> in general most but not all people these days who are using their
ability to program computers as a paying job are somehow reliant on
the sustenance and/or growth of online advertising or other
money-raising strategies that depend on surveillance of people's
computer use,
In my book I address precisely this. What I found in my research is
that this is a driver in the privacy crisis, but it's a distorted
account.
The software industry is enormous. The vast majority of it still
delivers traditional value. In automotive, medical, military, civic
infrastructure and commodities, space, pharmaceuticals, agriculture,
education and much, much more - the majority of working programmers
build benevolent utility for a fair days pay without compromising
their morals.
The disease is in the smartphone/web ecosystem (I am simply
paraphrasing it's creator Sir Tim Berners Lee), and we should not
confuse that with the wider project of computing in general.
What is called "Silicon Valley" (The Californian Ethos) in the
vernacular, is an aberration. Its culture is disproportionately
supposed to operate throughout "tech". Part of this operation, and
power, is indeed rooted in it's mythology, and the projection of its
ideals, that there is "no alternative" and that the grotesque
exploitation of other peoples private lives is somehow a natural,
evolutionary condition of networked digital technology. It's
insistence that "this is how we pay for free" is victim blaming.
> or simply people's continued computer ignorance.
Yes, but there's more to it than you surmise. The ignorance has
overtaken the creators and investors as much as the users ("consumers
in a marketplace"). We were long ago swamped in the complexity and
uncontrollable churn of our own creations. Not to realise this is to
set up a Machiavellian "us and them" schism, to put too much blame on
ourselves and users as exploiters and victims respectively. The way
out of this to admit that we don't have the first f-king clue what
we're doing with technology and haven't for almost 30 years. The tech
revolution has never had a telos, and is mostly the product of bored
mathematicians creating solutions looking for problems.
To escape that spiral we need a new revolution of digital literacy.
Digital Literacy 1.0 was all about discovering what amazing things
computers are, and what they can do. Having now explored many the
dangerous things computers shouldn't do, Digital Literacy 2.0 will be
about figuring out what we really want them for, and why.
> It is remarkable how developers commenting on HN are so willing to
speak on behalf of "normies".
Absolutely. I'm sorry that I too fall into that, and using that
word. The arrogance is astonishing. Many of us are still stuck in a
down-talking mansplaining way of seeing the world and have a good dose
of "saviour complex".
> If normies were given a vote how would they exercise it?
The problem I am alluding to in my original (sardonic but hopefully
not disparaging to TFA) comment is that right now it's not fair to
even invoke the concept of choice. The greatest triumph of SV tech
this past couple decades has been creating the illusion of
unprecedented choice while stymying it and boiling down the market to
a handful of near monopolies. These contradictions run deep. It's
there in the distance between Apple's 1984 SuperBowl Ad, and its bid
to introduce mandatory client-side content scanning almost 40 years
later.
> laws that regulate online advertising and the privacy-invasive
practices used to support it.
I am against regulation as a rule. If we're going to have it I see
mandated interoperability and a legal support for radical consumer
choice as a better way. The most powerful choice people may still have
is non-participation.