| The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads, or if it does have ads/tracking, that you are trivially capable of blocking them while still totally enjoying the service/product. xcancel, archive, whatever are all tools almost solely meant to access monetized content without having to contribute to the monetize part. Then those companies are told they "suck" when they don't like it. Most importantly, the competitors that the internet endlessly cries for to show up to dethrone these giants, see what is going on and say "lol, nope". |
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| ▲ | swed420 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". There's no reason you can't abolish login walls while still serving ads. > The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free Capital interests have this innate expectation that everything must be profitable. This vision is ripe for the picking: https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/ | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash an hour ago | parent [-] | | >Capital interests have this innate expectation that everything must be profitable. What rubs me the wrong way about statements like this, is that it is almost always said by people who totally miss that they are advocating for things that are personally profitable for them. A website that allows you to skirt paywalls, is immensely profitable to the end user. That same end user, who detests the idea of having to spend money, then complains loudly that corporations just want their money. And it is completely lost on them they are playing the exact same game as corporations. The actual break from "corporate profits" is to not engage with the corporations products at all. But that overwhelming is not what we see. Instead it is just two entities fighting over money, because they both have the same root motivation to maximize money. | | |
| ▲ | swed420 an hour ago | parent [-] | | > A website that allows you to skirt paywalls, is immensely profitable to the end user. login wall != paywall As for your apples:oranges comparison about maximizing money, which group do you suppose has an unfair advantage these days? Modern Capitalism Is Weirder Than You Think: It also no longer works as advertised https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/how-asset-managers-h... (https://archive.is/wSmtd) | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 41 minutes ago | parent [-] | | All the evidence in the world that corporations are greedy doesn't detract from the fact the end users are also greedy. It's all greed, all the ways down. I also can't read the article, not going to make an account, and I stand by not backdooring. | | |
| ▲ | immibis2 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | What's wrong with that? Capitalism is about everyone being as greedy as possible. If you aren't greedy while your adversary is greedy, you give up everything you have. | |
| ▲ | swed420 35 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Convenient that your "principles" disallow you from seeing critique of said principles. |
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| ▲ | afavour an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads I don't think we always need to broaden this out to industry wide levels. We can talk about things specifically. In this case, X/Twitter has put a login wall in front of posts to boost signups. It never used to. That's a meaningful difference that people seek alternatives to. | | |
| ▲ | fragmede an hour ago | parent [-] | | They went login only in the wake of Hi-Q vs LinkedIn, which established that scraping a login-free site is legal. |
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| ▲ | thewebguyd 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". Or in the case of X, how about just let me browse without creating an account? Likewise with meta/FB, IG, etc. The reality is businesses and other services post here, share status updates, etc. often before their main pages. I'd like to read those, and yet I have no desire to actually post or interact with any of the content, just read it. I should not need an account for that. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash an hour ago | parent [-] | | Then the correct action is to either create a competitor, or point money/ad views at a competitor. But like I said, the internet is largely unwilling to do this. You won't make a competitor that is a charity, and the internet at large won't point dollars and ad-views at a nascent start-up in the space. | | |
| ▲ | kennywinker 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > But like I said, the internet is largely unwilling to do this Sorry, what? The internet is unwilling to create twitter clones? Bluesky, mastodon, pleroma, misskey, diaspora, threads, fucking truth social… there is no shortage of twitter alternatives. | |
| ▲ | thewebguyd an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | None of that has to do with blocking the content behind a login wall. X can still serve ads just fine to non-logged in users. I'm against the site running ads, at all, I'm against mandatory account creation. The internet ran ad supported without mandatory accounts for years. | | |
| ▲ | arjie 43 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | True, and Britain ruled the waves with wooden warships for a long time. But if they went back to wooden warships they would not rule the waves. The world has changed. Adblock, archive.is, third party mirrors all exist today. | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 39 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can rest assured, 100%, that account walls are also there for money. I'd be tickled if you argue that corporations create friction for any other reason than money. |
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| ▲ | throwaway894345 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Your comment seems to implicitly assume that X has some ethical claim to the content they're monetizing, when in fact they're trying to monetize _others'_ content. |
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