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Susan Wojcicki has died

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Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#501

Post by johnnyanmac »

ndriscoll wrote: post #499
johnnyanmac wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. It'd fall under another cost benefits analysis. I imagine it's not worth the cost. Software scales elegantly, unlike hardware, so it's another area where the metaphor breaks apart. >why would I care about how people who are trying to scam me set up their business deals? 1. Because you are spending much of your energy and time getting around them. Because by silent consensus people would rather consume ads th…

I spend almost no time getting around them. As you say, it takes 10 seconds to install a malware filter to block them. There is no contract with me at all. It is not theft. It is preventing others from misappropriating my computing resources, and in fact the US government recommends citizens use ad blockers. It's basic computer security.

You've been lucky in that case. Or you simply visit mainstream programs and never had to deal with not-ads-but-still-intrusive elements that you make custom domains to filter out. Google is doing A/B tests going to war with ads so it may be a bumpy few months.

>There is no contract with me at all. It is not theft.

Hence my wording:

>Indirect contract are those where there is no direct contract between parties but the law presumes that there is a contracts between the parties and such could be enforced.

>is preventing others from misappropriating my computing resources,

You chose to access their servers, I don't see how YouTube is "misapproiating your resources". You're basically getting a service and refusing to pay for it. That's theft.

It's like I said, I don't care if people still from a trillion dollar corporation. But people who really only think software can't be stolen really shouldn't be considered a software "engineer", as many here claim to be.

>in fact the US government recommends citizens use ad blockers. It's

1. The fbi is not the government. For good reason given their history.

2. Their context was for malware, not for getting around undesired ads for an otherwise "free" service.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#502

Post by presentation »

talldayo wrote: post #378
sulam wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I pick up trash off the floor that I didn’t put there? Why do I tip for good service? Why do I bother responding to posts like this? The answer is the same to all these questions: because I’d rather not live in a world where everyone is a taker.

You're not picking up trash. You're paying for trash and encouraging the ad-littering business by even acknowledging it exists. If you consider advertising bad enough to pay money to get rid of it, why would you pay that money to the business putting up ads? Because you refuse to leave their client? Because you don't want to acknowledge the scary world of choosing something better? I see a lot of people say this, whe…

OK we get it you’re so cool for being cynical

I will proceed to live my life paying companies and creators that provide me value and you can continue feeling like a victim where every action you have the option to take is exploitation

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#503

Post by mrkramer »

hnburnsy wrote: post #493
shufflerofrocks wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. That is quite painful and is obviously motivated to force people towards premium, which I highly disagree with. I think such actions should be regulated though I don't know if that can legally happen. >I feel bad for content creators, but I let my favorite ones know about it. Same. Sometimes I try to support my fav ones with a nominal patreon subscription whenever I discontinue my premium.

I dont think they want us to transition to Premium, they like that on smarttv platforms they can sell unskippable ads that are similar to cable/broadcast TV

YouTube wants you to transition to Premium because it is more profitable for them; they earn less with selling ads on the CPM and the CPC basis than they get from Premium. And they are pretty intrusive about it e.g. when you watch videos and you exit the YouTube app and shortly after that come back, pop-up says: "Wish videos kept playing when you closed the app?", "Get background play with YouTube Premium". Also when comments are disabled by content creators on music videos, they sort of hijack comments section and say: "Listen on YouTube Music", "Timed lyrics, sleep timer and more". Plus on top of that, they also got pretty aggressive with blocking ad-blockers....so definitely they want you to purchase and transition to YouTube Premium.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#504

Post by angoragoats »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #500
angoragoats wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad blocking is not theft (in quotes or otherwise), because no one is being deprived of property they own.

Property isn't the only thing that can be stolen.

The dictionary and US law disagree with you.

Edit: I’ve posted this argument on HN before, but if you insist on expanding the accepted definition of theft, then malware, crypto miners, video ads, and other garbage that is frequently served via ad networks are also stealing from me, by wasting electricity and possibly also taking my personal data. So I block ads to prevent this theft. Who is in the right in this case?

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#505

Post by shortrounddev2 »

sva_ wrote: post #407
AbstractH24 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By and large overdose is a result of irrational thinking, or misguided attempts to apply logic. So it doesn’t make sense to make judgements about or apply ration to the drugs someone ODs on. Also, it doesn’t seem so weird for someone to try and mix uppers and downers. And those are all commonly abused drugs. For those reasons, I can only assume this comment was a poor attempt at sarcasm and/or humor.

Be assured, it wasn't meant as humor or sarcasm. Just being baffled at the combination: I could understand that someone takes a downer like Xanax to end a stimulant session and get rest. But when they're at an end of a stimulant session, how would they OD at that point? Xanax only really causes trouble in combination with other depressants such as alcohol or other benzos. So I'm presuming they probably indeed had a p…

Some people abuse drugs as a way to stabilize themselves. They don't take cocaine to party, but they take it as I would drink coffee. Then when they're too high they'll take a Xanax to bring themselves down. They may combine many different drugs and think of this as a normal way to regulate their body or mood rather than a way to simply party. John Mullaney did this

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#507

Post by boringg »

badpun wrote: post #423
boringg wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely worth it. We wont fill the galaxy filled with life because the galaxy is huge and we are but one tiny tiny portion of it. For us to survive and do anything impressive takes all of human ingenuity. Also those two items aren't mutually exclusive. Both can and should happen in tandem. Anyone arguing otherwise is just a mentally lazy person.

Whenever you have two goals competing for the same resources, you need to prioritize. I'm for preserving life on Earth first, and spreading it to other places as a distant second.

Again you aren't competing for the same resources. Our global resources are plenty. You are unnecessarily making a dichotomy.

Of course preservation of life on our planet should be paramount. We can also pursue space travel. Space travel research isn't whats killing our planet.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#508

Post by xanderlewis »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #494
xanderlewis wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No — it’s not quite the same. But if you systematically demonetise any content you don’t like, in the long term it does amount to a form of censorship. It’s as if a government said ‘we’ll tax you 1000% if you criticise us on social media’. You’d still get some bozos online saying ‘it’s not censorship; people are free to speak’ because you’re not directly prevented from speaking. But you can imagine the effect it woul…

Yeah, but there is always going to be different incentives for different content. Some content will always pay more. It is up to the author which kind of content they want to create. E.g. clickbait content might bring you more, but it doesn't mean the other type of content is censored.

Clickbait content brings more via an organic process (because people actually want to click on it). The type of de facto censorship I’m talking about is anything but organic — it’s an unnatural distortion imposed on creators and consumers who don’t want it.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#509

Post by ndriscoll »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #501
ndriscoll wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend almost no time getting around them. As you say, it takes 10 seconds to install a malware filter to block them. There is no contract with me at all. It is not theft. It is preventing others from misappropriating my computing resources, and in fact the US government recommends citizens use ad blockers. It's basic computer security.

You've been lucky in that case. Or you simply visit mainstream programs and never had to deal with not-ads-but-still-intrusive elements that you make custom domains to filter out. Google is doing A/B tests going to war with ads so it may be a bumpy few months. >There is no contract with me at all. It is not theft. Hence my wording: >Indirect contract are those where there is no direct contract between parties but the…

As far as I can tell, this "indirect contract" thing does not exist as a concept in American law, and runs completely counter to the idea of a contract. Contracts must have mutual assent. How could you ever agree to a contract if you don't even know it exists? Do you have an example of case law for this?

On misappropriation, do you think it's okay if e.g. a blogger puts a crypto miner on their page? If you choose to request a web page, is it okay for them to run background workers on your computer, and in fact it is theft of service if you do not allow it? Do you also need to give them e.g. location, accelerometer, microphone, and local filesystem access if they'd like to have it? Why are ads special among malware payloads in that you must run them? Why are computer ads special unlike physical ads (e.g. in the mail or inserts in a free newspaper) where people toss them in the bin without opening/looking at them? Or an ad-blocking DVR?

Many of e.g. Google's tracking domains are simply blocked on my network. I don't have any idea of what web pages are going to try to get me to load them, but it doesn't matter because none of them are allowed to. It's ridiculous to say that I must allow my computers to reach out to malicious servers and run scripts they deliver. Must I allow random North Korean servers to run scripts too?

The FBI is part of the government, and the context was that certain search engines (e.g. Google) were presenting ads for scams, and so to protect yourself from fraud, you should install an ad blocker so that you do not see ads.

On morals, I'll put forward that if you have children, it is in fact a moral imperative to remove as many sources of advertising from their lives as you can. Ads attempt to shape them into worse people (pushing them to embrace materialism and hedonism), and their influence should not be tolerated.

Re: Susan Wojcicki has died

#510

Post by msadirna »

least wrote: post #498
msadirna wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who upload their content to the open internet usually want to have it seen by others. So no...there is no real choice. Also, suggesting that this "value" is something YouTube still delivers or creates, is ridiculous. It was luck and from then on the value is being provided by the people who upload content there. What they get in return is ridiculous compared to what YT generates financially. This is nothing to…

> It was luck and from then on the value is being provided by the people who upload content there. Content means absolutely fuck all if it can't reach its audience. Youtube hosts, encodes, streams, distributes, and circulates the content and has recommendation algorithms to increase the productivity of every public video published on the platform. It was lucky that it was a first mover and gained the momentum that it…

> Content means absolutely fuck all if it can't reach its audience

Obviously no, or YouTube wouldn't be where it is today...

> Youtube hosts, encodes, streams, distributes, and circulates the content and has recommendation algorithms to increase the productivity of every public video published on the platform

Nothing of this is in any way special. Nobody would care if they wouldn't already have their quasi monopoly. The algorithm is a topic for itself. Enforcing hate, misinformation, etc. but in the end always working in such a way as to maximize YT profits and not recommend useful content to the user. What are you trying to sell here? The way the algorithm got terrible is a meme by ow. What is it even supposed to justify?

> but a massive user base means fuck all if you can't deliver a product that they want to use...

The fact that the algorithm was much better before and works perfectly on other pages who actually care about what you wrote more then about the artificial limits YT forces on their content providers shows that this approach at justification is ridiculous.

If there would be even one competitor out there with the same amount of luck and YT would work exactly as it does now while the other would actually care about their content providers, YT would go broke.

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