I think this is a step in the right direction. If people want a service, they should be prepared to pay for it. Whether Meta offers what the market considers to be a reasonable price is a separate...
I think this is a step in the right direction. If people want a service, they should be prepared to pay for it. Whether Meta offers what the market considers to be a reasonable price is a separate issue.
I'd be more concerned that Meta wants to have its cake and eat it - charge end users and also turn around and sell a bunch of still-permitted data on the market.
That's my biggest worry from this. It should be an either / or. Not a Neither or Both. That being said? This feelss like the death of the 'free' internet model that we've seen over the past 12-14...
I'd be more concerned that Meta wants to have its cake and eat it - charge end users and also turn around and sell a bunch of still-permitted data on the market.
That's my biggest worry from this. It should be an either / or. Not a Neither or Both.
That being said? This feelss like the death of the 'free' internet model that we've seen over the past 12-14 years developing. With the advent of the fediverse, will we see a return to smaller and more sustainable communities supported via instances?
And good riddance and it's about 'effin time. IANA marketing/advertising guru ... but I swear this whole kerfuffle we call the Modern Internet could have been avoided from the get-go, and still to...
This feelss like the death of the 'free' internet model that we've seen over the past 12-14 years developing.
And good riddance and it's about 'effin time.
IANA marketing/advertising guru ... but I swear this whole kerfuffle we call the Modern Internet could have been avoided from the get-go, and still to this day, could be fixed, simply by converting Internet advertising from user-tracking-personalized to content-based ... choose which ads to display based on the content of the web page you will be advertising on, not on the browsing habits of the users. You sell tech gear? Advertise on tech sites. Hiking gear? Advertise on sites about hiking.
More and more, it keeps becoming apparent that the user-tracking targeted-advertising isn't nearly as effective as advertising companies claim it is ... more and more, it becomes apparent that the advertising industry is tricking/spoofing/lying to businesses about how useful this type of advertising is (faking page-view and click-thru stats for decades), just as much as they've lied to us users about how harmless it is.
All we had to do was nip this in the bud, right at the start and say "no, you do not get to collect data on people browsing the Internet ... figure out another way to advertise effectively" ... and guess what? They would have.
You mean that the companies that buy ad space should only pay for the clicks that translate into money? What about the less easily measurable stuff like brand awareness? That might not get them...
You mean that the companies that buy ad space should only pay for the clicks that translate into money?
What about the less easily measurable stuff like brand awareness? That might not get them money in that moment exactly but may in the future.
Also isn't this kinda ignoring the quality/effectiveness of the ad itself? Shouldn't they have at least some responsibility when it comes to that?
Major internet ad providers already have all this worked into their pricing models. The whole internet ads business is actually quite complex and there's an obscene amount of work and money put...
Major internet ad providers already have all this worked into their pricing models.
The whole internet ads business is actually quite complex and there's an obscene amount of work and money put into developing the systems in place (even a small market ad provider like tik-tok or Microsoft has $10s of billions in revenue).
User tracking exists basically to improve efficiency for advertisers, but that's just one tool. Advertisers can target specific categories of sites more heavily than others, specific regions, times when they want their ads shown, specific devices, languages, etc.
I'm probably a bit of a dummy here but I don't understand how that answers my questions. You mean that there is pay-for-transaction-not-for-clicks option somewhere? Or is that you pay more for a...
I'm probably a bit of a dummy here but I don't understand how that answers my questions.
You mean that there is pay-for-transaction-not-for-clicks option somewhere? Or is that you pay more for a successful sale?
What does platforms' ad revenue mean in this context? Or the targeting tools, I was aware of them and know they've existed for a long while.
I don't see how that is apparent at all. Advertising is so lucrative and has only increased over the years. Just look at the streaming services and how wide the gulf is becoming between their...
More and more, it keeps becoming apparent that the user-tracking targeted-advertising isn't nearly as effective as advertising companies claim it is ... more and more, it becomes apparent that the advertising industry is tricking/spoofing/lying to businesses about how useful this type of advertising is (faking page-view and click-thru stats for decades), just as much as they've lied to us users about how harmless it is.
I don't see how that is apparent at all. Advertising is so lucrative and has only increased over the years. Just look at the streaming services and how wide the gulf is becoming between their ad-supported plans and the ad-free plans, and there's reports indicating they have plans to increase ad-free plans even more. It's actually insane when you add all of this up, how much advertisers are willing to pay to get these ads in front of your eyeballs and it hasn't always been evident what it's worth if they only ever offer something supported by ads but not an ad-free option.
You can say it's just businesses getting lied to like they're rubes or something, but it's been like this for years and clearly its only going further in this direction, in my view it's apparent that it does work. Otherwise people wouldn't keep going back to it and putting more money into it.
Are we sure that those who will pay for the service will be free from their data being gathered and sold further by Meta? [edit] And is it really ethical to divide people by their wealth? Poor...
If people want a service, they should be prepared to pay for it.
Are we sure that those who will pay for the service will be free from their data being gathered and sold further by Meta?
[edit]
And is it really ethical to divide people by their wealth? Poor people cannot afford buying Facebook service so they're victims of data gathering, while richer can. By this move, Meta literally forces poor people to give it their personal data.
If you're saying that Meta is offering an essential service that everyone not only has a right to use, but must use in order to function in modern society, then sure, "forces poor people to give...
If you're saying that Meta is offering an essential service that everyone not only has a right to use, but must use in order to function in modern society, then sure, "forces poor people to give it their personal data" has some validity.
Otherwise it's simply a service that people want to use and it costs money to run so they charge people either by a direct monetary charge or by asking people to consent to collection of personal data. You wouldn't say mattress manufacturers literally force people to sleep on the ground because they don't just give away their mattresses for free.
If something is an essential service, then the government should subsidize the cost so that poor people don't have to "choose" the free option of losing control of their personal data, but that just doesn't meet the circumstances in this case.
It's projected as an essential service, hence I treat it as an essential service. There are plenty of psychologists working for Meta and no ordinary and especially poor person has any tools to...
It's projected as an essential service, hence I treat it as an essential service. There are plenty of psychologists working for Meta and no ordinary and especially poor person has any tools to contest essentiality of Meta services.
Another point of view is that social life is an essential thing for human beings. If a company tries to monopolize social life by moving it to its service, this service becomes essential. Almost everybody uses it, it means that it's essential for people, because all of my friends and family are there and without also being there with them my social life is nonexistent - I'm deprived of an essential human need.
To your first question, absolutely not, unfortunately. As to your second point, you're absolutely right, that is the deal being offered to poorer people. But that's true of almost everything,...
To your first question, absolutely not, unfortunately.
As to your second point, you're absolutely right, that is the deal being offered to poorer people. But that's true of almost everything, isn't it? Poorer people get shafted from every direction, and they normally have to choose between no/degraded service relative to wealthier people. I see your point, but I don't think it's specific to Meta.
That indeed will be the great deception. Ever wondered why Apple never gets accused of data collection unlike Google, Meta or others? Not exactly because they're any kosher but because they...
I'd be more concerned that Meta wants to have its cake and eat it
That indeed will be the great deception. Ever wondered why Apple never gets accused of data collection unlike Google, Meta or others? Not exactly because they're any kosher but because they charge! The pricing gives you a false sense of security or deception that since you're already paying for the product, you will never be the product yourself. Once FB becomes paid (ad free version), it will also perhaps start to seem kosher.
Isn't it the other way around? Apple doesn't get accused because any data collection being used or sold is promptly informed to the user before it happens. Meta doesn't ethically inform you.
Isn't it the other way around? Apple doesn't get accused because any data collection being used or sold is promptly informed to the user before it happens. Meta doesn't ethically inform you.
I haven't seen this described much, but I wonder how a platform taking this approach would evolve. If you can afford to pay to stop getting advertised to, the pool of users who get advertised to...
I haven't seen this described much, but I wonder how a platform taking this approach would evolve. If you can afford to pay to stop getting advertised to, the pool of users who get advertised to becomes poorer and poorer. I'd imagine this would lead to fewer brands using the platform to advertise. Forcing the platform to increase the price to force some of the wealthier users to be tracked again. I wonder what the equilibrium would be.
I think this is a step in the right direction. If people want a service, they should be prepared to pay for it. Whether Meta offers what the market considers to be a reasonable price is a separate issue.
I'd be more concerned that Meta wants to have its cake and eat it - charge end users and also turn around and sell a bunch of still-permitted data on the market.
That's my biggest worry from this. It should be an either / or. Not a Neither or Both.
That being said? This feelss like the death of the 'free' internet model that we've seen over the past 12-14 years developing. With the advent of the fediverse, will we see a return to smaller and more sustainable communities supported via instances?
And good riddance and it's about 'effin time.
IANA marketing/advertising guru ... but I swear this whole kerfuffle we call the Modern Internet could have been avoided from the get-go, and still to this day, could be fixed, simply by converting Internet advertising from user-tracking-personalized to content-based ... choose which ads to display based on the content of the web page you will be advertising on, not on the browsing habits of the users. You sell tech gear? Advertise on tech sites. Hiking gear? Advertise on sites about hiking.
More and more, it keeps becoming apparent that the user-tracking targeted-advertising isn't nearly as effective as advertising companies claim it is ... more and more, it becomes apparent that the advertising industry is tricking/spoofing/lying to businesses about how useful this type of advertising is (faking page-view and click-thru stats for decades), just as much as they've lied to us users about how harmless it is.
All we had to do was nip this in the bud, right at the start and say "no, you do not get to collect data on people browsing the Internet ... figure out another way to advertise effectively" ... and guess what? They would have.
Any type of advertising that pays out on views/clicks and not conversions is probably garbage for most businesses in my opinion.
You mean that the companies that buy ad space should only pay for the clicks that translate into money?
What about the less easily measurable stuff like brand awareness? That might not get them money in that moment exactly but may in the future.
Also isn't this kinda ignoring the quality/effectiveness of the ad itself? Shouldn't they have at least some responsibility when it comes to that?
Major internet ad providers already have all this worked into their pricing models.
The whole internet ads business is actually quite complex and there's an obscene amount of work and money put into developing the systems in place (even a small market ad provider like tik-tok or Microsoft has $10s of billions in revenue).
User tracking exists basically to improve efficiency for advertisers, but that's just one tool. Advertisers can target specific categories of sites more heavily than others, specific regions, times when they want their ads shown, specific devices, languages, etc.
I'm probably a bit of a dummy here but I don't understand how that answers my questions.
You mean that there is pay-for-transaction-not-for-clicks option somewhere? Or is that you pay more for a successful sale?
What does platforms' ad revenue mean in this context? Or the targeting tools, I was aware of them and know they've existed for a long while.
I don't see how that is apparent at all. Advertising is so lucrative and has only increased over the years. Just look at the streaming services and how wide the gulf is becoming between their ad-supported plans and the ad-free plans, and there's reports indicating they have plans to increase ad-free plans even more. It's actually insane when you add all of this up, how much advertisers are willing to pay to get these ads in front of your eyeballs and it hasn't always been evident what it's worth if they only ever offer something supported by ads but not an ad-free option.
You can say it's just businesses getting lied to like they're rubes or something, but it's been like this for years and clearly its only going further in this direction, in my view it's apparent that it does work. Otherwise people wouldn't keep going back to it and putting more money into it.
Are we sure that those who will pay for the service will be free from their data being gathered and sold further by Meta?
[edit]
And is it really ethical to divide people by their wealth? Poor people cannot afford buying Facebook service so they're victims of data gathering, while richer can. By this move, Meta literally forces poor people to give it their personal data.
If you're saying that Meta is offering an essential service that everyone not only has a right to use, but must use in order to function in modern society, then sure, "forces poor people to give it their personal data" has some validity.
Otherwise it's simply a service that people want to use and it costs money to run so they charge people either by a direct monetary charge or by asking people to consent to collection of personal data. You wouldn't say mattress manufacturers literally force people to sleep on the ground because they don't just give away their mattresses for free.
If something is an essential service, then the government should subsidize the cost so that poor people don't have to "choose" the free option of losing control of their personal data, but that just doesn't meet the circumstances in this case.
It's projected as an essential service, hence I treat it as an essential service. There are plenty of psychologists working for Meta and no ordinary and especially poor person has any tools to contest essentiality of Meta services.
Another point of view is that social life is an essential thing for human beings. If a company tries to monopolize social life by moving it to its service, this service becomes essential. Almost everybody uses it, it means that it's essential for people, because all of my friends and family are there and without also being there with them my social life is nonexistent - I'm deprived of an essential human need.
To your first question, absolutely not, unfortunately.
As to your second point, you're absolutely right, that is the deal being offered to poorer people. But that's true of almost everything, isn't it? Poorer people get shafted from every direction, and they normally have to choose between no/degraded service relative to wealthier people. I see your point, but I don't think it's specific to Meta.
Thank goodness they are too ethical for the latter...
That indeed will be the great deception. Ever wondered why Apple never gets accused of data collection unlike Google, Meta or others? Not exactly because they're any kosher but because they charge! The pricing gives you a false sense of security or deception that since you're already paying for the product, you will never be the product yourself. Once FB becomes paid (ad free version), it will also perhaps start to seem kosher.
Isn't it the other way around? Apple doesn't get accused because any data collection being used or sold is promptly informed to the user before it happens. Meta doesn't ethically inform you.
I haven't seen this described much, but I wonder how a platform taking this approach would evolve. If you can afford to pay to stop getting advertised to, the pool of users who get advertised to becomes poorer and poorer. I'd imagine this would lead to fewer brands using the platform to advertise. Forcing the platform to increase the price to force some of the wealthier users to be tracked again. I wonder what the equilibrium would be.
Meta, and any given company, should respect privacy and privacy laws irrespective of charging for their service. And they clearly haven't.