| ▲ | odyssey7 a day ago |
| Have consumers ever been offered the ability to pay Google to opt out of advertisements and to opt into privacy? |
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| ▲ | Hnrobert42 a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| Meta was recently fined 200M€ for offering that choice. Seems unfortunate, but maybe I misunderstood. https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/03/meta_ec_dma_sulk/ |
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| ▲ | buran77 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | The law defines what companies can or cannot do around privacy. So Meta can't go around telling users to pay to get the privacy the law affords them anyway or conversely, if users don't pay they don't get the privacy. The root of the issue is probably the "freely given consent" that the law defines. If Meta charges users unless they consent to something, then the consent isn't freely given. | | |
| ▲ | zelphirkalt 19 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think the issue is not actually how freely given consent is defined, but that these tech giants want to not only offer a useful service, but they also want to be allowed to do whatever they want with user data accumulated through usage of their otherwise useful service. For providing their service, they don't have to use data in the ways that they want to use it. If they were running an honest business, they would be charging the user for using their useful services, not trying to make dime with user data without consent, manufactured "consent", or extorted "consent". They wriggle and wriggle, instead of running an honest business, where people buying access to their platforms would actually reflect the usefulness and real value of people being willing to pay for a service. That would be a very transparent number, and that cannot be made look more than it is to shareholders though. I think if they did this, then their whole value would collapse massively back down to sane levels. Now they have blown this whole ads and attention machinery waaay out of proportion and will do anything to keep it pumped up. Heck, they want to pump it up even more, because we all know iiiinfinite growth! They would not be satisfied, if their business spanned the whole solar system. |
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| ▲ | ruszki a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | No, the ruling said that the free version shouldn’t gather/use as much data as now. The problem is with the free part, not that you can pay for the ad free version. If the free part is not that invasive, it’s completely fine to keep the pay-or-use-your-data model. |
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| ▲ | woobar a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Facebook offered paid subscription for ad-free experience in Europe.[1] First, europeans complained it is too expensive. After a price cut, they EC still wanted a free version with less personalization.[2] If google offers something similar, I am pretty sure Europeans will find something else to complain about. [1] https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-... [2] https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-let-facebook... |
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| ▲ | LtWorf a day ago | parent [-] | | ad-free and "we won't sell your data" are two different things. |
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| ▲ | Workaccount2 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| About a decade ago google trialed a program where you could pay monthly to "buy out" ad spaces. So you wouldn't get served ads, or you would get served fewer ads, and the money would be deducted from what you allotted per month. Of course "What kind of dumbass would pay to not see ads when uBlock Origin is free? lololol" It didn't ever get traction or last very long before being canned. This is the mentality that money-compensation-business-plan tech companies would have to face; "What kind of dumbass would pay for your product?" |
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| ▲ | cjbgkagh a day ago | parent | next [-] | | The more you’re willing to pay to opt out of ads the more valuable the ads are. Also the ads are auctioned and in opting out you’re all ways going to be the highest bidder. Additionally how would you know the other bidders were real, it’s a massive information asymmetry that’s open to abuse. And I’m pretty sure they have abused it in the past. I use substack and patreon and I wish we had micro transactions that’ll enable more of this model for content. Now much of the same info is recycled via AI, instead of reading blogs / stack overflow etc I just ask AI and so far I can use AI without ads. I do pay for a subscription to Gemini. | |
| ▲ | martin-t a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Because it's extortion just like paying the mafia for "protection" from themselves. See, ads are not a pro-social service. Their fundamental goal is not to inform and facilitate mutually beneficial exchange of goods/services. Their goal is to allow companies who spend ad-money to gain an advantage over competitors who don't, regardless of quality of the product. Ads are a fundamentally anti-competitive practice. | | |
| ▲ | tonyhart7 a day ago | parent [-] | | while I agree that Ads is sucks as a whole but how can you generate revenue from free service ????? I mean its not like paid service that dont have ads and giving privacy is non existent either, we have proton mail for example | | |
| ▲ | martin-t a day ago | parent [-] | | You can't. So don't advertise it as free. It's just lying, simple as that. People either pay with their data, their attention or their money. Companies should be required to be transparent about how much revenue each of these sources generates. | | |
| ▲ | tonyhart7 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | "You can't. So don't advertise it as free. It's just lying" its free as you paid zero dollar "People either pay with their data, their attention or their money." for some people money is more important than their data, and its vice versa with wealthy customer I agree that in the future maybe we can control how much data/money we can paid for the service but that just not possible in current time | | |
| ▲ | martin-t 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | > its free as you paid zero dollar What about other currencies? Do you only count state-issues currencies? Have you heard about barter? > but that just not possible in current time Why not? | | |
| ▲ | tonyhart7 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | "What about other currencies? Do you only count state-issues currencies?" well you convert them to usd "Have you heard about barter?" well you are free to choose paid service that else where, I dont understand this coming from. no one force you to choose free product | | |
| ▲ | martin-t 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | The point is it's not free, you're exchanging time, attention and data instead of money. In fact, you're exchanging them at a rate you are not informed about which means you are disadvantaged in this exchange. It would be free if for example there were 2 tiers, free and paid and the free tier would be entirely supported by the paying customers. But it's not. This is another way companies can legally lie to customers. I honestly don't understand why you keep defending them. |
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| ▲ | tensor a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Somewhat. You can pay for workspace to keep your email private and ad free. |
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| ▲ | dizhn a day ago | parent [-] | | Guarded by a "privacy policy". This is Google. How come this "if you're not paying for it, you're the product" crowd doesn't get that it doesn't matter if you're paying or not, you're always the product? | | |
| ▲ | beambot a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Id be shocked if the freemium privacy policy & obligations for, say, Gmail is the same as the corporate privacy policy under GSuite/Workspace... With the latter, there's a direct contractual relationship since you're paying Google for services | |
| ▲ | tonyhart7 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't like this argument since this is can be applied to everything and You expect people to roll out their own service for everything since everything is a product in some form or another its okay to depends on some product because they are just good, for example people free to use Office alternative which is free btw but people literally dont choose that because MS Office is just better all of this deep talk discussion is irrelevant since User want an working product that they expect them to its just that |
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| ▲ | earthnail a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It’s the same in all consumer marketplaces. Free or freemium has won. It‘s not Google specific. |
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| ▲ | SoftTalker a day ago | parent [-] | | The vast majority of peope put very little value on their time and attention and sense of aesthetics (even if they might say otherwise). It's the only explanation for why advertising is as pervasive as it is. |
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