Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup • Hacker News Board

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

#521

Post by josephcooney » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 7:03 AM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #331

BrendanEich wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point, and it is a good one. We have a micro payments channel to publishers, frictionless and anonymous, under construction, for folks who want no ads and who will pay. Other users than you will be able to mix and match, too: better and more private ads on sites they don't support, with a revenue share to these users that they can spend on sites they do. We aren't saying "only ads". We do see ads as a nece…

How will you provide better ads? Facebook knows everything about me and I unblock ads on their site for the laugh at how bad they are (Two examples: I don't want to go back to college to get my degree a second time at the place I already got it once, thank you very much. Also I don't want to supply my house with natural gas 200 miles from where I live). You will know very little about me, how will you come up with be…

One of my friends was looking to 'trade up' his car, and kept getting facebook ads for his own car. I guess it was exactly the kind of car a person like him would own...

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

#522

Post by wsha » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 7:16 AM UTC

callmeed wrote: post #447

tomp wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, an independent third party can't track such ads.

That's good, right?

It's good for user privacy, but not good for the ad networks wanting to keep an accurate account of how many times their ads are being loaded.

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

#523

Post by dang » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 7:23 AM UTC

vectorpush wrote: post #517

LordKano wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This response makes no sense. It makes perfect sense. You just don't like it. Once again, prohibition of polygamy says marriages that consist of more than two individuals are illegal, it doesn't matter who those individuals are, black, white, man, woman, gay, straight; the law applies evenly to all peoples regardless of who they are. Just like the prohibition on same sex marriage, the prohibition against polygamous o…

> the prohibition against polygamous or polyamorous marriage is about the imposition of arbitrary criteria placed upon what does or does not constitute a marriage. Once again you're stating the obvious to no logical effect. Some arbitrary criteria is the foundation of every law by definition; the point, which you keep side-stepping, is that prohibition of poly marriage does not meet the definition of discrimination s…

Please stop, both of you.

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

#524

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 7:31 AM UTC

BrendanEich wrote: post #141

jordigh wrote: post #70

I will repeat this one more time, because Eich seems to be missing the point.[1] 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. I wonder what would happen if, as a society, we said, "enough, no more ads". Would it really be the capitalist apocalypse that the ad industry is trying to make us believe…

I get your point, and it is a good one. We have a micro payments channel to publishers, frictionless and anonymous, under construction, for folks who want no ads and who will pay. Other users than you will be able to mix and match, too: better and more private ads on sites they don't support, with a revenue share to these users that they can spend on sites they do. We aren't saying "only ads". We do see ads as a nece…

Micropayments have been busted down many times, though I find Nick Szabo's arguments the most convincing:

http://szabo.best.vwh.net/micropayments.html

Clay Shirky's got some good additions.

http://www.shirky.com/writings/fame_vs_fortune.html http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/12/19/micropayments.ht...

The solution I'm leaning strongly toward is a large-scale, preferably universal, content syndication / payment system. The big problem seems to be the getting there from here part (as usual), and some sort of super-aggregator (possibly Google, Amazon, Apple, or Facebook) might lead the way. Though I'm heartened that other minds superior to my own seem to find the same solution attractive: Phil Hunt (Pirate Party UK) and Richard M. Stallman (FSF/GNU).

Hunt: http://cabalamat.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/a-broadband-tax-fo...

Stallman: https://stallman.org/articles/internet-sharing-license.en.ht...

My own, with some background:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modes...

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2h0h81/specify...

Why information goods and markets are a poor match https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2vm2da/why_inf...

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

#525

Post by LordKano » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 7:41 AM UTC

vectorpush wrote: post #517

LordKano wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This response makes no sense. It makes perfect sense. You just don't like it. Once again, prohibition of polygamy says marriages that consist of more than two individuals are illegal, it doesn't matter who those individuals are, black, white, man, woman, gay, straight; the law applies evenly to all peoples regardless of who they are. Just like the prohibition on same sex marriage, the prohibition against polygamous o…

> the prohibition against polygamous or polyamorous marriage is about the imposition of arbitrary criteria placed upon what does or does not constitute a marriage. Once again you're stating the obvious to no logical effect. Some arbitrary criteria is the foundation of every law by definition; the point, which you keep side-stepping, is that prohibition of poly marriage does not meet the definition of discrimination s…

Once again you're stating the obvious to no logical effect

The logic evades you, that isn't the same thing as it being absent.

Both kinds restrictions are arbitrary limits placed on the institution of marriage by society.

prohibition of poly marriage does not meet the definition of discrimination since the law affects all people equally without regard for their individual traits.

Completely arbitrary and immaterial. The institution of marriage belongs to society and society has the right to define it.

to suggest otherwise is like saying prohibiting black people from entering your restaurant is the same as prohibiting more than 10 people from entering your restaurant... Give me a break.

Not at all. I find it more akin to a baker refusing to bake a cake for a 3 person wedding.

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

#526

Post by lsc » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 7:50 AM UTC

jonahx wrote: post #483

lsc wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought you were arguing against that result on the grounds that people should have had more "tolerance for diversity of thought," namely the thought that gay people shoudn't have full marriage equality, with a political action to support it. I do think that people should be able to have abhorrent political ideas, and should be able to take the legal political action they like, without fear of personal retaliatio…

Really appreciate this response. I think you're someone I'd like in person. I agree with most of the above, and have a similar attitude in many ways. A few points I have key differences on. You'll probably get where I'm coming from, even if you don't agree. > We have a process, a set of rules and laws for deciding what to do when you and I disagree on what is right for other people. This is what our political system…

>This really gets to the heart of the matter. Don't know about you, in particular, but I do think, in general, that the "I'm so tolerant I tolerate intolerance" position serves those with a bias against conflict and a blindness (often wrought of idealism) about just how steadfastly and unreasonably evil some people are

I think replacing civil political discourse with intimidation is in and of itself an evil thing. I think that destroying civil political discourse in exchange for a political goal is a long term loss for society, even if the political goal is a good goal.

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

#527

Post by ryan-allen » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 8:03 AM UTC

jordigh wrote: post #70

I will repeat this one more time, because Eich seems to be missing the point.[1] 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. I wonder what would happen if, as a society, we said, "enough, no more ads". Would it really be the capitalist apocalypse that the ad industry is trying to make us believe…

I block ads after years of holding out because they have become too intrusive. I don't do it for privacy because I think there is none, but the speed is just a nice benefit. But I consider a site being slow because of ads as an intrusive effect.

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

#528

Post by imtringued » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 8:14 AM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #232

imtringued wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So where is your magical solution that puts food on the table of the content creators but doesn't rely on selling user data or displaying ads?

I'm not responsible for putting food on their tables. Perhaps if their content is worth money, they can charge for it. If they can't get people to pay for their content, maybe they should consider a line of work they can monetize without subjecting every single transaction to third-party skimming and engendering massive surveillance projects.

The problem with that approach is that you put everything behind a wall. Only the "rich" will have access to information. I wouldn't call that a free (as in freedom) and open web.

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

#529

Post by Animats » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 8:38 AM UTC

magicalist wrote: post #474

Animats wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla uses that fact to exploit its users. They keep pushing a "clean your browser" button, which reverts the search engine to Yahoo, which pays them for this.

To be fair, one of the top actions adware/malware takes is changing the search engine to some monetized zombie search engine, so resetting it to the default makes sense.

Yes, except that Yahoo is a monetized zombie search engine. They resell Bing, with their own ads.

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

#530

Post by rorykoehler » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 9:02 AM UTC

Certhas wrote: post #457

rorykoehler wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fall into the camp of blocking all ads because frankly I don't like them. They are visual pollution. I also doubt I would pay for written content (maybe on a very rare occasion I might) if given a micro-payments solution because it doesn't seem worth paying for. I write blog posts from time to time and I do it for pleasure because I enjoy writing about things that interest me and sharing it with others. Honestly I…

Quality technical content is written by people who enjoy it for free. This is not generally true for other quality content. Quality content that requires you to go to Afghanistan to actually understand and report the situation on the ground is not written by people who write as a hobby. In depth political analysis generally isn't either. That's because going to Afghanistan, or understanding the internal structure of…

Generally all 'in-depth' political analysis is terrible propaganda. The best Afghanistan content I've seen has been documentaries such as Armadillo. I'll pay to watch that (through Netflix for example).

"Unless we find a way to pay people to do these jobs, we'll be eating the writings of people hired by those with money and vested interests."

I suspect it may have been the point of your comment but that's exactly what we are already doing.

I have another example. The Irish Times (one of Ireland's leading broadsheet newspapers) bought myhome.ie for €50m euros in 2007. The Irish Times had a huge daily property section at the time and was profiting greatly, riding on the crest of the wave of the property bubble. They also received uncountable millions from the banks to advertise the ridiculous 110% mortgages etc within the pages of their daily paper. I'll let you guess how much content that was critical of the property boom was published within their pages and how long it took for them to do any investigative journalism into the fraudulent behaviour of the banks whose ad budgets were sustaining them.

Capitalism and the truth are not compatible. Too many vested interests everywhere. War journalists can't be critical because they will lose access. Everyone is tip-toeing about scared to set a foot wrong incase it dries up their income supply (or at least removes the circumstances which allows them to earn a living). We've hit saturation point and all this disruption through internet and automation is a godsend in the long run but will cause much suffering in the short term.