excellent news
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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Privacy
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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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it's baffling to me that these big tech companies haven't created a subscription that lets you opt out of data collection yet. such a low hanging fruit to improve their image and probably make even more money
There is an universally available subscription that applies to all services, costs $0/month, refuses donations, and is called uBlock Origin.
Haven't noticed any of the YouTube issues either so far.
That would make one third more aware and inform the other 2/3 of the data-collecting-vs.-showing-ads issue.
itβs baffling to me that these big tech companies havenβt created a subscription that lets you opt out of data collection
It's not baffling when you understand that big data makes a lot more money out of the data they steal from you than any money you'd be willing to give them directly. Not to mention, it allows them to cozy up to the police state agencies - possibly their most important customers.
The other reason why they haven't offered it is because nobody would take them up on the offer: most people are cheapskates who are perfectly okay giving up their privacy if they can save a buck.
And those who would gladly pay to escape the corporate surveillance machine know that it won't stop tracking them even if they do, so they don't.
The corporate surveillance economy is a self-fulfilling prophecy (as in "we do it because people like this deal" even if people don't and in reality have no other choice) and a race to the bottom.
They have considered this, I think Facebook was even experimenting with it. But it isn't as obvious a play as it looks.
- Most people won't pay, so you are spending resources creating a product that will be used by a tiny fraction of users.
- The people who are willing to pay are typically those that you make the most off of with ads, because they tend to have more disposable income. This means that the price is much higher than you would expect.
It would be hard for them to prove that they've actually done it, and they won't want to admit that giving them your data is something undesirable.
Tells a lot about the business of personal data in adtech ;-)
"guess we'll have to insert a totally-irrelevant ad every now and then to throw 'em off. good thing we get all this user data to know what that will be."
-zuck, in the not-so-distant future