I believe FB makes something like $6.50 per user. Obviously Google makes money from users too, and given overlap it seems likely that one user is worth quite a bit annually. Average that out over lifetime value, and we’re talking thousands of dollars.
Imagine if the likes of Equifax treated silos of data as a liability instead of an asset to be milked. Properly valued, a breach of hundreds of millions of people’s data would end a business, even as large as Equifax.
This is interesting actually. In theory it makes sense for them to offer a subscription that gets rid of ads, and if priced well it could make them more money on a user than ads. I'm sure a few people would be pay $5.99 - $9.99 for ad-free Facebook, especially if this means getting rid of video ads too.
Yet, if too many people opt for the paid option, technically advertiser value would fall, since less users would be targetable. Moreover, $6.50 average per user means they probably make close to no money on some users, but a lot of money on others. If only their high-yielding users opt-in to an ad-less Facebook, this could mean big losses for them.
I guess this is why they haven't offered a paid version as an option ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> I'm sure a few people would be pay $5.99 - $9.99 for ad-free Facebook
It's not about the ads, it's about the tracking, profiling, and sharing/selling our data.
If I could pay a few dollars a month (I guess Facebook would be worth $3-5/mo to me, and Google $5-10/mo) and get out of the whole tracking/voter-manipulation/profiling/sharing data/etc. thing, that'd be worth it. That would have to include that any non-essential data is not recorded or (if I previously was on the free tier and am now paying for a year or so) permanently deleted. Of course many personal things fall in the 'necessary for functionality' category, like chat history and which pages I liked, but part of the deal is not using that data for anything other than the service itself. And if I decide to go to a competitor, I don't want to be blackmailed into paying to keep it private, so I'd want to have an option to permanently take out and delete my data once I leave.
Sounds like a tough bargain, given all the restrictions I'm putting on it, but the alternative is the current state where I'm not making them any money at all. Not using it is worth it to me, despite missing out on a few things. And I don't think the requirements are unfair, I'm just asking them to provide service X for price Y without anything else, but apparently in 2018 we have to mention that we don't want anything else, like having our data misused or shadow profiles being recorded.
I agree. Now what about engineers at Google, especially with their drone program partnership with the DOD? How about engineers at Uber making cars that are unfit for the road?Engineers in general need to either grow a spine and a conscience fast, or they need enforced ethical standards. It’s. It just Facebook, although Facebook is particularly nasty, and there is no sign of people giving upon their cushy jobs to do the right thing.
Mostly they seem happy to go public while babbling about how they’re “changing the world” as in that pitiful letter from DropBox.
If people working at Google can look at the drone partnership and still try and argue that they're "doing good," we've really entered a whole new era of cognitive dissonance.
(FWIW, I think there are good and moral people who work at Google. But if they're not going to organize their labor or quit to stop this stuff, it doesn't really matter either way)
I refused to even interview for Palantir when their recruiter called and have quit jobs in the past when I was asked to do something unethical. It’s not as if google or fb engineers can’t find jobs elsewhere.
Ironically it’s just these kinds of laws which may finally create a broader popular drive to re-decentralize. Those people looking for sex and drugs and whatever else aren’t going to just say, “well shit, the government said no, let’s head to church.” They’re going to look for alternatives, and alternatives will be there for them. It won’t be glossy Java-heavy “Web 2.0” of course, it will be Tor, Mastadon, and encrypted communications.
That’s the real strength of the internet, you cut of
F a head and two more grow back. If more stringent laws are passed, that just creates more drive for alternatives. It’s going to be ugly, but I remember when the internet was ugly, but worked. It won’t make people filthy rich overnight, but that’s not the net either. People still want to hook up, buy guns and weed, and just talk without Big Brother breathing down their neck. It will start small, and grow fast; after all we have a few decades worth of roadmap.
People who’ve moaned about people needing to look past a handful of sites are possibly going to get their wish. The total inability for governments to field sustainable technical solutions to shutting down commas has not changed.
"It won’t be glossy Java-heavy "Web 2.0" of course, it will be Tor, Mastadon, and encrypted communications."
The problem is that unless these alternatives are made brain-dead easy to use securely, they won't be used by the majority, or they'll be misused.
It's the same problem as with PGP, which is too complicated and too much of a pain for most people to use -- even for relatively computer savvy people to bother with.
Without many people using them, they won't be very effective or appealing alternatives.
The adaptation can just as easily be sour grapes (“I can’t get it therefore it is undesirable”) as anything else. People don’t always yearn for freedom, just as they don’t always yearn for a strong leader to take control.
Keep in mind the goal of the internet, decentralization initially.
ARPANET Definition. ARPANET was a pioneering wide area network (WAN) that was created by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) in 1969. ... In order to provide reliable communication in the face of equipment failure, ARPANET was designed so that no one point or link was more critical than any other.
We have only partially implemented this at a systems level but have centralized at the information level. The internet can bring information to free people and allow people to live in 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' but it is being twisted to limit those things due to edge cases and extremes. The battle continues...
And if laws like this take down stuff that enough people care about, there will be alternatives. Given that Google, Facebook, Reddit and so on are vulnerable, they may be unable to provide them. But that just disrupts stuff to the next level.
They can find out who's running a node, send the cops and put them in prison. It's not hard. Look at China. The idea that we can technologically solve political problems is a bit of a fantasy. If the government wants to get you, they will.
everyone's OPSEC is weak. It is incredibly hard, if not impossible to have good OPSEC with the level of surveillance and tracking performed by companies like facebook and google.
Which is easier said than done. All it takes is one slip up for your hard work to be undone. One tiny mistake.
Advertisers are looking to de-annoymise you, three letter agencies are trying to de-annoymise you and all it takes is one minor slip upper being too unique (i.e. your combination of web browser, addons, screen size, IP address, etc).
It is almost impossible for a regular user to be anonymous, to have good opsec, for extended periods of time.
Sure, people screw up. So systems must fail nonfunctional/closed. Whonix is an excellent example. Tor runs in one VM, and user apps run in another VM. The Tor VM is not a router. There's no forwarding. It merely exposes Tor ports on a private network. So apps can have no Internet access except through Tor.
Regarding uniqueness, using personas that must remain unlinked on the same physical machine is very risky. Given the risk of guest-to-host breakout. And because hardware signatures may be visible remotely. If WebGL is enabled in VMs, Internet sites can link VMs on a given host (graphics card) that use the same virtual graphics driver. In particular, ones meatspace identity should never share a physical machine with any personas that's at all risky. They should also be compartmentalized on separate LANs.
So Debian and the Ubuntu family have the same signature. But Windows, OS X, Centos/Fedora, Arch/Manjaro and PC-BSD have different signatures. So one can use VMs with different WebGL signatures on the same hardware. But only for personas where linkage would be survivable.
In the US and most Western countries, it takes a lot of work to do what you’re describing, and there would be pushback. Going after a few people is no problem, but a whole population? No. China can do it because it’s an autocracy, with a long history of autocratic rule, strong central government and weak institutions. In the US politicians have to get re-elected.
In a lot of ways I envy these people; there's a lot of hardship they face with the lack of permanent address, and I can't imagine that RV living is incredibly pleasant nor cheap compared to more conventional house, but they're also untethered in ways that make living "normally" seem like the crazy proposition.
When it’s a choice you get to make, not when it’s your only choice. Don’t you have a shred of empathy? Envy them... Jesus Christ this site!
Freedom from dignity or the respect of your peers, of stability, of the ability to start or raise a family, and freedom from much of the dating pool. As a bonus you get to wonder when what little you have might vanish and you’re “free” from that too, and “free” to live on the streets.
If helping the US government refine their drone strike capabilities didn’t make them realize, I think it’s fair to say they’re totally self-interested. If you want to get their attention, go after their personal bottom line.
I get this, and I’m sure if my kid was in this situation I’d feel the same way. For all of the kids who aren’t mine though, I can see the other poster’s point. That’s just as much a part of being human as being attached to your own offspring.
In other words, I’m not going to stare, or look away from a disabled kid. I’m also not going to invest emotionally, or go out of my way to change how I think and act day in and out for them. If someone asks me for help, I’ll help, but they’re not likely to register for me otherwise. I won’t look away, but I also won’t look; disability doesn’t make me more or less invested in strangers.
You say parody, I say honest representation voted to the top of the page, on article that was knocked off the front page by flagging or mods. Part of the problem is that quite a few people here are representative of the broader industry which is full of young people who think the last decade and half are just how the world works. These are the people who look at all progress as though it must conform to Moore’s Law, and think the unregulated free-for-all of their industry so far is just how it is.
Reality is slow to catch up to new things, but it is utterly inevitable.
Imagine if the likes of Equifax treated silos of data as a liability instead of an asset to be milked. Properly valued, a breach of hundreds of millions of people’s data would end a business, even as large as Equifax.