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

odysee.com

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

#51

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

The whole article took about a minute to load because apparently it’s being loaded from some decentralized network called lbry.

I would rather be the product and get a great user experience than a shitty user experience that sells itself based on some ideal that probably will not work economically in the long run. If a decentralized network you invested a lot of your life in becomes irrelevant, it’s worse than using a centralized network that actually stays around. And most “decentralized” networks have failed to show enough traction for me to feel secure about their future.

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

#52

Post by JohnFen »

trjordan wrote: post #20

This line of thinking ends with "companies are evil." It's not totally wrong, but it's perhaps not a useful framing. Businesses make money in all sorts of ways. Most big companies blend these together. NYTimes charges users AND sells ads. Enterprise SaaS sells licenses AND charges for installation and configuration services. App store widgets charge for download AND sell aggregate data. Brand gets undersold in a lot…

> I do think it's worthwhile to figure out which companies you do trust.

I have yet to see a for-profit business that I "trust" in a widespread sort of way, although small mom-and-pop ones can come close.

The problem is that companies tend to have a strong desire to make as much money as possible by any means that they think they can get away with. That makes anything like actual trust impossible.

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

#54

Post by ashtonkem »

jamiequint wrote: post #25
nonameiguess wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Disagree strongly. You’re ignoring the disproportionate power that tracking companies have compared to citizens. Is it really a free market if every single website you visit has the same tracking code built in?

As is always the case, rights are there to protect the weak from the powerful.

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

#55

Post by LegitShady »

irjustin wrote: post #27
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author's point is that you will be tracked even if you do pay. And indeed, I pay Google for gmail because some years I somehow slipped out of the free tier and had to start paying. At the same time, my email is unequivocally used by Google for tracking. I'm paying, and I'm still the product.

To be explicit, you're paying for the add-on storage. I think the distinction is important. You can't pay for GMail unless you're part of Workspaces (GSuite). Am I still the product in GSuite? Well I don't get ads so... maybe not?

I pay for ad-free YouTube and YouTube music premium. It’s possible to make any fees for service a fee for something other than service. “You’re not paying for YouTube you’re paying to not see ads on YouTube”.

You’re not paying for gmail, you’re paying for removing ads in gmail, so you can still be analyzed and tracked, etc.

It’s just semantics and creative structuring.

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

#56

Post by paulryanrogers »

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…

Equifax is a great example of a service which you don't do business with and get opted into without consent.

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

#57

Post by jamiequint »

soco wrote: post #48
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.

Someone is getting value from seeing ads for those brands, or they wouldn’t keep advertising on Facebook. If you are getting no value and don’t like the value exchange, well, nobody is forcing you to use Facebook.

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

#58

Post by busterarm »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #16
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…

I think the author's point is that you will be tracked even if you do pay. And indeed, I pay Google for gmail because some years I somehow slipped out of the free tier and had to start paying. At the same time, my email is unequivocally used by Google for tracking. I'm paying, and I'm still the product.

It depends on the host you pay. It's very simple. Don't use email from Google/Microsoft/Yahoo/etc.

Get email from providers who care about the same things that you do. I've been using Migadu happily for over a year now.

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

#59

Post by letitbeirie »

jamiequint wrote: post #25
nonameiguess wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Sure, but then that opens up a lot of questions about "is this actually a free market?"

It certainly makes sense in a space that is one - if you don't want to be tracked by e.g. an online newspaper, there are certainly plenty of alternative offerings on the market. But what if Comcast wanted to track you? Depending on where you live you may not have the choice not to do business with them, which means your desire not to be tracked gets steamrolled by your only available option - you're forced to accept tracking or be denied access to the internet.

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

#60

Post by 6r1d »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #51

The whole article took about a minute to load because apparently it’s being loaded from some decentralized network called lbry. I would rather be the product and get a great user experience than a shitty user experience that sells itself based on some ideal that probably will not work economically in the long run. If a decentralized network you invested a lot of your life in becomes irrelevant, it’s worse than using…

And, if not a secret, what ISP do you use and where?

I am often using LBRY on an ADSL modem and it's fast with all the network issue I see elsewhere.

UPD: nevermind, Odysee frontend seems to crash, but LBRY app itself works immediately with this article.

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