Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

politico.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

821–830 of 979 posts

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#821

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

dahart wrote: post #803
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you also going to ban websites that aren’t hosted by the US from being seen in the US that have advertising?

Why are you assuming that the hosting locale is even relevant? I’m not going to ban anything, but if @phire’s idea was law, it would probably ban anything advertiser from choosing which ads to show you based on your personal data. It’s irrelevant where the ads or site is hosted, I assume. If ads from foreign countries don’t target individuals, their ads would be legal. If ads from foreign countries, or from the US, u…

How are you going to police foreign countries? If they don’t comply are you going to tell ISPs they must block any foreign site that has targeted ads?

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#822

Post by mmonaghan »

Funes- wrote: post #158
jjcm wrote: post #64

Here's the actual statement from the European Comission: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_... It's important to note they aren't creating laws against infinite scrolling , but are ruling against addictive design and pointing to infinite scrolling as an example of it. The wording here is fascinating, mainly because they're effectively acting as arbiters of "vibes". They point to certain feat…

>"well what specific laws would I write to combat addictive design?" Hear me out: banning advertising on the Internet. It's the only way. It's the primordial domino tile. You knock that one over, every other tile follows suit. It's the mother of chain reactions. There would be no social media, no Internet as we know it. Imagine having TikTok, YouTube or X trying to survive on subscriptions alone in their current iter…

I don't think this changes the dynamic one bit. Every subscription product still optimizes for engagement. Then there's the free speech aspect - sure it's easy to say "we don't want to see cigarette ads"- what about your local mom n pop restaurant buying ads to try and get more people to eat in?

The primordial domino tile is human nature, which you're not going to knock over. The solution is probably closer to what China does - punish companies that don't prioritize/train algos to prioritize the values we hold dear. Basically, just keep beating meta and bytedance until they decide to get their timelines out of the politics game and into the education game, for example, or the democracy game, or whatever your country's main issues are.

I think there's definitely room to regulate "divisiveness" though, and that's a little clearer than "addictive design".

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#823

Post by iso1631 »

confidantlake wrote: post #721
b112 wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Viewing this thread, and the back and forth of it, I need to say something. Advertising sucks in this thread too. By that I mean, people are not speaking plainly, and it is almost ingrained into our societies now. We "sell" our position in a discussion, a debate. For example, regulation does curtail freedom. Completely. However, lack of regulation can harm people. Significantly. Thus, regulation does not give people…

> Regulation does curtail freedom. Completely. This depends on what definition of freedom you are using. Take this definition. > the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do Being able to walk down a street because there is a regulation restricting cars would enhance my freedom.

A regulation permitting me to swing my fist into your would restrict my freedom, and damn your nose

It amuses me how the "land of the free" makes it a crime for people to cross the street without doing it at regulated locations.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#824

Post by brabel »

HappySweeney wrote: post #670
alpaca128 wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> And all existing videos with sponsorship need yo be removed? > Yes, or re-uploaded without the sponsor segment I hope not. For one that would hit retroactively, but also it would cause a huge loss of valuable content from platforms like YouTube as countless videos with sponsor segments are actually interesting and simply too much to reupload, if the uploader is even active still.

Agreed. I believe it's well within Google's ability to auto-edit the sponsored segments out within an acceptable error margin.

Every video that has sponsors has a disclaimer on it so Google knows exactly what those videos are. It could misclassify videos perhaps but I have never seen that happen.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#825

Post by tomnipotent »

tforcram wrote: post #314
tomnipotent wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not a single one of these is tenable, even when combined. How do the people that post reviews, or spread something over word-of-mouth, discover the thing in the first place? Try your hand at starting a business and trying to sell goods or services using these methods and see how well it works.

Tenable for what, global business? Many local businesses do fine without advertising and/or using these methods. Making global business harder and forcing things more local actually sounds like a great benefit.

Everything single one of those local businesses is also doing advertising, and is probably how you found them in the first place. They're buying local newspaper adverts, using flyers, or participating in valpaks/coupon mailers.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#826

Post by codethief »

ajam1507 wrote: post #811
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>compensated advertising is what createa the incentives for the whole attention economy Why would you not want to keep people engaged and even "addicted" in order to keep them as subscribers and make them upgrade to more expensive subscriptions?

Do you have a specific example of a subscription based platform that is as insidiously addicting as the ad supported ones?

Netflix?

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#827

Post by tomnipotent »

coldtea wrote: post #318
tomnipotent wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not a single one of these is tenable, even when combined. How do the people that post reviews, or spread something over word-of-mouth, discover the thing in the first place? Try your hand at starting a business and trying to sell goods or services using these methods and see how well it works.

> How do the people that post reviews, or spread something over word-of-mouth, discover the thing in the first place? The follow industry conventions, visit registries of industry websites, have professional lists where companies submit their announcements (and not to the general public) and so on. > Try your hand at starting a business and trying to sell goods or services using these methods and see how well it work…

That's a lovely fantasy, but there's a graveyard of failed businesses that didn't make it because customers couldn't find them.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#828

Post by fauigerzigerk »

ajam1507 wrote: post #811
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>compensated advertising is what createa the incentives for the whole attention economy Why would you not want to keep people engaged and even "addicted" in order to keep them as subscribers and make them upgrade to more expensive subscriptions?

Do you have a specific example of a subscription based platform that is as insidiously addicting as the ad supported ones?

- Games.

- Gambling while rarely subscription based is usually paid for directly rather than ad funded.

- Newspaper subscriptions are no less addictive for news junkies than purely ad funded newspapers.

- I watch a lot of Youtube, far more than I used to before I started paying for the subscription.

- Netflix and in the olden days TV.

I'm not entirely sure what "insidiously addictive" actually means. I do sometimes scroll through some TikTok vids. I don't find it particularly addictive compared to, say, Hacker News.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#829

Post by tforcram »

tomnipotent wrote: post #825
tforcram wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tenable for what, global business? Many local businesses do fine without advertising and/or using these methods. Making global business harder and forcing things more local actually sounds like a great benefit.

Everything single one of those local businesses is also doing advertising, and is probably how you found them in the first place. They're buying local newspaper adverts, using flyers, or participating in valpaks/coupon mailers.

Actually all of those sound fine to me... I guess it's really just Internet advertising that feels wrong to me, especially when they try to fill in as the source of revenue themselves rather than a means to drive revenue for the main product.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#830

Post by rogerrogerr »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #639
rogerrogerr wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you willing to share rough numbers? Totally understand if not, just curious. Been thinking about something like this to get away from the AI force-feeding.

$100-$200 an hour on average for hand work, more if I need to use an excavator.

What does the friction look like? Insurance, licensing, that kind of thing?
Post reply on HN