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Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

economist.com

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Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#61

Post by bdangubic »

idle_zealot wrote: post #55
securicat wrote: post #44

It takes five minutes to delete your TikTok, Meta, and Instagram accounts. Setting up forwarding rules from Gmail to Fastmail or another provider takes maybe a little longer, after three months hopefully all your emails are going to the new account after changing them. These companies can’t manipulate you if you don’t use their products. Edit: I know what network effects are, I was talking about steps individual user…

You can and should do that, but it's not sufficient to individually avoid harm. You still have to live in a world where most people have their behavior manipulated, and that will impact you. Even from a purely selfish perspective you should support efforts to stop this sort of control broadly with legal action.

exactly. I did all of OPs suggestions, decade ago (never had TT to begin with) and still live in a sick society surrounded by the influence of these platforms

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#62

Post by dakiol »

fragmede wrote: post #58
dakiol wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same can be said about Claude, Codex, etc. These tools are amazing (technically speaking) but they don't play in our favor (most of us are regular, replaceable employees). Only the usual suspects benefit from AI (executive layer, investors, etc) Still amazes me how engineers on HN are in awe of AI and LLMs knowing that 90% of us will be affected (we won't be able to bring money to the table) once the higher ups start…

It's an iterated prisoner's dilemma with all the other developers in the world, and some are vocally choosing to defect. The only rational strategy then is to also defect.

Right. It seems then that all these "elite" engineers on HN aren't as smart as we thought (and yeah, I include myself in that bag).

It's deeply sad to see how our most beloved work (those side projects we pour ourselves into purely for the joy of it) will, at the end, be the very reason most of us lose our jobs (not all of us, but the majority). Openai/antrhopic/etc and others simply took all of that and turned it to their advantage. It's capitalism, sure, but it's heartbreaking... I wouldnt mind be out of job for another reason, but not for that one pls

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#63

Post by sonicvroooom »

securicat wrote: post #44

It takes five minutes to delete your TikTok, Meta, and Instagram accounts. Setting up forwarding rules from Gmail to Fastmail or another provider takes maybe a little longer, after three months hopefully all your emails are going to the new account after changing them. These companies can’t manipulate you if you don’t use their products. Edit: I know what network effects are, I was talking about steps individual user…

yeah but that's a way they want you to behave in order to set up a control group within the target group that continues to behave as expected. the questions to be answered are not which parts of that control group, and how, nudge which parts of the target group slightly off the predicted and/or confirmed results. they answered that way back when. the question is, how can we react to the unexpected results that we ourselves forced. they can't just go on doing the opposite of what's good for them and bad for the users or vice versa, they have 50 years of data on that, some of which, should be noted, was accidently burned or bombed with a bunch of incriminating evidence shortly before investigators arrived ... which should make even the last sus person understand, it wasn't on purpose

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#64

Post by afavour »

securicat wrote: post #44

It takes five minutes to delete your TikTok, Meta, and Instagram accounts. Setting up forwarding rules from Gmail to Fastmail or another provider takes maybe a little longer, after three months hopefully all your emails are going to the new account after changing them. These companies can’t manipulate you if you don’t use their products. Edit: I know what network effects are, I was talking about steps individual user…

It's frustrating to see this response so often, as if it weren't blindingly obvious.

After years of near monopoly status these companies have a lock on many people's social lives. To give up Instagram is akin to giving up text messaging. "Just stop using it" isn't helpful advice to those people.

If Instagram disappeared tomorrow it would be different, because everyone would be in the same position. But preaching personal responsibility in an area subject to network effects doesn't work.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#65

Post by joe_mamba »

dakiol wrote: post #50
securicat wrote: post #44

It takes five minutes to delete your TikTok, Meta, and Instagram accounts. Setting up forwarding rules from Gmail to Fastmail or another provider takes maybe a little longer, after three months hopefully all your emails are going to the new account after changing them. These companies can’t manipulate you if you don’t use their products. Edit: I know what network effects are, I was talking about steps individual user…

Same can be said about Claude, Codex, etc. These tools are amazing (technically speaking) but they don't play in our favor (most of us are regular, replaceable employees). Only the usual suspects benefit from AI (executive layer, investors, etc) Still amazes me how engineers on HN are in awe of AI and LLMs knowing that 90% of us will be affected (we won't be able to bring money to the table) once the higher ups start…

>These tools are amazing (technically speaking) but they don't play in our favor (most of us are regular, replaceable employees).

I'm a mid programmer at best, like compared to top guys in the industry, who built stuff like OpenClaw or those prodigy 16 year-old coders who became millionaires, and yet I don't fear the LLM assisted coding future. I'm at peace knowing that I will adapt to the LLM programming world using my knowledge in my favor, or adapt to a world where I will no longer be a SW engineer, but something else.

Also I find it ironic and poetic how some SW devs here want us to rise up and fight LLMs and the companies making them for disrupting this profession, when the SW dev profession was so well paid precisely because the SW products they wrote, disrupted other peoples' professions, moving the savings from labor costs into the pocket of employers, who used SW to optimize processes and repetitive labor and not have to hire as many people, yet they never saw an issue with other people losing their jobs. "Learn to code" eh?

Oh how the turntables.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#66

Post by securicat »

afavour wrote: post #64
securicat wrote: post #44

It takes five minutes to delete your TikTok, Meta, and Instagram accounts. Setting up forwarding rules from Gmail to Fastmail or another provider takes maybe a little longer, after three months hopefully all your emails are going to the new account after changing them. These companies can’t manipulate you if you don’t use their products. Edit: I know what network effects are, I was talking about steps individual user…

It's frustrating to see this response so often, as if it weren't blindingly obvious. After years of near monopoly status these companies have a lock on many people's social lives. To give up Instagram is akin to giving up text messaging. "Just stop using it" isn't helpful advice to those people. If Instagram disappeared tomorrow it would be different, because everyone would be in the same position. But preaching pers…

Give me a break. No one says “I can’t live without Instagram” literally. There are even studies that show that it makes their users depressed. From inside the company that _makes the product_.

Now, would it be inconvenient to stop, sure, but people need better self control. Put that cookie down!

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#67

Post by securicat »

dakiol wrote: post #50
securicat wrote: post #44

It takes five minutes to delete your TikTok, Meta, and Instagram accounts. Setting up forwarding rules from Gmail to Fastmail or another provider takes maybe a little longer, after three months hopefully all your emails are going to the new account after changing them. These companies can’t manipulate you if you don’t use their products. Edit: I know what network effects are, I was talking about steps individual user…

Same can be said about Claude, Codex, etc. These tools are amazing (technically speaking) but they don't play in our favor (most of us are regular, replaceable employees). Only the usual suspects benefit from AI (executive layer, investors, etc) Still amazes me how engineers on HN are in awe of AI and LLMs knowing that 90% of us will be affected (we won't be able to bring money to the table) once the higher ups start…

As if Claude and Instagram are remotely similar products. But again, these products make it incredibly easy to cancel. If work requires that you use it, make the next job you get not require it or just use it on the job.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#68

Post by securicat »

idle_zealot wrote: post #55
securicat wrote: post #44

It takes five minutes to delete your TikTok, Meta, and Instagram accounts. Setting up forwarding rules from Gmail to Fastmail or another provider takes maybe a little longer, after three months hopefully all your emails are going to the new account after changing them. These companies can’t manipulate you if you don’t use their products. Edit: I know what network effects are, I was talking about steps individual user…

You can and should do that, but it's not sufficient to individually avoid harm. You still have to live in a world where most people have their behavior manipulated, and that will impact you. Even from a purely selfish perspective you should support efforts to stop this sort of control broadly with legal action.

Fair point, and nothing would make me happier than TikTok and Instagram being shut down, at least for minors.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#69

Post by afavour »

securicat wrote: post #66
afavour wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's frustrating to see this response so often, as if it weren't blindingly obvious. After years of near monopoly status these companies have a lock on many people's social lives. To give up Instagram is akin to giving up text messaging. "Just stop using it" isn't helpful advice to those people. If Instagram disappeared tomorrow it would be different, because everyone would be in the same position. But preaching pers…

Give me a break. No one says “I can’t live without Instagram” literally. There are even studies that show that it makes their users depressed. From inside the company that _makes the product_. Now, would it be inconvenient to stop, sure, but people need better self control. Put that cookie down!

> No one says “I can’t live without Instagram” literally.

That's a straw man argument. I never said they were.

> There are even studies that show that it makes their users depressed.

What percentage of the population do you think are in the habit of reading academic studies about the effects of the products they use?

It all feels reminiscent of cigarette smoking. The damage was very well known yet people continued to do it. It took extensive government regulation to wean people off their addiction, not a "buck up, chump" motivational message.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#70

Post by toasty228 »

securicat wrote: post #44

It takes five minutes to delete your TikTok, Meta, and Instagram accounts. Setting up forwarding rules from Gmail to Fastmail or another provider takes maybe a little longer, after three months hopefully all your emails are going to the new account after changing them. These companies can’t manipulate you if you don’t use their products. Edit: I know what network effects are, I was talking about steps individual user…

It takes five minutes to just stop being depressed, it takes 5 minutes to just stop being addicted

What works for you, and me actually, doesn't work for most people, humans are complex things

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