothing, it's dishonest not to be clear and upfront about the costs. In fact, if you think the entitlement is misplaced then it's really a failure of the service providers in educating the users rather than a failure of the users themselves. If you don't agree,…

I find it hard to believe in this day and age that people don’t understand the basic business model of these services.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#45

Post by merrywhether » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

neither_color wrote: post #21

corpdrone2021 wrote: post #13

I realized this when Microsoft started reading the emails and attachments in my office 365 account, and having Cortana "helpfully" suggest various to-do items from them. The degree to which this seems to be the case has me convinced that the only way I will actually have any control of my data is if it's on a hard drive in my physical possession. And frankly I don't have time to maintain my own IT infrastructure.

I was mortified by Cortana auto-extracting todos from private emails but my father in his late 50’s said it was neat and very useful for him. So it goes.

Long term this is definitely something I want from my personal AI assistant, filtering out all kinds of annoyance/tedium from my life, so I totally understand how your father could like it. The difference for you and I right now is that we don’t view the AIs as personal enough and thus don’t trust them.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#46

Post by Nextgrid » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

jamiequint wrote: post #39

My primary problem with this article is that the author assumes that consumers get no value from ads. While the author may not personally like ads, it is undeniable that thousands to tens of thousands of consumer brands (the same ones who are now suffering with iOS 14.5 changes) now exist as a result of Facebook’s distribution. These brands mostly would have failed in a pre-FB-ads world. The idea that there is zero c…

> If one believes that any advertiser cares about tracking their behavior individualy - rather than in aggregate - they are suffering from delusions of grandeur.

Maybe advertisers themselves don't care about tracking people individually, but the advertising industry builds & funds a tracking infrastructure that can be (and sometimes is) co-opted into tracking people by other nefarious actors, whether private or state-sponsored.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#47

Post by mattacular » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

jamiequint wrote: post #39

My primary problem with this article is that the author assumes that consumers get no value from ads. While the author may not personally like ads, it is undeniable that thousands to tens of thousands of consumer brands (the same ones who are now suffering with iOS 14.5 changes) now exist as a result of Facebook’s distribution. These brands mostly would have failed in a pre-FB-ads world. The idea that there is zero c…

> These brands mostly would have failed in a pre-FB-ads world.

Perhaps they should have.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#48

Post by soco » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

jamiequint wrote: post #39

My primary problem with this article is that the author assumes that consumers get no value from ads. While the author may not personally like ads, it is undeniable that thousands to tens of thousands of consumer brands (the same ones who are now suffering with iOS 14.5 changes) now exist as a result of Facebook’s distribution. These brands mostly would have failed in a pre-FB-ads world. The idea that there is zero c…

If you define those brands as being the consumers, then yes, I guess, if they say so (did we ask them?). But I as a person get absolutely no value from those ad networks. Zero.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#49

Post by hundreddaysoff » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

j45 wrote: post #14

corpdrone2021 wrote: post #13

I realized this when Microsoft started reading the emails and attachments in my office 365 account, and having Cortana "helpfully" suggest various to-do items from them. The degree to which this seems to be the case has me convinced that the only way I will actually have any control of my data is if it's on a hard drive in my physical possession. And frankly I don't have time to maintain my own IT infrastructure.

The reality has changed a lot about self hosting. Looking into it might surprise you.

You're saying self-hosting is easier now than in the past?

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#50

Post by jamiequint » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

scrose wrote: post #36

jamiequint wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not, and should not, have a right not to be tracked. You should have a right to know if a given company wants to track you, and to decide if you want to still do business with them as a result. Similarly, they should have the right to know if you are going to block/evade tracking and be able to decide if they still want to do business with you as a result. This is how a free market works.

How does this work if you’ve never done business with the company or ever intend to? If I get a random email from a company with a tracking pixel, am I ‘doing business’ with them? If a friend shares my name and number with an app, am I doing business with them? If a friend posts a photo of me on a social media service I don’t use, do they send out a PI to track me down and let me know they’re going to be running faci…

For “random websites” there are laws around cookie approvals.

For emails, you can’t drop tracking inside that can follow you around, at best you can determine an email was opened (think certified mail, for an IRL analog)

If you don’t want your friends sharing your contact info that seems like a problem between you and your friends. Sharing contact info without direct consent is not a new problem in the internet age. That’s been happening forever.