Item — HN Reader

> Are users prepared to pay for the difference?

If a service cannot be offered at a certain scale without such practices, it should not be offered at that scale. Before you start talking about how this enabled google's innovations, remember that the path we have taken to our current innovations is not the only path that could have been taken. By correctly squashing out immoral avenues like today's ad tech, we lay the path for the same innovations to happen taking a different, more ethical path. Sure, it could be that that would take more time and certain innovations would be delayed by an entire era[1], but note that we could also be going 5x faster than today w.r.t TPUs or whatever if we enslaved and forced enough people to work for Google's ML infrastructure team and nobody/nothing else. But we don't do that, do we?

[1] on the flip side, certain innovations may also come an era early

2 comments

> If a service cannot be offered at a certain scale without such practices, it should not be offered at that scale.

That sounds like an opinion and one tha isn't shared by the hundreds of millions of users Google has o it's services.

The worst part is that I completely agree that advertisement and at the very least targeted advertisement, shouldn't exist.

Problem is that users prefer not paying in cash so companies find alternatives.

If advertisement or privacy really mattered for users, we would already have alternative Facebook, YouTube, etc, but it isn't and so we don't.

Well, I don't think most people really understand the way ad-tech supports these services. I wager if you asked a few lay men they wouldn't even know google is an ad company(apart from YouTube ads)

A few years ago, a large publisher (Persgroep) in the Netherlands made a study comparing user preferences between two advertisement solutions, one would be a traditional personal data-based targeting solution and one privacy preserving solution (SOLID).

User ended up preferring the classic version, even when they were informed of its inner workings.

"publishing" They are an ad company.

"Ad company does survey confirming that people like their ads and definitely don't want an alternative"

is not the win you think it is. Are you hearing yourself?

Well I seem to be the only bringing proof and understanding into this debate.

You're free to step in at any time with actual viable alternatives, studies, etc.

May I remind you once more that the possibility to create this magical Internet world you guys live in is already there but somehow nobody builds or uses it. Maybe there is a good reason for this?

> Maybe there is a good reason for this?

Yes, the unethical path is easier and more importantly, faster to take. If it is not explicitly disallowed in the system, it will be taken.

I would say that it is the most popular path among readers that is the winning one in the end.

> May I remind you once more that the possibility to create this magical Internet world you guys live in

Ads don't require pervasive and invasive tracking

> but somehow nobody builds or uses it. Maybe there is a good reason for this?

Yes. Because unrestricted unlimited capitalism will always exploit any possible niche and avenue, and people will cheer it on until it's too late.

Oh, it is unlimited capitalism that prevents people from paying for their online newspaper subscriptions?

> Before you start talking about how this enabled google's innovations

To whit:

Most the big projects Google started or acquired, and that are still available today, Google started or acquired before targeted advertising. Google itself, Docs, Youtube, Cloud, Android...

Targeted advertising is not a requirement for innovation