I would be very happy to discuss the matter with you but there seems to be some hostility and edge in the way you argue your point which makes it hard to engage with.

Anyway, in short, everything you said applies to literally any human or even animal: if you give them something for free and then take it away unless they pay for it, they won't accept it (google maps). On the other hand, if you provide something for a price, and it's needed, people will pay even if there is an alternative (e.g. Netflix).

The difference is that many/most people are ok with ads as a form of payment for the free services, while others (including Europeans) are not ok with the additional hidden clauses regarding how their personal data is used. Is that wrong? I don't think so.

To make it more realistic, imagine getting a TV for free because it will insert ads every X minutes. The tradeoffs are pretty clear: Good TV for my time/attention.

But if someone then started also recording from said TV the inside of my room, my and my family's faces to be sold to unknown parties for unknown uses (and sometimes even to antagonists) then I don't think anyone would believe it is a fair implementation of the original and presented "agreement" (even if it is stated in their 1000 pages ToS).

Now, if Europeans start being vocal politically that such an invasion of privacy is not acceptable, does that make their claims invalid because there is no valid alternative to such services?

I'm pretty sure today's tech giants would be profitable even without the privacy invasion and the selling of the data; furthermore if their premium versions did not actually show you ads (some show you ads even if you pay), I'm sure people will slowly start gravitating there as they stop being ok trading their attention/time for money.

But if Facebook explicitly told you "pay us X/mo or we will sell your personal data to Russia", would people actually pay them or, perhaps, would they start considering other saner alternatives? I guess we'll never know.

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jandrewrogers a day ago | parent | next [-]

I've been party to exactly these types of policy discussions in Europe and elsewhere for a couple decades now.

The consistent political pushback against mandatory paid options that are ad-free is that it excludes people that can't afford them. It is unfair because it only advantages people with money. Therefore "free" is the only valid policy choice because there is always someone who can't pay. This limits what is possible as a practical matter.

The obvious alternative to an ad-funded model within these constraints is for the government to pay the companies for the service on condition that they remove ads from their country. Needless to say, the idea of paying "taxes" to Google et al to remove the ads is offensive to many of the same people.

So we are stuck with the status quo of "free" ad-funded services because people aren't willing to accept the necessary tradeoffs to change the situation.

	▲	xandrius a day ago \| parent [-]
		The topic here is not ads vs not-ads. It's "why are companies who are already paid via ads also want to make extra money selling personal data to third parties?".

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Workaccount2 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I think the ideal solution is forcing companies to offer privacy focused ad-free options as a subscription, with a cost calculated from the average revenue per fully tracked/ad-riddled user, maybe plus some small premium.

Of course, this would likely receive a lot of blow-back in the form of "Looks like now you have to be rich to not get your life sold to third parties" and "Google used to be equal for all and now they are just going to prey on the most vulnerable in society"

The only way to win in this situation is for people to understand that things cost money. They probably cost more than you expect, and you probably will want your ads and tracking back once you see the true cost. After all, at the end of the day, the downside to these decades of tracking to most people has been "Damn, how does google know I buy Tide detergent!".

	▲	sellmesoap 21 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I had to add my two cents here because of my username... A problem I have is that Facebook spent a mint getting everyone on board, so a lot of folks I know use it. Myself being die-hard about not using Facebook has probably cost me a lot of network opportunities (also linked-in) people don't see me there and the hiring folks throw my resume to /dev/null The advice I receive is "give in". I pay for my email provider, but the only way into these walled gardens is be on the wrong side of the fence.
	▲	xandrius a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		This is a false dichotomy: it's not a given that companies must make money out of personal data. There are things which shouldn't be for sale, and I believe personal information is one of those. Even though we don't have another universe to compare ours to, I believe companies started selling personal data not because people didn't want to pay for their services (since they do that even if you DO pay for them) but mainly because it is profitable. End of the story. I am always surprised why people here attach so much humanity and conventional logic to huge international for-profit VC-backed companies: they will do literally anything if at the end of the day they come out in the green (aka profitable). Even illegal things, if the expected payout is lower than profits created. I also believe that if literally killing people made some company $X and their analysts predict having to pay $Y to governments (with $Y substantially lower than $X) once in a while, someone would eventually decide to do that. And such a company wouldn't have trouble finding shareholders and employees.