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Beware of geeks bearing gifts

aralbalkan.com

41–50 of 75 posts

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#41
post #6

I am pretty sure my internet service provider is already doing that. I don't see the difference. Did i miss something? They didn't say it's free.

What, your ISP already mines data about you and sells it? If I knew that about mine I would leave it ASAP.

They sell statistic data and have a "DNS failed" page with there "search engine". They also sell my phonenumber if i don't opt-out.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#42
post #33
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, Coke are already draining the wells of villages that do have them. http://www.theguardian.com/money/2006/mar/19/business.india1

Yea, let me clear – I'm not saying a huge multi-national corporation is squeaky clean because of one positive thing they've done. The point I was trying to make is that the motivation of said company may not be to "save the world", but the results (and the impressive efficiency of attaining them) may do a lot of good, even if indirectly.

Efficiency is not the only thing that matters though. As drcongo pointed out Coke is very efficiently depleting the normal aquifers that native farmers rely on in their quest to build a market for their product.

Now if we consider that Coke is a luxury when compared to a necessity like water for drinking and irrigation, we should conclude that a luxury that precludes a necessity is superfluous and should be prohibited. That includes prohibiting "efficient businesses" when their actions to earn profits negatively impact the basic level of life.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#43
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, your ISP already mines data about you and sells it? If I knew that about mine I would leave it ASAP.

Good luck if it's a state monopoly (mine is). Between bad internet and no internet, I chose bad internet.

It doesn't have to be that way. It may be that way at the moment but the internet was originally built to be fault-tolerant and decentralized, and we can provide that alternative to the corporate dominated net.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it's possible. I don't think NSA-style tracking of all requests would be in Google's best interest, as it wouldn't do wonders for their image.

They don't care about their image. They care if they get locked up if they don't comply.

Who is "they"? Google is an enormous organization that goes to great lengths to protect its image. As an organization, I think Google is more concerned with its image than jail.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#45
post #16

Life is not zero-sum. Just because big corporations gain, doesn't mean you have to lose. And please, stop with the slavery metaphor. It's offensive. There are actual slaves in Africa that would love the serfdom of targeted ads.

I think there are more slaves coming in through San Francisco and Seattle to the US.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#46
post #14

> What Facebook and Google have done is discovered a village with no water and they plan to bring them cheap Coke to buy when—if their motives were truly honorable—there is another glaringly obvious option: you could teach them to build a well. Funny you should mention Coke. It turns out that these businesses desiring profits can pretty efficiently solve or make improvement to problems, like distribution, in places l…

Hey pearkes, your reply was intelligent and thought provoking. You've made a valid point, provided sources and had a structurally well set out argument. But I just can't help myself to try and preserve the English language and point out the faux-pas I see when intelligent people comment. Please don't use 'then' when the correct word is 'than'. It shits me to no end. I really hope that was a typo and if it is, do excuse me. If not, don't take my comment as malice, please take it on board. I love to see a great comment become bulletproof/immutable, without dissenters picking holes in it because of bad grammar. Sorry if I've gone a bit overboard with your comment over one word! It really just is a compulsion of mine to keep 'then' and 'than' pure! Kudos to you otherwise though.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#47
post #20

Providing internet access is not the same as locking somebody into their cloud services. There is such a thing as win win in business. Yes, Google benefits if more people are on the internet, because of the network effect - more people searching, more stuff to be found, and, yes, more potential advertising space. It's useful even without lock in.

Depends on the implementation, though; if you need to create and sign in with a $foo account to use the sponsored-by-$foo internet connection, it's not lock-in per se, but has some of the same effects.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#49
post #34
post #31

We shouldn't be relying on for-profit companies to provide a service as basic (in today's modern world) and powerful (education, health, etc) as internet access... because they have nefarious motives in mind. Instead we should be relying on our governments, who have our interests in mind and whose primary job is to protect our rights. ... .. um... oops never mind

When you elect anarchists, it's hardly surprising that the government stops functioning.

I agree, but we have never done so.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#50
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, your ISP already mines data about you and sells it? If I knew that about mine I would leave it ASAP.

They sell statistic data and have a "DNS failed" page with there "search engine". They also sell my phonenumber if i don't opt-out.

Can you back that up, or at least name that ISP?
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