Technology

Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?

Yes, I already do. I don't visit Instagram because you need to login to view posts.

What's all the fuss about, you don't care?

I definitely care.

Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?

Ah, now this is an interesting question. I can certainly see an argument that ads are necessary to support "free" content, although personally in many cases I prefer to pay a subscription to support content rather than being subjected to ads.

Really though this is kind of a red herring because it's predisposing that violating your privacy and collecting personal information is a prerequisite to serving ads. It's required for individually targeted ads, yes, but they don't need to traget ads to the individual, they could target the ad by site or the contents of the page hosting the ad.

Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?

I would not visit any site that sold my details to an advertiser.

Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?

Yes, this is very bad.

Is this no different from using any other technology platform that's free (If it's free, you're the product)?

There's a reason I don't use most "social media" sites.

Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from a privacy invasive practices of the past?

Yes, or find a different revenue model that doesn't invade people's privacy.

Constantly being brainwashed to consume is one of the great evils of our time. Consumerism is bad for mental health and the environment. But advertising also creates many biases in content creation.

When was the last time you heard anything about bad effects of advertising? Not just superficial "stupid ad" but as a massive corrosive force on society? That is how much freedom of speech we have.

So, internet users may soon need to create accounts on sites they currently access for free. As Laporte worries, "We thought those cookie permission popups were bad, but things may be getting much worse" regarding being forced to hand over personal information just to browse sites.

Good way to kill your site, this is the one thing everyone hates, from the enthusiast to the casual user, making an useless account for 1 service that you barely use.

Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?

Lots of sites require a free account these days. I don't visit those sites.

What’s all the fuss about, you don’t care?

I care.

Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?

I like advertising - how else are you supposed to find out what products/services are available? Regularly visit every website of every company I might be interested in? That doesn't work.

It's data collection I dislike, nothing wrong with ads as long as they're a reasonably short interruption. Make ads relevant to the content, not the visitor.

Unfortunately under the current system I don't see ads, because the only way to block tracking is to also block most ads. Sorry, but ad networks have burned that bridge. It's going to take time to rebuild it.

Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?

A website would need to offer some really valuable service for me to "trade personal details". Even sites where I have an account (e.g. YouTube) I generally don't log into that account.

Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?

I think anything that gives users control over wether or not they're tracked is a good thing - and forcing people to sign up / agree to terms before using a site does that. If websites want my personal details to access them... that's fine with me. I just won't use those sites. Other people will make a different decision. It's how it should be.

I also think I'm not alone, and plenty of major sites will choose to just not do any tracking. I look forward to using those sites.

Is this no different from using any other technology platform that’s free (If it’s free, you’re the product)?

I reject that premise. Lemmy is free. I don't feel like "the product" when I use lemmy. The product is the content and the discussions. If Lemmy has a few ads on every page, I'd be fine with that. I think it'd be a good idea - as long as it's done right, without invading privacy.

Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from privacy invasive practices of the past?

It's their business, choose whatever revenue model they want. Just be honest and open about it.

I vehemently oppose Google having hegemony over web standards, but I'll still happily enjoy the delicious schadenfreude of propagandists -- excuse me, "advertisers" -- getting screwed by that hegemony.

I dabble in marketing for my company. Let me just say advertisers don't need a damn cookie to know who you are to serve you ads. Even across multiple devices. There are so many methods.. literally over a dozen when cross referenced tells companies exactly who you are, even on vpn, even incognito.

The secret trick here: nobody will make a new username and password - nor should they. They'll only log in if they have a convenient login with Google/FB/MS button. Which gives Google premium position in tracking.

I already click right back out of websites that don’t make it easy to reject cookies or ask for an email. I certainly won’t be registering anywhere and will find other ways to get the information I need. At this point I am immediately turned off by anything that relies heavily on ad-revenue to exist anyway.

posted February 13 2024

"Google recently announced that its dominant Chrome browser will phase out support for third-party cookies by the end of 2023"

"AI Written Human Edited"

We can tell

This is great news! But I'm sure Google is probably using it as a way to get all the cookies for themselves and then sell that data to these companies.

The companies will still get their data but they'll have to buy it from Google only as Google will probably be considered a 1st party cookie vendor.

If any site wants me to sign up to use it, I'll just not use it. No big deal.

Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?

I already generally do.

What’s all the fuss about, you don’t care?

I honestly don't much care, but that's because western civilization is circling the drain, warped and undermined at every turn by wealthy and powerful psychopaths, and it's just not worth it to care, since there's absolutely nothing I can do to stop them

Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?

Some sort of revenue stream is potentially necessary, but that's the extent of it. Advertising is just one revenue stream, and even if we limit the choices to that, there are still many different ways it could be implemented.

The specific forms of advertising to which we're subjected on the internet are very much not necessary. And they don't exist as they do because the costs of serving content require that much revenue - they exist as they do to pay for corporate bloat - ludicrously expensive real estate and facilities and grotesquely inflated salaries for mostly useless executive shitheads.

Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?

Again, that's what I already do, so it would just add more sites to those I won't visit.

Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?

At this point, the two are almost always one and the same. Internet technology is primarily harnessed to the goal of maximizing income for the well-positioned few, and all other considerations are secondary.

Is this no different from using any other technology platform that’s free (If it’s free, you’re the product)?

This is cynically amusing on Lemmy.

Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from privacy invasive practices of the past?

Of course they should, but they won't, because they're psychopaths. They'll never give up any of their grotesque and destructive privilege, even if that means that they ultimately destroy the host on which they're parasites.

I don't quite understand the leap from "No third party cookies" to "You need to create an account".

If you're visiting a site and they drop a cookie, that's a first party cookie. You don't need to log in for that to happen, and they can track you all the same. Taking identifiers from a first party cookie and passing them to advertisers will still be a thing, it'll just require closer coordination between the site and the advertiser than if the advertiser dropped their own cookie.

Now yes, that first party cookie won't follow you around to other websites and track your behavior there, but creating an account wouldn't enable this anyway. Besides, Google's Privacy Sandbox product suite is intended to fill this role in a less granular way (associating k-anonymized ids with advertising topics across websites).

I am not sure if advertising is a necessary evil. I guess I do not like being sold something constantly, and when I am in the market for anything, I will expose myself to advertising willingly, but it is, in way, a matter of consent. I can imagine that there is also people who like being sold things unsolicited, you know, they might say that they like discovering new products through advertisements.

This is great news! I hope this ends the era of subversive psychological targeting that's given rise to so much of the division in our culture.