I sometimes think that no one cares about online privacy, which makes me really sad, then I read this from @pluralistic - good to know!
https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve
So maybe people DO care, but just feel like they can't do much about it?
@patrickleavy @pluralistic I enjoyed this article, and I didn't know this and found it interesting:
> ... the advertising industry has been repeating since the days when it was waging a massive campaign against the TV remote on the grounds that people would "steal" TV by changing the channel when the ads came on.
I'm not very familiar with life before cable TV, but it seems especially offensive since cable TV is both paid and has a ton of ads. I hope this was at least before paid TV...
@axby @patrickleavy @pluralistic
When I was a little boy, in the 1960s, an issue of MAD magazine showed how to splice an on-off switch on a long wire to the feed to your TV speaker. DIY ad mute button.
The article mentioned how smug you'll feel defeating a TV ad that took millions of dollars to make with a 15 cent switch.
@mtconleyuk @nyrath @axby @patrickleavy @pluralistic
I believe it's no coincidence that the mute button is the only remote control function that is not reliably propagated through my HDMI setup. The TV will sometimes just show the flashing mute symbol, but the sound bar doesn't actually mute.
@thamesynne @axby @patrickleavy @pluralistic
I suppose you are too young to have heard the phrase "and now a word from our sponsor..." from the 1950s ?
There were TV shows containing the sponsor's name, such as Hallmark Hall of Fame, Texaco Star Theatre, The Colgate Comedy Hour, and Kraft Television Theatre.
@axby @patrickleavy @pluralistic Reminds me of the absolute shitfit those same execs pitched with VCRs, and then DVRs...
The most entitled-sounding of these being Jack Valenti saying the VCR was like a home-invading rapist. I try to bring this up whenever I can, even though Valenti is long gone, because it's still ABSOLUTELY WILD that people trust industries whose execs talk this way.
@kmeisthax @axby @patrickleavy @pluralistic I'm still convinced Windows Media Center was killed after Windows 8 because of corporate interests being mad at an easy to use computer based PVR
The arms race between marketers and ad busters has so many chapters....
Heck I still have a VCR from the 1990s that had commercial skip technology. It was genius tech for its time: it would mark commercials on a live show recording and when you watched it auto-skip them.
@hatter @axby @pluralistic I agree we should be paying for online services, upfront and not in a sneaky way in the background with our data.
Because that sneaky way is not only creepy, it enables a system (the RTB ads data system) that (unwittingly) puts democracy at risk 😬
@hatter @axby @patrickleavy @pluralistic ads in movies is a very new phenomenon. I figured if I buy it I can do what I want with it, including removing ads.
If I have to go through an effort to remove the drm I'm going to back it up to a distributed system so I won't lose my work.
@hatter @axby @patrickleavy @pluralistic different POV: if you're paying a cover charge, especially for a DVD when we used to buy them, anything with an ad on it is an insult.
It's like when a restaurant has ads in its washroom. Like, really. You won't survive without this ancillary revenue? Or are you just an extra source of profit?
@krupo @hatter @axby @pluralistic yes that's how things were and it makes sense.
But now that the surveillance business model is there, I think it's just too easy, too tempting... And if the public appears not to care then why wouldn't you tap into it for some extra revenue?
Hence the need for regulations; but I fear that the governments are too in love with the easy data - can the #police and security services even remember how to do their jobs without it?
@hatter @axby @patrickleavy @pluralistic no I do recall, I just didn't phrase that well: I recall those adverts on *certain* discs and was gravely insulted by them.
I would generally stick to purchasing media that didn't indulge in that shabby abuse of the consumer.
If there is advertising (and I accept it pragmatically as a revenue source), I _do_ want it to be relevant — but relevant to the content I'm reading, not based on some constructed profile of me.
That seems far better for publishers, advertisers, _and_ readers.
@patrickleavy @pluralistic #ALT4you
Black text, in type writer font, on a white background
"Remember when Apple offered users a one-click opt-out from Facebook spying, the most sophisticated commercial surveillance system in human history, whose entire purpose was to deliver "relevant" advertising? More than 96% of Apple's customers opted out of surveillance. Even the most Hayek-pilled economist has to admit that this is a a hell of a "revealed preference." People don't want "relevant" advertising. Period."
@patrickleavy @pluralistic Well, the claim that the advertising was "relevant" was bollocks anyway. *Really* relevant advertising might be another matter.
(For example. You buy an X. For the next couple of months every web site you visit shows you ads for X. Which is utter bollocks - you've just bought one, you don't need another one FFS!!!)
It’s when we opted into Apple’s phones, watches, tablets and laptops…for just this reason 👍
@mouszi @pluralistic yeah that apathy is really depressing. Where is the outrage?
Dave Eggers' book The Every is looking painfully accurate 😬😒
@mouszi @pluralistic you're right, #bigtech just rides it out, lobbies, and we begrudgingly accept a new norm. 😒
They are boiling the frog 🐸. What will it take to make us jump out of the pot?
Another Cambridge Analytica?
@mouszi @pluralistic but it will need a scandal otherwise the 'security services + big tech' will block it.
Or it takes a few people at regulatory bodies with REAL integrity.
Cory Doctorow wrote a great essay about how the Irish have been shamefully protecting big tech. As an Irishman myself that was hard to read, but it was a wake up call:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town
@katharsisdrill it's a constant battle. If I start talking about this stuff and they look bored or bewildered (or worse, they are visualising me in a tinfoil hat 😒), I point out that it's not MY fault we have to take such annoyingly extreme actions to not be tracked!
The tough thing with the tracking is that once you see it (the whole system) you can't unsee it 😳😖😳
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