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GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

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Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#81

Post by afferi300rina »

xfactorial wrote: post #68

I understand "free services" eventually come to the conclusion of either charging or using ads to finance and even make money out of them. I believe there are two caveats on it: 1. Approach: to make the experience worth it, so that ads are not very intrusive , done correctly, which, over and over and over, it is proven contrarious to the interest of the user. 2. Relevance: if you are going to put ads onto your produc…

The issue is context. GitHub is a professional workbench, not social media. Any "tip" that serves as an ad is just noise in a high-focus environment.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#82

Post by pjc50 »

janalsncm wrote: post #49
jhrmnn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it sad that while technological progress is seen almost as a given by virtually everyone, moral progress is often not even an aspiration

Just to push back a little, I think if the U.S. did now what they did to Germany and Japan in WW2 it would be unconscionable. They are getting a lot of flak for bombing a school. But I think it’s fair to say there were a lot of schools in Dresden and Hiroshima. This isn’t to excuse anything but to say there has been progress even if it’s not as fast as we’d like. As far as the technology angle, the precision we have…

a) Germany and Japan started their respective wars, with much worse atrocity records. And with aerial bombing of their own. Japan was already bombing Chongqing in 1938. And during the counterinvasion of some of the islands did things like arm a school, including providing grenades to the children so they could avoid capture.

b) The scale of WW2 is so wildly different from the present that people find it difficult to imagine. The firebombing of Tokyo caused more casualties than one of the nuclear weapons.

(Follow on point from a: the original sin of all war crimes is starting a war of choice in the first place. Which the current war with Iran definitely is.)

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#83

Post by adrianN »

janalsncm wrote: post #49
jhrmnn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it sad that while technological progress is seen almost as a given by virtually everyone, moral progress is often not even an aspiration

Just to push back a little, I think if the U.S. did now what they did to Germany and Japan in WW2 it would be unconscionable. They are getting a lot of flak for bombing a school. But I think it’s fair to say there were a lot of schools in Dresden and Hiroshima. This isn’t to excuse anything but to say there has been progress even if it’s not as fast as we’d like. As far as the technology angle, the precision we have…

To be fair, Germany and Japan started the whole thing and were pretty determined not to lose easily.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#86

Post by pbhjpbhj »

tovej wrote: post #56
janalsncm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to push back a little, I think if the U.S. did now what they did to Germany and Japan in WW2 it would be unconscionable. They are getting a lot of flak for bombing a school. But I think it’s fair to say there were a lot of schools in Dresden and Hiroshima. This isn’t to excuse anything but to say there has been progress even if it’s not as fast as we’d like. As far as the technology angle, the precision we have…

Small correction: there was one very publicized school bombing with a lot of casualties, but there's more than one bombed school. The US and Israel have bombed several schools, hospitals, and civil servants' offices, and residential buildings. I read HRANA's report on the war every morning. [1] It's a quick read, they are a reliable Iranian opposition source (now based in the US). Each day, there are multiple strikes…

Surely it's the precision that makes them war crimes? If the missiles weren't meter-accurate, and the intelligence didn't eg show the lines painted on the playground (even in images available to the public) then they would be able to pass it off as mistakes or enemy propaganda.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#87

Post by gorgoiler »

imiric wrote: post #73
gorgoiler wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the quote is particularly fair. You could just as easily see it as the best minds are building huge amounts of amazing, free technology and need a way to pay for it. For every microsecond level ad auction broker there’s a free Android update, cat video platform enhancement, calendar app feature, or type checked scripting language release. HFT on the other hand — now there’s a tech black hole! [edited to…

> You could just as easily see it as the best minds are building huge amounts of amazing, free technology and need a way to pay for it. That's a false dichotomy. First of all, the technology is far from "free". It's easily accessible, perhaps, but users pay handsomely to use it, even if they're unaware of it, which most adtech companies go out of their way to ensure. Secondly, advertising isn't the only business mode…

It's hardly a black and white area, and there's more to this question than just GOOG, but there's a joke here that has some relevance:

Those bastards have bled us dry with their algorithms, taken all the data we had, and not just from us, but from our children, our children's children, our children's children's children, our children's children's children's children... and what have they ever given us in return?

The search engine

...and a free phone OS

Oh yeah, the phone OS! Remember what the flip phones used to be like?

OK, but apart from the search engine and the phone OS...

Global Street View coverage!

Oh yes yes, oh that's a good one! So useful!

Chrome and Chromium

Well obviously that goes without saying: the browsers are very good

Docs and Sheets. I can't do me shopping without 'em!

Oh yes yes! -all nod-

OK, but apart from the search engine, the phone OS, the street view, the browsers, all the open source work, scholar, an office suite, an open DNS resolver, web fonts, gmail, and video calling, what has Google ever done for us?

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#88

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

DonHopkins wrote: post #42
Animats wrote: post #3

Microsoft will probably try to sneak it back in later. They've done that with other intrusions. Migrating away from Github just increased in priority.

Instead of polluting PRs, Copilot will insert comments and logging and text fields and buttons with links to web sites with helpful product tips into your code and user interfaces.

I mean, this is a very obvious future step. I was imagining this too, although I stopped short at the 'ads in comments' stage, but who knows, they could easily go further.

Re: GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

#90

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

deathanatos wrote: post #72
xfactorial wrote: post #68

I understand "free services" eventually come to the conclusion of either charging or using ads to finance and even make money out of them. I believe there are two caveats on it: 1. Approach: to make the experience worth it, so that ads are not very intrusive , done correctly, which, over and over and over, it is proven contrarious to the interest of the user. 2. Relevance: if you are going to put ads onto your produc…

> I understand "free services" eventually come to the conclusion of either charging or using ads to finance and even make money out of them. The endgame is not "or", it's "and": eventually come to the conclusion that, why choose between revenue streams when we could just have both?

I think we'll see companies increasingly adopting the X approach: charged tiers for 'fewer' ads. With no actual guarantee as to the absolute quantity of ads, just 'fewer, relative to the people who aren't paying as much'. We're basically on a downward slope where not seeing ads is going to get steadily more and more expensive over time.
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