21–30 of 33 posts
In my opinion the well has been poisoned. I do pay for services for which trustworthy providers exist (mail, vps, git, small software, indie game studios). I also put 50 dollars a month aside to donate to various open source projects I enjoy, because they are valuable to me, and the money actually goes to the devs. I would gladly pay for many "mainstream" services as well, if I actually became a customer by doing so.…
Yikes, no. Email definitely wasn't free in the past. If you didn't use Hotmail (which I believe had paid tiers), you paid through your ISP.
Gmail being free and giving you, at the time, a huge inbox was why it became as popular as it did. Even now, I'm paying for email via Google Workspace.
Truth is, people largely don't care about being tracked or being served ads
> The main reason email is free is that Google fucked it all up by offering a good email service for free. Yikes, no. Email definitely wasn't free in the past. If you didn't use Hotmail (which I believe had paid tiers), you paid through your ISP. Gmail being free and giving you, at the time, a huge inbox was why it became as popular as it did. Even now, I'm paying for email via Google Workspace. Truth is, people larg…
Don't care or don't understand?
If "pay by privacy" was opt in only, I suspect there would be a lot fewer participants. A lot of people just don't understand how their privacy is being abused --- out of sight, out of mind.
The spirit of the internet is the free dissemination of information with an emphasis on free.
I generally agree, although paying for things still doesn't prevent companies from tracking us, selling our data or advertising to us. The additional income stream is hard to resist. Another thing: if you won't pay for something, consider sending the creator a few words of praise. It might not pay the bills, but it feels damn good to be on the receiving end of kind words. My business model allows me to give everythin…
I generally agree, although paying for things still doesn't prevent companies from tracking us, selling our data or advertising to us. If you don't give up your personal data, they won't have anything to sell. Enabling users to subscribe without personal data is part of the idea behind Web3.
Networking is simply an inherently unprivate activity, there is no way to talk to an endpoint without that endpoint being able to know something about the other side. There is no way to prevent the middle-men who route the messages from knowing where it came from and where it's going, and if the same entity has control or visibility into a large enough portion of the network, to identify the endpoints.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I generally agree, although paying for things still doesn't prevent companies from tracking us, selling our data or advertising to us. If you don't give up your personal data, they won't have anything to sell. Enabling users to subscribe without personal data is part of the idea behind Web3.
User-supplied data isn't necessary for tracking and advertising, just more convenient. Obfuscatory methods can stymie this to a degree, but the average person neither understands nor wants to deal with those. Common tracking methods like tracking pixels and share buttons can be avoided at the client level, but the most popular clients have begun to use side channels to evade DNS-based blocking (with which one can pro…
And more valuable. Data brokers don't pay much for data that can't be tagged to an individual.
This is why professional privacy invaders love SMS 2FA ---it reliably identifies the individual with very little effort required. It's privacy invasion in the name of security.
> The main reason email is free is that Google fucked it all up by offering a good email service for free. Yikes, no. Email definitely wasn't free in the past. If you didn't use Hotmail (which I believe had paid tiers), you paid through your ISP. Gmail being free and giving you, at the time, a huge inbox was why it became as popular as it did. Even now, I'm paying for email via Google Workspace. Truth is, people larg…
Truth is, people largely don't care about being tracked or being served ads Don't care or don't understand? If "pay by privacy" was opt in only, I suspect there would be a lot fewer participants. A lot of people just don't understand how their privacy is being abused --- out of sight, out of mind.
Facebook has an advertising profile for me? Big whoop, all they want to do with it is show me mores ads while I argue with my uncle online. I'm free to step away from the keyboard at any time. If I see an ad on Instagram and buy the product, yeah it's kind of annoying that the advertising worked but it's not like it's a scam. I get the product I bought, that I didn't know existed before the ad. If I didn't want the product I wouldn't buy it.
That's not to say Facebook hasn't done great crimes against humanity, but I don't really care that Facebook's ad profile knows I'm into computers. I'll happily tell you that in person that's one of my hobbies. I'll get annoyed if you're constantly trying to sell me stuff but Instagram ads are easy enough to scroll past.
I pay for several things on the Internet. Tutanota Email, Domain Renewals, Web Hosting to name a few. I also bought a few lifetime accounts which is refreshing and I'd like to see more services offering lifetime accounts. The beauty of a lifetime license/account is you don't have to worry about having money 'ready' in your bank for a renewal charge. Sometimes my bank balance literally drops to zero, and I sometimes g…