531–540 of 710 posts
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> Don't modern internet-connected TV boxes snitch on what people are watching? Yes, which is why I will never own one.
Just wait until 5g is everywhere and companies will just add its functionality to your tv and connect regardless of what you do.
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I don't block ads. I remember what the internet was about to become before ads stepped in. Everything of value was going to be pull behind paywalls. Let's say everyone get their wish and ads go away. Everything will require a purchase. Those purchases are logged to a real name/address. You end up with bigger privacy leaks. People will still be tracking you the way they are now. And at the credit card level. As an adu…
While that speculation is plausible, another view would be that companies would offer quality content without tracking users and invading their privacy (how many paid services still flood you with ads?), and possibly free alternatives would start to come up. From your point of view, free open source is something that wouldn't exist
What you are left with is the hobbiest websites or the mega brands that want to funnel you into their ecosystem. To offer anything that cost resources that you are willing to spend you must be a megabrand using this as a loss leader opportunity.
I don't think we want that world. We may think we do but look at what happened in Mr. Robot.
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I don't block ads. I remember what the internet was about to become before ads stepped in. Everything of value was going to be pull behind paywalls. Let's say everyone get their wish and ads go away. Everything will require a purchase. Those purchases are logged to a real name/address. You end up with bigger privacy leaks. People will still be tracking you the way they are now. And at the credit card level. As an adu…
I don't think the playing field is disleveled without ads. Wikipedia has no ads. If you're willing to handle ads, they should at the least be untargetted.
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I never click on cookie consent banners, period. It has nothing to do with me not noticing them. I just leave them where they are unless they are too intrusive. If they're too intrusive, I leave the page. The reason that I don't click on them is because I've had bad experiences clicking on them in the past.
Zapping them with uBlock is also a good option.
I've been using an old version of Waterfox until recently, when I finally had to change to a modern browser. Looking at the alternatives, I chose Firefox as the least bad of the available options. On the plus side, this means that uBlock/uMatrix is an option for me now.
Why is this even at the front page of HN? I give them credit for the brilliant marketing. This is an ad disguised as an article targeting the "tech savvy" by bundling HN and Reddit (a truth + a lie makes the statement more true), a common clickbait tactic > This makes sense especially considering how difficult it is to install an adblocker on Chrome, the most popular browser on mobile devices. Nope, it is really easy…
It says it's difficult to install on mobile
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That is how it is with documentaries. Just because they are getting lower viewing numbers doesn't mean you shouldn't keep promoting them. Certainly there should be a mix of entertainment and public interest stuff, but following audience preferences for entertainment creates a feedback loop that damages society.
Things like documentaries are mostly watched by already well-off people (mostly middle class and up). In Germany, public TV is paid for by (nearly?) every household. [0] Forcing everyone, including poor people, to subsidize rich people's taste for documentaries seems a bit.. off? Similar arguments apply to public libraries and opera houses, though at least there the financing is done mostly via progressive taxation.…
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Hacking democracy (ratings voting system, whatever) to indirectly effect a supposedly benevolent unilateral outcome? Sounds familiar.
It's not exactly hacking democracy. Democracy implies every gets a vote. This is P hacking small sample sizes.
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> Let's say everyone get their wish and ads go away. Everything will require a purchase. No, it won't. There was plenty of high quality stuff on the internet before ads or payment was even possible, and there's plenty of high quality stuff that don't track you or require payment right now. There's no reason to think that would all evaporate.
We will see plenty of high quality stuff still I agree. But much of the free stuff will be about converting you to the paid stuff. With ads or not you are still the product. You will still be tracked because people want you to spend money on their service. People will sell that information. Companies will use it.
> With ads or not you are still the product.
It depends on the site. There are lots of sites where the site operator has no interest in it generating an income, let alone a profit. You are not the product there.
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While that speculation is plausible, another view would be that companies would offer quality content without tracking users and invading their privacy (how many paid services still flood you with ads?), and possibly free alternatives would start to come up. From your point of view, free open source is something that wouldn't exist
The hobbiest websites will not go away. Open source existed long before the internet. What you are left with is the hobbiest websites or the mega brands that want to funnel you into their ecosystem. To offer anything that cost resources that you are willing to spend you must be a megabrand using this as a loss leader opportunity. I don't think we want that world. We may think we do but look at what happened in Mr. Ro…
That's the world we have right now, though, just with the addition of the spying that advertising brings.