High-Tech Hypocrisy

I work in online advertising/data mining and i have just about every blocker/noscript/ghostery thing on my browsers.

Definitely something wrong with it. Why are you selling something you're not willing to consume yourself?


On the other hand....easily available personal data has allowed for some incredible free services, and allowed companies to much better understand what users like.

I'd say it's the kind of thing where it's not necessarily all bad, but it can very easily be abused.
 
mastaBlasta said:
I work in online advertising/data mining and i have just about every blocker/noscript/ghostery thing on my browsers.

Definitely something wrong with it. Why are you selling something you're not willing to consume yourself?
.
Click to expand...

Have you asked yourself that question?
 
mastaBlasta said:
On the other hand....easily available personal data has allowed for some incredible free services, and allowed companies to much better understand what users like.

.
Click to expand...

Think that through a bit.

a: Does Google do what they do for Free?
b: Well, they take ad money and monetize the user data.

a: So the ad companies and analysts just give Google Money?
b: Yeah
a: Why don't they go bankrupt?
b: Well they take money from companies to place ads and obtain user data

a: So companies pay for this and write off the loss?
b: not exactly, they make it part of the cost of operation.
a: Then they write it off?
b: No, they put that cost into their products

a: So consumers pay?
b: yeah,

a: So we pay after all?
b: well, yeah.

a: So it isn't "free". Thanks.
 
jpm100 said:
Think that through a bit.

a: Does Google do what they do for Free?
b: Well, they take ad money and monetize the user data.

a: So the ad companies and analysts just give Google Money?
b: Yeah
a: Why don't they go bankrupt?
b: Well they take money from companies to place ads and obtain user data

a: So companies pay for this and write off the loss?
b: not exactly, they make it part of the cost of operation.
a: Then they write it off?
b: No, they put that cost into their products

a: So consumers pay?
b: yeah,

a: So we pay after all?
b: well, yeah.

a: So it isn't "free". Thanks.
Click to expand...

Except they already have a marketing budget that they would have spent on something if not google. So it is still "free" in the sense that you are trading personal information for the service, but it does not increase costs for other products.
 
Sites like facebook, youtube, instagram, gmail etc are enormously expensive to build and maintain.

People are getting extremely high quality products for nothing. Nothing in a concrete, tangible sense, but more on that later.

The other alternatives are GPL style free stuff, which let's face it - is so so quality at best, and 100% paid software which is generally very expensive.

It's a very good deal.

My bigger problem is not so much the invasion of privacy. Nobody cares about your stupid private shit anyway. My problem is more with skewing your online experience. The machine will serve you news, ads, products based on previous interest. Because I browse a lot of tech sites, i see mostly science and tech based ads.

Similarly, if you click on a lot of tea party web sites, you will see more articles and ads promoting tea party ideals, thus insulating you somewhat form other opinions. That could be a big problem in our future.

But generally speaking most sites do a terrible job of displaying ads. They're too invasive and really disrupt my experience.
 
jpm100 said:
Think that through a bit.

a: Does Google do what they do for Free?
b: Well, they take ad money and monetize the user data.

a: So the ad companies and analysts just give Google Money?
b: Yeah
a: Why don't they go bankrupt?
b: Well they take money from companies to place ads and obtain user data

a: So companies pay for this and write off the loss?
b: not exactly, they make it part of the cost of operation.
a: Then they write it off?
b: No, they put that cost into their products

a: So consumers pay?
b: yeah,

a: So we pay after all?
b: well, yeah.

a: So it isn't "free". Thanks.
Click to expand...

Going by that thought process nothing is "free" period, ever, period, for no reason.

I can appreciate the sentiment to educate people that "free" is sometime used by business in a blurry context of misdirection... but believe your example is just going too far because at a certain level I believe the word "free" should have some sort of definition when it comes to cost.

Using a similar train of thought... picking up that "free" labeled item a neighbor put out in the yard also isn't free. Cause you had to pay for the food (energy) used to go get it in (some sort of fashion even if you grow all your own food). Though in most cases people I think would agree that type of situation can be considered "free" for real.

Also Ad companies pay to show the ads, that is the product they are paying for. With more user data, Google can charge more because targeted ads are like "deluxe" or pro versions of normal ads. The customer is still getting a product/service.

Just because a company isn't getting a physical product doesn't mean they are not getting something they paid for...not a loss you can write off...
 
mastaBlasta said:
I work in online advertising/data mining and i have just about every blocker/noscript/ghostery thing on my browsers.

Definitely something wrong with it. Why are you selling something you're not willing to consume yourself?


On the other hand....easily available personal data has allowed for some incredible free services, and allowed companies to much better understand what users like.

I'd say it's the kind of thing where it's not necessarily all bad, but it can very easily be abused.
Click to expand...

It is always abused. That is the problem.
 
invinciblegod said:
Except they already have a marketing budget that they would have spent on something if not google. So it is still "free" in the sense that you are trading personal information for the service, but it does not increase costs for other products.
Click to expand...

You're presuming advertising budget just shifted. That's a pure assumption. I don't see less advertising in my life since the Internet (counting outside the internet like TV & Print, etc.). So the volume hasn't changed. Maybe if there was data on what is charged out there, it might be less.

Anyway, do you know that about 1/4-1/2 of your Big Mac Meal is advertising. So even if it was fixed don't pretend I shouldn't care about it.

And if the ads are better targeted to me, the indirect cost burden is also focused on me.
 
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