People object to advertising because it is annoying and distracting. If the ads disappear, they got what they paid for. It's not about avoiding their "behavior being monitized", most people don't care about that at all.

▲ mitthrowaway2 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, I care about that as much or more.

▲ jcalvinowens 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You're an outlier. Ask ten people at your local bus stop if this is important to them, and tell me how many start laughing at you :)

▲ dfxm12 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I specifically mentioned people on this website. Based on comments I regularly come across on this website, I don't think the person you're responding to is an outlier. I would hope we can stay on topic.

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jcalvinowens 19 hours ago | parent [-]

You missed the point.

People on this website are too small a fraction of society to ever move the needle. My point is that it doesn't matter what people on this website want with respect to privacy, in our capitalist democratic society it will never happen unless most people want it.

The reality right now is that most people don't want it.

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dfxm12 19 hours ago | parent [-]

If that was your point, I suggest you post more clearly in the future, because your post did not suggest this.

	▲	jcalvinowens 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[flagged]

▲ squigz 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If I went up to random people and went like, "Do you approve of companies tracking what you buy, eat, do, where you go, and every other aspect of your life?" I promise you I would get a majority of "No"s

▲ jcalvinowens 20 hours ago | parent [-]

The question I'm asking is "would you pay more money if the service promised not to sell your data". That's a hard no for most people.

If you frame it as a negative thing with no downsides for agreeing with you, of course people will agree. But that's not the reality.

▲ ajbourg 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not because people don't value their personal data but because they, rightfully, value those promises as worth approximately nothing.

	▲	jcalvinowens 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's an interesting theory, for sure. Continuing down the rabbit hole... I guess you could ask about "company promises" versus "regulatory prohibition". But then one might argue that similarly rests on the population's perception of the efficacy of government regulation, which is certainly also somewhat low... What's the solution then?

▲ skeeter2020 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

People will also say they will pay more for a ephemeral good like privacy or patriotism, so I think you'd be surprised if you ask them your question. Where you're right is will they actually do it, and even if they will how much?

	▲	jcalvinowens 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'd guess that if you ask people about a broad right to privacy, they will mostly express support for it. You could ask: `"Would you pay extra for a guarantee your personal data is kept private?"` vs `"Would you pay extra for a guarantee your data isn't sold for marketing purposes?"` ...and I would guess the first would have a higher "yes" rate, although still low. But I also expect a chunk of people would ask you to define "private" before answering the first question... One might argue "private" implies more than can truly be promised, for example no US company can promise to ignore subpoenas and actually follow through. I'd say it mirrors for patriotism: "do you support $OUR_COUNTRY" will get more "yes" responses than almost any more specific question about support for anything tangible. Precisely because it's sort of meaningless and unobjectionable... (well except in the US, where I'm sure it's correlated with whether or not one's favored party is in power)

▲ squigz 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The claim you made was that people don't care about their behavior being monetized.

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jcalvinowens 20 hours ago | parent [-]

Don't care enough to sacrifice anything tangible to avoid it, yes. I would think it's obvious the question as you framed it biases responses to the point they're meaningless...

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dylan604 20 hours ago | parent [-]

'People object to advertising because it is annoying and distracting. If the ads disappear, they got what they paid for. It's not about avoiding their "behavior being monitized", most people don't care about that at all.'

That's your quote as I read it in case some editing happens. There's no caveat in your original post that you are claiming now. You've moved the goal posts. As you originally stated, I agree with all of the follow up comments to it that you are now trying to expand on your original comment. Maybe that's what you always meant but just left out of the original. It happens. But now you're being obstinate about it in a way that doesn't look good.

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jcalvinowens 20 hours ago | parent [-]

No, you're just nitpicking the semantics and missing the forest for the trees. Everyone except you seems to understand that that was the beginning of a discussion, not an opening statement in a fucking court.

	▲	dylan604 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		yeah, it's me with the problem, that's why i'm at least the 3rd person to take issue

▲ gremlinunderway 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's because acompany promise is useless without actual enforced regulation which is harsh enough to actually add trust in such a contractual agreement being honoured.

This is how we have a free-market to begin with. You need enforcement and structures in place so people will actually trust any of this crap. Instead, we have the nutjob early 90's cyber libertarians thinking this will all be magically fixed with just magical freedom and the invisible hand fixing everything.

	▲	jcalvinowens 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, I don't disagree, another comment touched on the distrust part. But would people trust government privacy regulation more?

▲ pavel_lishin 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

But are you most people?

I'd wager that just by the virtue of being commenters on HN, we're already outliers.

▲ criddell 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Some of us don't care that much about advertising, but we object to surveillance.

▲ ssl-3 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Your opinion is unpopular in this subset of folks here, but it's valid.

It isn't out-of-keeping in this kind of company for a person to start discussions about personal data privacy. In fact: We chat about this stuff here all the time.

But in reality: The number of discussions I've had about personal data privacy and monetization face-to-face with people that I did not meet through a computer network, or bring up myself is exactly 1.

It's thus my observation that most people in the world care about this issue approximately...never.

(The reason they don't care may be that they don't know enough to even begin to question whether the people behind their air fryer, genealogical DNA service, garage door opener, and food delivery system may have ulterior motives.

But guesses about root causation are, at best, both tangential and broadly inconsequential. We can guess and figure and re-figure and even prove theories until the cows come home.

And it doesn't matter.

They didn't care yesterday, they still don't care today while I write this, and they will continue to not care tomorrow.)

▲ gremlinunderway 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People "don't care" because they do not understand the implications or the technology, not because they genuinely have no interest in privacy. Of course its easy to dupe people without technical literacy by characterizing it as some benign "targeted advertising" as if its a service being provided for you (when clearly it's not) rather than the actual answer which is "we want to follow your every movement and pattern of behaviour as if we had someone following you in an unmarked car and then sell that data to anyone willing to cough up the cash without any of your consent".

This narrative is incredibly toxic and honestly a very antisocial viewpoint of people as if they are all just stupid sheep who deserve to be exploited.

There's zero reason why its unfair for a person to both object to advertising because of the annoyance (because it is annoying) AND for a person to not want to be digitally surveilled endlessly without their consent.

	▲	jcalvinowens 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> People "don't care" because they do not understand the implications or the technology, not because they genuinely have no interest in privacy. I don't disagree with you there. > This narrative is incredibly toxic and honestly a very antisocial viewpoint of people as if they are all just stupid sheep who deserve to be exploited. The people get what they vote for, whether or not its what they deserve. The only way to move the needle on this is to educate people. Telling people they're "stupid sheep" for not wanting the thing you think they should want is not typically a winning strategy, in my experience. > There's zero reason why its unfair for a person to both object to advertising because of the annoyance (because it is annoying) AND for a person to not want to be digitally surveilled endlessly without their consent. I'm simply saying I think most people care more about the first thing.