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Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy

theintercept.com

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Re: Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy

#61

Post by cmdrfred »

eveningcoffee wrote: post #58
mfringel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your example, "whipping", "imprisonment", and "[or] fine" are all examples of punishments for a crime. Being poor is not a crime.

Of course being poor is not a crime. But we all may make mistakes. For example exceed the speed limit. Say, instead of fine 50, I may agree to accept 5 whips with a wooden stick on my back. Because I need these 50. So should we accept whipping the poor if they demand it?

I don't see how physical violence is on the level of some company paying to know you visited a porn site.

Re: Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy

#62

Post by cmdrfred »

cmurf wrote: post #22

I think it's asinine "free market" religious nonsense. If we had done this ~100 years ago with phones being rolled out to rural areas, the free market would have said pay $1000 a month for phone service. Instead the government forced everyone to pay a subsidy so it'd be cheaper in rural areas, and even cheaper for poor people anywhere including cities. No one complained about this. So now the idea is privacy is a com…

If this business model is not OK for Comcast why is it OK for Google and the rest of the internet?

Re: Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy

#63

Post by astrodust »

slededit wrote: post #56
astrodust wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft doesn't cut the price of Windows because they are making so much from Office. Microsoft did cut the price of Windows to get people to adopt it early on because they would be making so much money from Office. Microsoft Word vs. WordPerfect, Excel vs. Quattro Pro and Lotus 1-2-3. These battles were won because of Windows and that cemented their position as industry leader. Now that Microsoft is in a dominan…

They didn't cut the price. Rather they made a windows runtime available so you could run office on DOS. This was also available to third party ISVs.

Bundling for free is cutting the price.

Re: Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy

#64

Post by eveningcoffee »

cmdrfred wrote: post #61
eveningcoffee wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course being poor is not a crime. But we all may make mistakes. For example exceed the speed limit. Say, instead of fine 50, I may agree to accept 5 whips with a wooden stick on my back. Because I need these 50. So should we accept whipping the poor if they demand it?

I don't see how physical violence is on the level of some company paying to know you visited a porn site.

Both are violating ones decency. On different levels of course. In both examples decency is traded for money.

I would argue that violation of the online privacy is worse than whipping. No, the problem is not that somebody knows what specific content you are watching. The problem is that they find out you are poor.

Youtube once considered that I could be a stereotypic poor person living in the US. The result was ugly.

Re: Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy

#65

Post by sp332 »

criddell wrote: post #17
jklinger410 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the fault of the platform, but the advertiser. When you see an ad that's too tailored most people just get scared anyway. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I don't believe that for a second. I've seen relevant ads beside search results on Google, but that doesn't really take a lot of magic to figure out that when I search for "Aeropress", I'm interested in coffee. Ads in podcasts have been somewhat effective as well. I use Blue Apron, I like Audible, I've checked out Squarespace, I bought a Casper dog bed. AFAIK, none of the podcasts know anything about me, but they do…

It's true. Here are two pages of references from Bruce Schneier. https://books.google.com/books?id=MwF-BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT194&lpg=...

Re: Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy

#66

Post by cr0sh »

I'm wondering how this is all going to play out with ad-blocking software and plugins...?

Are we going to see where - if you run such software - suddenly you can't browse any sites, or you can only browse very slowly?

Or will running ad-blocking software be considered illegal or something - because you're depriving potential profit from somebody?

Will ads slowly take over the entire experience? To the point where you just don't want to use the internet any longer (or at least the web)?

Will people move back to gopher and ftp (oh, we can only hope)? BBSs? Door games and MUDs to the rescue?

My wife and I have considered moving to a more rural area of our state - we're both tired of the city and of people in general. I've lamented about how out in such areas, internet service would be spotty or non-existent, but you know what?

Maybe that's a good thing, ultimately. If I need internet for some reason, I'll just mosey into town, send an email or two, then mosey back home.

These advertisers, their enablers, ISPs, and the corrupt political machine that supports it all? They can go f--- themselves.

Re: Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy

#67

Post by splintercell »

omginternets wrote: post #43
twoodfin wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead, if you're in a drought-prone area, you get water bans.

... which is perfectly reasonable. What's your point?

> ... which is perfectly reasonable. What's your point?

It shouldn't be this way. It serves no purpose. You first claim that everybody has access to resource X at a reasonable price (because we don't want to discriminate against poor people), then when resource X starts to run out, they enforce bans instead of charging more to people willing to pay a premium (and getting the resource first) and then using it to expand production and access to everyone.

This story plays out everywhere, whether in Soviet Russia or in California or in NHS.

Re: Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy

#68

Post by sfifs »

prklmn wrote: post #28

Them wanting people to believe that this will lower the cost of internet service is laughable. Have TV ads lowered the cost of cable? We need to think of the internet as a public utility. How absurd would it be if every time you used water in your home, you heard an advertisement playing from a speaker in the faucet.

The TV Industry by and large cannot survive without funding by advertisers. Check the P&L of any channel. Without ads, you'd be paying a lot more - or in other words, the content wouldn't exist because of lack of market

Re: Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy

#69

Post by sfifs »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #2

How about ads with privacy? They are not mutually exclusive.

That's called TV. Cost per reach point on TV is a lot lower than the internet which charges advertisers extra for "targeting"

Can be done... rates would have to go down below TV to work and even so will be attractive only for big advertizers (think billions in sales).. Smaller advertisers would have no interest in the medium without targeting

Re: Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy

#70

Post by daveFNbuck »

hackuser wrote: post #30
prklmn wrote: post #28

Them wanting people to believe that this will lower the cost of internet service is laughable. Have TV ads lowered the cost of cable? We need to think of the internet as a public utility. How absurd would it be if every time you used water in your home, you heard an advertisement playing from a speaker in the faucet.

> Them wanting people to believe that this will lower the cost of internet service is laughable. Have TV ads lowered the cost of cable? It's a very important point; this false argument is often used. In truth, in the marketplace, goods are not priced at 'cost-plus'; i.e., they aren't priced by taking the cost to the vendor and adding a profit margin. Goods are priced at the point that will maximize profit for the ven…

The profit-maximizing price drops as the profit margin goes up. As service providers make more money by selling customer data, they'll be able to increase profits by lowering prices and bringing in more customer data. Of course, this assumes a significant amount of customers who have the option to switch providers or choose not to have internet access.
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