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Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

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Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#101

Post by lapcat »

jaredsohn wrote: post #48
amadeuspagel wrote: post #2

The root problem here is that there's no legitimate way to monetize browser extensions. Extensions are meant to be simple, so it's hard to sell premium features. Extensions usually don't "own" any space to embed ads in.

There used to be. https://developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/money/ "The web has come a long way in the 11 years since we launched the Chrome Web Store. Back then, we wanted to provide a way for developers to monetize their Web Store items. But in the years since, the ecosystem has grown and developers now have many payment-handling options available to them."

This is the reason I removed my extension from the Chrome Web Store.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#102

Post by zamadatix »

collaborative wrote: post #56

I don't know what the solution to this is, but I know a few trusted/legitimate companies that sell their user data for around £20/year even after having monetized their users with actual money I will never do this because violating privacy goes against the core of my beliefs, but there is a conflict I can't seem to work out. On the one hand, I KNOW that the vast majority of users prefer to sell their privacy than pay…

I've never had much a problem with informed decision. What rubs me the wrong way is when these apps hide the data monetization, require it, or don't offer any way to use the service except to opt in. It particularly sucks for services I can't even opt to not participate in, e.g. my work just went live with "The Work Number" service from Equifax so my data is already there whether or not I make an account. Even worse, not making an account just leaves it open that someone else might try to create an account as part of gathering even more involuntarily shared information about me.

When it comes to what people chose to do with their own data though I don't feel a moral obligation to push my views though. If they truly want to opt in and save the $20 (or however much the data is worth in the app) then taking that choice away because I disagree with how they should treat their privacy information is hardly much better than forcing them to because of the same reason. The main difference for me being whether or not I profit off it but, given choice in each case, that really doesn't matter to how the user weighs the situation.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#103

Post by extesy »

cal85 wrote: post #94

FWIW, and since a few of you probably use it… I own the JSON Formatter extension [0], which I created and open-sourced 12 years ago and have maintained [1] ever since, with 2 million users today. And I solemnly swear that I will never add any code that sends any data anywhere, nor let it fall into the hands of anyone else who would. I’ve been emailed several tempting cash offers from shady people who presumably want…

If cash offers scale linearly with the number of users, then yours would be pretty tempting indeed. Respect for not selling out! Would you like to start publishing these offers, like what I'm doing?

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#104

Post by Brusco_RF »

Buttons840 wrote: post #90
jstanley wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But every time this comes up the threads are flooded with people saying it doesn't actually happen and the ad companies just work out what you're interested in by what you're browsing.

> the ad companies just work out what you're interested in The word "just" doesn't belong in that sentence. The ad companies being able to know things about you without actually listening to you is even more scary. Evil-Ad-Company Neo: "You're telling me I can know things about my customers by secretly listening to them?" Evil-Ad-Company Morpheus: "No Neo, I'm telling you that with the right license agreements, data…

I mean showing you ads for diapers because you googled "best diapers" falls under that same category and I daresay isn't evil at all

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#105

Post by koonsolo »

sdflhasjd wrote: post #24

And if you run a website you get constant emails like this: Hey There, I wanted to reach out and see if accepts guest post contributions or link insertion in existing posts? If so, I'd love to hear more about your guidelines and any specific topics of interest. Thank you for your time, and I'm looking forward to your response. Best Regards, These ones are definitely spammed out en-masse, my site doesn't even have a b…

You just saved me some work, thanks!

I also get these emails but run a WordPress site. I was convinced they would fingerprint websites and mail those to these sites only.

It was on my todo to see if I could hide the fingerprint of WordPress.

But now that you mention this, it's obvious it wouldn't do much. In hindsight, I could have know these spammer would just spam everybody in bulk.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#106

Post by mike_d »

spiderice wrote: post #81
jstanley wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But every time this comes up the threads are flooded with people saying it doesn't actually happen and the ad companies just work out what you're interested in by what you're browsing.

Your phone notifies you when an app accesses the microphone. If this is happening so much, how is it not blatantly obvious?

Why do you think iOS and Android now prompt for microphone usage?

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#107

Post by ericd »

gregschlom wrote: post #62
uhtred wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so this really does happen then? Because I used to be convinced it wasn't a coincidence when I saw ads online for some niche uncommon topic I had recently talked out loud about.

This matches the audio signature of the TV ad - basically, it's like Shazam, but for TV ads. It's currently not economically possible to listen to user's conversations, transcribe them to text, and serve ads based on that. It would cost orders of magnitude more in processing power than you could get from the extra sales. This might change in the future, of course

Yeah, my understanding was that it was audio fingerprinting tv ads, not transcribing anything, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were trying to vacuum up other stuff. That said, I think it should be feasible to do basic low-accuracy transcription on-device, especially with all the neural engine hardware making inference more efficient.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#108

Post by cal85 »

Y_Y wrote: post #98
cal85 wrote: post #94

FWIW, and since a few of you probably use it… I own the JSON Formatter extension [0], which I created and open-sourced 12 years ago and have maintained [1] ever since, with 2 million users today. And I solemnly swear that I will never add any code that sends any data anywhere, nor let it fall into the hands of anyone else who would. I’ve been emailed several tempting cash offers from shady people who presumably want…

What size cash offers? Not that I want some of it, but then I do think there could be an industry re-scamming these people and want to know how much we're talking about.

Convincing offers to buy it for $10-40K. One offer said $250K but I doubt that one was serious, more likely just a straight up scam. I have often emailed them back feigning interest to see if I can get them to state what they plan to do with it, since I cannot see anything that could possibly be ethical, but they always just start talking mumbo jumbo about their innovative monetisation strategy.

Recently I’ve had a serious sounding offer to inject an ad, i.e. a one-off ad would open in a new tab when the extension updates, for $3K a pop, which I just ignored, then he emailed again saying $4K, then just yesterday he emailed again with a bunch of emoji and said what about $8K.

It’s tempting, but it would still be selling out my users, who may be ungrateful little brats but I could never do that to them, I value their approval too much.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#109

Post by cal85 »

extesy wrote: post #103
cal85 wrote: post #94

FWIW, and since a few of you probably use it… I own the JSON Formatter extension [0], which I created and open-sourced 12 years ago and have maintained [1] ever since, with 2 million users today. And I solemnly swear that I will never add any code that sends any data anywhere, nor let it fall into the hands of anyone else who would. I’ve been emailed several tempting cash offers from shady people who presumably want…

If cash offers scale linearly with the number of users, then yours would be pretty tempting indeed. Respect for not selling out! Would you like to start publishing these offers, like what I'm doing?

Yeah I’m definitely stealing this idea, I love it. Will add something to the repo soon.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#110

Post by munk-a »

Brusco_RF wrote: post #104
Buttons840 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the ad companies just work out what you're interested in The word "just" doesn't belong in that sentence. The ad companies being able to know things about you without actually listening to you is even more scary. Evil-Ad-Company Neo: "You're telling me I can know things about my customers by secretly listening to them?" Evil-Ad-Company Morpheus: "No Neo, I'm telling you that with the right license agreements, data…

I mean showing you ads for diapers because you googled "best diapers" falls under that same category and I daresay isn't evil at all

I am pretty convinced that modern advertising - from the most inane and innocent to tracking users 24/7 pretty clearly falls under evil. Gone are the days of advertising trying to raise product awareness and convert purchases - that field now exists to create demand. It induces desires in the recipients that play on psychological factors like FOMO to create customers out of thin air - and that process causes we the consumer to pay a constant attention tax and suffer higher levels of stress in our daily lives.

Advertising is evil.

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