I think that free services are a mistake. But for whatever reason people _really_ like it. Take Youtube. It offers a way to avoid all ads and yet people who spent hours upon hours every day either watching videos or listening to music with it refuses to spend a dime on it. And yet, they also complain that ads are ruining Youtube and so they installed adblocker specifically for it.
Since everyone refuses to _directly_ spend money, companies just move to taking money from us indirectly. To me "free services" is like a casinos, its easy to say that you should "just not do/use it lmao" but its extremely hard to think back and consider why Reddit/Hackernews/Youtube/Twitter/Facebook is free and what are the consequences/incentives of it being "free" will mean to our society. It is simply too enticing.
It's not like paying for YouTube prevents Google from hoovering up your data and using it for targeted advertising. Sure, you won't see the ads on YouTube, but you'll see them literally _everywhere_ else unless you use that adblocker.
I think tech people overestimate how much the common folk cares about privacy. I think they "superficially" cares about them but they will never, ever give up convenience for it. So that does not surprise me. But it is interesting why people refuse to spend money to avoid ads when it clearly annoyed them.
And paying for YouTube prevents Google from inserting ads -- but I find that the majority of content I see on YouTube has embedded ads from the creator as well. Ad-free isn't an option, unfortunately.
I'd love to pay to remove youtube ads. But... I refuse to surf the web logged into google. So I can't.
And beside that I'd very much not want to give google money either. So I don't.
(yes, watching the ads gives them money, and blocking the ads and use youtube reinforces their monopoly. But it still feels better than also giving them cash directly).
> Since everyone refuses to _directly_ spend money
Most of us don't. But we would like it to be:
- easy and anonymous: if i have cash i should be able to find a local reseller taking cash for a token of X€ (a token that's not specific to your platform would be even better)
- easy to decide where the money goes: i certainly don't want to give Google any money at all (and they don't need it), and i certainly don't want my money to be used against my will to finance a reptilian-aware neonazi whose video i clicked by accident (or because i had to debunk it)
But, to be fair, i would much rather prefer a system based on cooperation and free sharing. Is there a reason why we have to pay to live? The reason artists need money is the same reason bakers or FLOSS devs need money: because everyone else does and we're trapped in this nightmarish system. I feel that as a species we can do better.
And I hate it too, and for all the reasons given here. (Did not check them all, but it is a pretty safe bet.)
Hating it all means I am on board with activism, advocacy, law, whatever we need to do in order to establish / extend the Bill Of Rights into digital spaces.
Society, tech and the law have collided and that mess is ongoing and expanding. Imagine one of those cars smashing into a train with the dummy in it.
It crumples, folds, then pieces fly off, the dummy takes damage, and just down the track is a truck, and a bus with kids in it, and so on...
That train is heavy, well powered with spiffy tech, and it is powering right through the public!
Hate it, but I am quite sure I can't do much, even resisting, doing all the work to anonymize, is a total PITA. Drains the value right out of it all, out of me, my life, and I just do not have time for it, unless a lot of us have time together somehow.
And I think dollars are the only language our oppressors, abusers, and the like will both hear and act on because they must!
Lessig wrote about things that regulate our behavior:
Norms. They do not prevent anything, but do reward or punish.
Law. Like norms, but with real teeth well beyond praise and shunning.
Physics. The rules of the world will prevent actions. The more we understand, the more this world permits.
Money / markets. These also can prevent things. If we cannot afford an action...
It will take a lot of us setting norms, doing things that cost, and all of that rolling up into law more relevant than this current "wild west" is.
I really like it because I get to do things, have access to information that was the stuff of dreams not so long ago.
Yes, let's do this. Let's get together and create new, more humane standards. Get involved with an educational/cultural copyleft non-profit like Framasoft, a legal/lobbying organization like LQDN/EFF, a local hosting cooperative that provides GAFAM alternatives with a sustainable model (libreho.st/chatons.org networks), a local self-organized/DIY ISP (guifi.net/ffdn.org/freifunk.net networks), a self-organized FLOSS coop, etc.
That aside, yes! In my view, right now those of us able to do what just happened here need to continue. More will pick up on the, to us all too obvious dark patterns...
What to do in order to have this aspect of tech make better sense, augment, empower, add value, serve, rather than enslave, exploit, diminish, create dependence, is going to be the product of discussions we will not have, unless enough of us arrive at this all being an priority and understand the time is now, ish.
New law, and in that place where tech, law and society collide.
We are the ones, and we are because many remember times before all this, many may know nothing, this being all they have known.
It is the timing, mix of perspectives, newness of the tech and more which make this time special. We go too long and the inflection points may just evaporate...
A very similar thing happened with labor, resulting in the likes of the New Deal, by way of what I am trying (poorly, I feel) to get at here.
When we attempt solutions, those form a basis to build on and momentum to get it right, and have it work better for everyone. That matters.
The law is well behind, like we are leaving a "wild west" kind of time and that exit could have us see far worse before people move to address it. Or, it all could go better, sooner too.
I agree! Getting involved matters. Sharing it, particularly among "normies", who sense real trouble,,but do not understand well enough for that momentum to build matters too.
Great comment. Wish I had more and better answers. They will come as more of us seek them and amplify the good potential more than we currently amplify the growing bad.
Since everyone refuses to _directly_ spend money, companies just move to taking money from us indirectly. To me "free services" is like a casinos, its easy to say that you should "just not do/use it lmao" but its extremely hard to think back and consider why Reddit/Hackernews/Youtube/Twitter/Facebook is free and what are the consequences/incentives of it being "free" will mean to our society. It is simply too enticing.