This, imho, is the biggest reason people don't update their software. They've caught onto the fact that the term "updates" is misleading, and it would be better call it an "anti-feature delivery mechanism".
This is why we need two separate channels for updates: One for security, and the other for features.
But, unfortunately, quite unlikely: it assumes extra thought must go into architecture and implementation. If you look around and see the current state of software industry, the rapid increase of entropy in software systems, the push of the market for cheaper, or completely free software, you'll find no pressure ever to deliver an "anti-feature delivery mechanism".
Plus, making a perfect product effectively puts you out of business. But ship a product that needs support, customization, training, consulting, periodic updates, maintenance - and you a rich man!
I'm legitimately curious as to why you only learned this only today. We've known that governments have been taking data like this from companies for a long time. All access that Google has is pretty much up for the government to grab.
It is much more likely in my opinion that people would become desensitized to data breaches and stop taking any of them seriously. Equifax or Cambridge Analytica would have been just another in a deluge of notifications.
> All the free content and services on the web has to be paid for somehow, and that is the way.
This is false. We had a perfectly healthy ecosystem before ads invaded the web. In most ways it was better because it was built by people who cared, rather than by companies who wanted to extract money and power from their visitors.
Web build by people who care and don't earn money on it still exists. Its audience is smaller proportion of total audience then it used to be.
And also, people who care want pay raise too. They enjoy living in better flat, going at better holidays, buying better bicycle for children or eventually have periods of life where it is impossible to have job, family and time consuming hobby at the same time.
I very intentionally wrote "pay raise" instead of "some minimal amount of money".
Also, both succesfull patreon and succesfull kickstarter require significant effort to pull off. You have to create materials, build community and promote promote and so on. It is a lot of managerial work.
We are not talking about "buy third yacht" level of money here. We are talking about "I can finally afford dentist or something else basic" amount of money here. It makes difference in people's lives.
Are you suggesting that everyone who wants a pay raise deserves it just because they can build a website? If so, then I want a pay raise. But I'm unwilling to sacrifice my users' security and privacy to do it.
Nobody said it was easy to raise money. If it was, everyone would do it.
Crowdfunding and donations make plenty if money to afford a dentist or other basic needs. There are plenty of full-time groups making money with it. I don't know why you think thats not possible when it is already happening.
You are changing the topic. It started with false dichotomy between ads and caring for content and continued through "this form of monetization is more effective then the other one". I am suggesting that using "want money" as dirty word as if it wad something people (who don't even earn a lot) should be ashamed off is manipulative false argument.
Most crowdfunding campaigns fail. Most pay for medical campaigns fail. Most including those succesfull don't earn enough to be full time.
Inspirational feel good article about succesfull campaign is not representative of average case.
Can you point to where I said that wanting more money is a "dirty word"? Or can you point to where I said it was wrong to want more money? I don't see anything like that in any of my posts, and I certainly don't believe that to be true.
Most advertisement based sites fail. Does that mean we should also abandon that model?
Nobody said that the average campaign should succeed. I definitely don't believe that.
You can't just keep putting words into my mouth and then claim that I am the one changing the topic.
>>> All the free content and services on the web has to be paid for somehow, and that is the way.
>> This is false. We had a perfectly healthy ecosystem before ads invaded the web. In most ways it was better because it was built by people who cared, rather than by companies who wanted to extract money and power from their visitors.
> But is it sustainable that way?
Yes. It'd be different, but sustainable. Sites like Wikipedia are proof of that.
It baffling that people claim that the web requires ads and trackers to survive when a counterexample is one of the top three links on nearly all of their searches.
> It baffling that people claim that the web requires ads and trackers to survive when [obviously it can]
It's a question of the content you put in the word "web". As a corrolary: I believe that "TV" would not exist without advertising.
I know that electomagnetic radiation, signal processing, and ray tubes are wholly orthogonal to Kelloggs selling cereal. But the modern television media landscape and its dedication to Brave New World style audience-capture is unfathomable without people splashing money at it to sell things.
So what is "the web"? Telnet, TCP, and HTTP? We don't need your stinking banners! We have oodles of excess server bandwidth and our websites are rarely more than 10K (of gorgeous hand-crafted fully-accessible HTML, natch).
But is "the web" your advertiser-supported newspaper? Your advertiser-supported searches? Your advertiser-supported social media news feed? Your advertiser-supported free phone app? Your advertiser-supported image host? Those things are, so far, only sustainably available through advertising.
Crack the micro-currency and micro-valuation code for everyone online and maybe that "web" can live without ads... we're not there yet though :)
> Those things are, so far, only sustainably available through advertising.
Really? Then I guess sites and creators that are sponsored via donations never got that memo.
We have plenty of money coming in via ethical channels. Sure, not as much as with asdvertising, but IME, most sites have severely bloated budgets compared to what they actually need for sustainability, and thats why we have the problems that exist today.
Sorry, but there are no donation based major national news organizations or donation based search titans with historically large market caps or donation based social media empire whose CEOs political whims shake national elections the world round. Facebook, Google, PictureHostOfTheMoment, and the media giants with traditional business models are the essence of what most people are using their time on online. That's "the web" for most people most of the time.
I mean... Grab a random high-schoolers phone and see what percentage of services they're using are (in)directly funded by advertising and advertisers.
Your observations about the economics of the bulk of web-development are probably correct, but relatively minor compared to the mega-billions in suboptimal efficiency in every other aspect of those organizations... And the issue is always that "sustainability" is not growth, and growing frequently requires actions that are unsustainable in the long-term to achieve. Businesses grow, transition, and reshape themselves within the context of new revenue streams, and acquiring those new revenue streams is how you make owners richer and secure any desired financing.
So yeah, really, as of todays date "the web", a la "TV", is a pure advertising apparatus to capture audience and move product with peripheral benefits in political manipulation. Other models have not been validated by the market, nor consumers. Remember we all want ads, in the abstract.
You went from "isn't sustainable" to "has to be a worldwide major economic and political powerhouse" and claim that I'm the one that moved the goalposts?
> Sorry, but there are no donation based major national news organizations or donation based search titans with historically large market caps or donation based social media empire whose CEOs political whims shake national elections the world round. Facebook, Google, PictureHostOfTheMoment, and the media giants with traditional business models are the essence of what most people are using their time on online. That's "the web" for most people most of the time.
Actually, I think you're the one that's moved them. I don't think anyone can claim that we'd get a clone of today's web if we took tracking and advertising out of the picture. However, that doesn't mean we wouldn't get a different web that was good and valuable. We might even get something that's more valuable than today's. Projects like Wikipedia prove that extraordinary valuable things can be built online from volunteer labor and donations. If you personally need every idea to be validated by the market, then that's your validation.
It does. No, that would not make sense of the majority of sites. Majority of sites have limited audience (topically, or geographically), so costs would be nowhere as high, and could be handled by personal input + donations (for private sites), or written off as marketing expense (for company sites).
Yes, websites do not have to pay for themselves directly. The idea they should is underlying lots of current web problems.
> ...and creating APIs so that extensions can handle the functionality instead.
If they were actually doing that, I'd be first in line for their defense, but they aren't. Additionally, they keep shoving in features that should be extensions.
> Also, forget about sending email from home. Email sent from residential IPs are instantly deleted....
Sorry, but this hasn't been my experience at all. I see this claim all the time, and, obviously, ymmv, but I've been using residential IPs for ~10 years with no issues.
> 553 5.7.1 [BL21] Connections not accepted from IP addresses on Spamhaus PBL
> Dynamic or residential IP addresses as determined by Spamhaus PBL (Error: 553 5.7.1 [BL21])
> The Spamhaus PBL is a DNSBL database of end-user IP address ranges which should not be delivering unauthenticated SMTP email to any Internet mail server except those provided for specifically by an ISP for that customer's use. The PBL helps networks enforce their Acceptable Use Policy for dynamic and non-MTA customer IP ranges.
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I guess you're lucky enough that your IP adress has not been tagged as "residential" by Spamhaus.
This is why we need two separate channels for updates: One for security, and the other for features.