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

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

#171

Post by p_j_w »

Kalium wrote: post #166
acituan wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Expecting a valuable service with absolutely no consideration in return absolutely is a case of entitlement Like open source software? What you’re talking about is not entitlement, it is directed transactionality; “if I am using a service by x, I need to be the one personally compensating x”. X could as well receive some form of compensation from elsewhere. Open source developers can be receiving satisfaction, reco…

> Like open source software? Given how poorly people often treat maintainers, I think "entitlement" is precisely the correct word. Your point about charity is well-made. Though it may perhaps strain credulity to expect email services on a truly massive scale to be offered as non-reciprocal charity.

>Though it may perhaps strain credulity to expect email services on a truly massive scale to be offered as non-reciprocal charity.

Or anything that requires any sort of non-trivial capital to do. Video hosting/streaming (eg. YouTube), social media, news reporting, etc. I'm guessing the person you're replying to doesn't do their full time job for free and just accepts donations from their employers, either.

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

#172

Post by j45 »

hundreddaysoff wrote: post #49
j45 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Having done self hosting and and coming back to it after a 10 year break.. much easier.

One example of not setting everyone from scratch..

IaaS/Paas: Install Proxmox from USB.. 10 minutes from boot to web interface to your own local linode/digital ocean. Redundancy, setup 2 and link them. Disaster recovery, put it off site. Backups, connect it to one of a few built in options.

Network/infrastructure: deploy docker images for VPN (algo), firewalls (pfsense), dns (pihole), proxy (traefik, etc). It can remain an appliance that can be configured to self update if needed.

Storage: make storage into an appliance that you set and forget with a nas.

Next spin up your services/packages. Things like turnkeylinux is a nice way to try out things.

There is a nice self hosting community on Reddit if you’re interested for folks who have setup homelabs.

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

#173

Post by pessimizer »

Cederfjard wrote: post #110
hobs wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty simple - if its not profitable to run a service without spying on your users then it should simply not be run. That's it!

OK, that’s how you feel, and your choice. What do you think about people who wouldn’t mind being spied on in exchange for free or cheaper services? I’m personally with you, by the way, but I think it’s worth pointing out that it’s not the only valid position.

What do you say about children who really want to work in mines, or people who want to sell themselves into slavery?

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

#174

Post by nisegami »

hundreddaysoff wrote: post #49
j45 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

With the exception of outbound mail, I absolutely think it is.

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

#175

Post by pessimizer »

astura wrote: post #134
paulryanrogers wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>without consent That's like complaining that they are making you pay the balance when you didn't consent to paying off the charges you made. When you get a credit card you agree to the credit card agreement. I just picked a random credit card agreement I found online (Chase Amazon Visa) and it says: >We may obtain and review your credit history from credit reporting agencies and others. We may, from time to time, ob…

I've never had a credit card in my life, but I do have a credit rating.

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

#176

Post by _nalply »

SyzygistSix wrote: post #117
poidos wrote: post #34

It gets grosser by the day. This is something that is endemic not just to ad-tech companies, but regular brick and mortar stores as well: it isn't enough to just be consuming, to actually be producing value for the business: they must monetize as many seconds of our attention as possible! If I'm buying gas, I'm being served ads via the little screen. If I'm at the grocery store, there's ads plastered onto my cart. Bu…

>If I'm buying gas, I'm being served ads via the little screen. The first time I saw that, my immediate reaction was to hit the screen. My second thought was to pour gas on it and light it on fire. I refuse to use any place that does this unless it is a last resort. It's not terribly common where I live (yet) but I assume it is becoming standard. It's enraging.

You could put a pinch of salt into your bottle with hand sanitizer and wait for about a day till the salt is dissolved. Then when disinfecting your hands, pour a little bit into any opening you see near the screen.

(Never tried that out and never will. Hand sanitizer has about 30 percent water and salt water will both short-circuit and corrode circuits.)

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

#177

Post by JohnFen »

merrywhether wrote: post #45
neither_color wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

I don't trust them because I know that they're reporting to their real bosses, who aren't me. If I could have a personal assistant that was completely local and under my control, I'd begin to get interested in them.

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

#178

Post by Havoc »

This is currently annoying me with the economist and Financial Times. Even after paying their heavy subscription you’re bombarded with ads and FT has the audacity to block you from some article because they added another tier of premium above that.

Their content is good sure but they sure are milking that on all fronts

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

#179

Post by mindslight »

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…

Talking about "entitlement" is generally a red herring because it ignores talking about why expectations are a certain way. On this topic, useful services in exchange for absolutely no consideration is exactly what the surveillance companies are marketing. When you go through the sign up flow, there is no attempt to inform users of what they're actually exchanging. And no, boilerplate legalese that nobody reads doesn't count for anything. To have an actual meeting of the minds, there should be at least one page of friendly infographics showing the extent of what data they're capturing, where they're using it, and how long it will be stored.

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

#180

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

JohnFen wrote: post #164
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.

> I'm paying, and I'm still the product. Yes, but you're not the only one who is the product. Everyone who sends email to you is as well.

I try to be a nice person. Is paying for my friends and colleagues to be products so wrong?
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