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Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

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Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#411

Post by lsc »

jonahx wrote: post #311
lsc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversity, I think, is really important. Diversity of thought as well as all the other kinds of diversity. It's important to be able to work with people who come from different backgrounds, who have different beliefs. I see this on both sides (I see it more often on the left, but that's just because my filter bubble is a somewhat leftish one.. when I step out of that bubble, I see plenty examples of people on the rig…

I hear this argument a lot, and since you seem sincere in making it I have a serious question. I'd honestly like to hear the answer from you or anyone who agrees with your sentiment. Is it also important to be accepting of those who think black people should never marry white people? What about those who think black people shouldn't have the right reproduce? Or live in the same neighborhoods as white people? Or live?…

Let's use an example I face every day. I work in an industry that by in large doesn't hire women or black people. So yes, I'm around people who are very racist and very sexist every day -

It's pretty fucking important for me to be able to function socially around people who have political views I consider to be abhorrent - people who act on those beliefs every day.

Would a better course of action be for me to leave the industry? because that's what it would mean to cut all the racists out of my life.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#414

Post by pdkl95 »

caskance wrote: post #378
pdkl95 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If information by itself worked There are two lessons we can learn form "information by itself doesn't sell $WIDGET". One is that properly informed people don't actually want that product, and the product should be changed or replaced to meet their actual needs. The alternative lesson - which is unfortunately very popular - is that if people that are properly informed won't buy the product, then they should be kept…

Or the reality, which is neither of those: people don't become properly informed when you present them with unprompted information. They ignore your pitch and move on with their life. You never reach the state where there are "properly informed" people deciding not to buy your product.

> unprompted

That's the problem.

> They ignore your pitch

Of course they do. An unprompted pitch is at best an annoyance and at worst some kind of scam. Why would you expect it to be well received after you wasted their time and energy?

> You never reach the state where there are "properly informed" people deciding not to buy your product.

Sure you do. It's why people pay for things like Consumer Reports - so they can get the information they need to decide if they should buy something. This isn't true in all cases, of course, but most people make informed purchasing decisions regularly.

Just note that they may disagree with you, even when you have the same facts. Situations and opinions are highly variable.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#416

Post by ashark »

callalex wrote: post #393
wfo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree ads are bad but the current state of the web is disgusting, it's barely recognizable as a conduit for any real information. People hail the internet as a great way to find information -- if you type anything into the google search bar you're curious about, you either get wikipedia, which is clean and usually pretty great if incomplete, or clickbait ad-filled trash that gives you one sentence of content before…

> People hail the internet as a great way to find information -- if you type anything into the google search bar you're curious about, you either get wikipedia, which is clean and usually pretty great if incomplete, or clickbait ad-filled trash A perfect example of this: I got a rash from poison oak exposure, and wanted to find out what the recommended treatment was. Seemingly a perfect use case for the internet. I w…

Oh my god, searching for medical information. It's so bad. I just wanted to find out some stuff about strep throat a few weeks ago, and everything aside from Wikipedia was at best a short bit of information on ~20-30% of the page with navigation and ads taking up the rest. None of it was better than Wikipedia despite being on medicine-related domain names, a couple of which used to be semi-reputable.

An excess of ad money is ruining the Web.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#417

Post by flubert »

owenversteeg wrote: post #162
jordigh wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've yet to encounter an ad that has a hope in hell of manipulating me at all. If you know what "just do it", "the happiest place on Earth", "think different", or "the world's most advanced operating system" refer to, you've already been manipulated. A lot of ads are just about making sure you have a particular brand in mind and you're keenly aware of that brand's existence. Then, when time comes around to actually…

I agree for the most part, but there is a not insignificant part of the population for which those things don't matter. I know a good number of people who don't buy Nike products, don't own a Mac, and haven't been to any theme parks. For those people, whether or not they know the slogan doesn't matter: if you only drink water then 100 Coke vs Pepsi ads do nothing; if you run an obscure Linux distro you'll laugh at bo…

>...certainly is one way to neatly sidestep the modern manipulation of ads.

Things may be more insidious than that though. You may not drink Coke or Pepsi, but maybe you have friends or family members that do? I've certainly known people who didn't like to go to certain restaurants because they didn't serve Coke. Maybe you've also gone along with this at sometime in the past. Or maybe you've had to buy gifts for friends of your children, and they've had pressure procure name-brand items?

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#418

Post by agumonkey »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #402
agumonkey wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then enjoy your doubting. Even on the geekiest websites I don't click on ads, I barely even see them; except when they slow down loading and rendering, Then I go mean in and pass it through printfriendly.com. And for other products well meh, I'm not a "consumer", and few ads will ever make me believe any product is really that valuable to me. I have soap and water thank you.

I wasn't implying that I was dubious that you aren't interested in whatever is being advertised (though I see how it reads that way now). I was dubious that you aren't still a target no matter how futile the effort. If I throw a water balloon at you but don't hit you it doesn't mean you aren't the target.

Aight, I thought target meant clicking regularly or at least thinking about the product or brand shown.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#419

Post by snowwrestler »

jordigh wrote: post #97
logingone wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't adblock for privacy, security, or speed. Those are just nice-side effects. I adblock because I do not want to be manipulated into buying things I do not need. Interesting. I'm the opposite. I've yet to encounter an ad that has a hope in hell of manipulating me at all. I couldn't be more dismissive of them. And if I encounter one too often my dislike of the company starts to grow. "It's show time, and you've b…

> I've yet to encounter an ad that has a hope in hell of manipulating me at all. If you know what "just do it", "the happiest place on Earth", "think different", or "the world's most advanced operating system" refer to, you've already been manipulated. A lot of ads are just about making sure you have a particular brand in mind and you're keenly aware of that brand's existence. Then, when time comes around to actually…

But this moves the goal posts from your initial claim, which was "I adblock because I do not want to be manipulated into buying things I do not need."

Choosing one brand over another when you want to buy beer is not nearly the same thing as being manipulated into buying beer when you don't actually want to.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#420

Post by vkou »

noamyoungerm wrote: post #401
untog wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Micropayments already exists for journalism in the form of Blendle and others. It isn't as effective as you might hope: https://medium.com/@wfederman/micropayments-for-news-article... (key takeaway from that article: people are moving away from micropayments where they already exist (e.g. music) to subscription models. It doesn't work)

Subscription models and micropayments are not mutually exclusive, as in Spotify - you pay a subscription fee to listen to unlimited music. In practice that is the same as paying a fraction of a cent to the artist each time you listen to a song. I would be willing to pay for a service that tracked each site I visited and billed me at the end of the month at a price-per-pageview comparable to CPM prices today. EDIT: Th…

This service already exists (in the form of Google Contributor).
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