I don't think people understand how the economics of these apps (and websites) work, and it's been so long now that their incorrect assumptions (the feeds are free and the greedy providers shove ads in them) have turned into bedrock beliefs.
You pay for instagram with your personal data, which is used to target you with high value ads. Which covers the cost of your continued usage. If you don't like it, don't use instagram. If you really don't like it, lobby for the law to make it illegal, but get your credit card ready for another monthly subscription.
But I think every web designer knows that putting even the slightest barrier between the user and the content drives away vast numbers of people. Making them enter a credit card -- even if you told them it would never be charged -- would send enormous numbers away.
Many won't even create a free account. Tracking tech is so sneaky because just the effort of logging in is too much.
Maybe the world would be a better place if we bit the bullet, nuked the vast majority of web sites, and built a better web on what's left. But it's not going to be an instant, ad-free privacy paradise.
Dear god, yes, please, good. Pass laws that force the bloated companies to lose users. Yes. World = better.
I have a pet theory that these business models paper over the vast worthlessness of many modern technologies. That the value of Facebook is not in it's technologies or network, but rather in the arbitrage of the value of data when combined. We pay for the nearly worthless service of facebook, with our nearly worthless data. Facebook combines that data with other data from other people, and create data that is extremely valuable for advertisers.
The important bit of this theory is that Facebook is presumed nearly worthless. What that means is that outlawing their combining or collection of data from users wouldn't cause their service to transition to a pay-per-user model, but rather would completely dissolve the product, which nobody would miss.
To an extent. I think if everyday users were shown just how much personal data follows them around from site to site I think they’d be horrified. Enough to change their habits? Possibly not. But I don’t think people have full understanding.
That's precisely why it should be done statutorily. People are known to be irrational about free things, so it's a fundamentally anti-competitive business model that disadvantages companies that want to actually charge for their services.
The reason is of course that tracking is their moat. Nobody else has tracking networks as pervasive as them. But everyone can sell context-based ads
Really? It took me until like 2012-2013 to realize Google searches stalked me to other websites.
Then again much critics at that time of big tech was disregarded as lunatic crackpots. And nowadays your are a crackpot if you claim they are not spying on you. I guess that matters.
That is unfortunate, due to Mark Zuckerberg has redefined the successful business model. META is on track to clear $80 billion per year in net profit. Like it or not, they have a mutually beneficial relationship with advertisers and investors. It's like a Unicorn reproduced with an ATM. It's one of the stocks that seem like neutral ground for institutions, like TSLA. There has to be a high table where those guys talk on phones carried in suitcases.
To put $80 billion per year in perspective, that is approximately the amount of annual federal Medicare matching funds reimbursement for the state of California (Cal-Aid).
So yeah, I understand that Meta wants a lot of money, but I reject the idea that we need to suffer this much to have the social features we need.
Even that's not enough with the shadow profiles they build on people without accounts. It's more like "if you don't like it, don't use instagram and also make sure none of your friends, coworkers, family, associates, or anywhere you go doesn't use it either. Also make sure you, nor the others mentioned, visit any website using Meta's pixel."
We definitely need laws when an individual effectively can't opt out because of network effects.
I do worry that without that free option users just simply wouldn't ever try anything new and just stay where they are new. If everything costs money to move ... I worry nobody moves and everything stagnates. Facebook and similar, now in an even stronger position.
Users, for worse, like it this way and make free with ads the best route because of their choices. Users with their choices incentivize this system too ...
It's not quite that simple though. The problem is that they are not simply showing you relevant ads, they actively attempt to deliver an outcome the ad is trying to achieve.
On the surface this is relatively benign, Nike wants to sell shoes, they run ads and optimise towards shoe sales, and Meta makes that happen.
But what happens when people run political advertising? What happens when crypto companies promote scams?
this can be a business model, economic circumstance, mgmt change. a lot can trigger such a shift in services up to then just fine to use.
most companies did not start out on these premises, and its really hard to tell what service will turn next.
i hope maybe ISPs could handle it and offer it as a service. like an ad free internet. but then they will just more deeply embed the ads and it will still get past. changes in designs of the apps will lead to blocking being ineffective.
so really then all that is left is not to use anything that has potential to identify you and your use of it. thats not a lot of things currently. most are frowned upon if you use it in a lot of regions.
You do not pay for Instagram with your personal data. The data is elsewhere, not on Instagram. For example with your local retailer or credit card company.
Instagram pays for data about you, which they buy from other people. You do not have a say in this for the most part. Whether or not Instagram buys this data does not affect its collection.
You pay for Instagram with your time spent watching ads. The data they collect about you is mostly not for ads, it's to get you to spend more time on Instagram
To make it clear why this matters: If you banned advertising on social media, the amount of data collected about you would not decrease
I am not arguing for this model, my feed is getting more useless every day, but the only other model is subscription based like you say. And for Facebook, Meta and the like, I don’t think the subscription revenue will be anywhere close due to economies of scale on the free model.
I like the hybrid approach of being able to be ad-supported or paid with no ads. I would like to see more of it.
What I don't like is a paid service like Amazon Prime that also includes ads. They include ads in their search results and they include tons of ads in their video library.
FWIW: Hulu offers paid access to content with ads but offers an upgrade to get rid of most of the ads, so there seems to be a whole lot of testing what works in this area going on right now, which I see as a good thing, I just hope that once everything settles the predominant model will be fair and respect user privacy.
Or to put it another way, most of the content on the internet is already unpaid with the creator not receiving any compensation. What's left is the hosting/distribution and we can find many different ways to (collectively) pay for that besides ads and user subscriptions.
actually i forgot about youtube
For me the tracking is a lot more harmful than the ads. Ads are much more noticeable but tracking is a lot more insidious.
It's really that tracking that I want to see gone
Don't they already offer this? Did it get canceled?
basic history one google search away for the top ranking comment on Hacker News
So if any ad is shown based on user profiling from data gathered illegally (i.e. without a proper opt-in as per GDPR etc) then the site showing the ad could potentially be sued?
Essentially, make it so onerous to legally advertise without risking a large class action lawsuit that the practice more or less dies out without technically being "banned" per se...
I get what you're saying but by current EU privacy law interpretation this approach is not allowed.
You can of course charge for services but you cannot charge people just to get rid of tracking. This is not to be confused with ads. You can run ads and offer a paid version without ads. It's about the tracking.
Early Google style text box ads were fine. Any ad put on the side of the page with no animated elements is probably fine. But in reality ads are intrusive and those block my mental process when I'm trying to read about of focus on something. Especially ads in videos would just make me focus really, really hard on blocking off the message until I can restore my mental stack and continue with the original video. (I can't watch youtube with ads, for that reason.) Anything that pops up, takes space, or requires me to find an X button to shut them off gets me to C-w the browser tab nearly without exception.
If the ads do behave I don't particularly mind. I even used to peruse ads in print magazines. In fact, untargetted ads are generally complete shit and if the "inter Net cloud thing" has even an inkling of what I might be interested at all, that's all the better I think. I don't ever click on ads though, so I'm probably not part of the prime target audience. But meaningful ads may make me add their products in the comparison set if I'm in the process of buying something similar.
The data is extraordinarily valuable and the morals of Meta is so utterly low.
I've long thought we are going to reach a point where the return on social advertising isn't worth the investment, these models have a crisis and pivot, but it still seems to be going strong.
There's also a bit of competitive pressure. Even if people get numb to ads, business, especially small businesses, can't afford to not show up if their competitors are still showing up in feeds.
The usual advertising psychology tricks still apply also which is why ads still work. Even if the ad itself doesn't result in a conversion, there's still the exposure effect of someone seeing your brand over and over again in their feed. The more times someone sees it, they'll subconsciously start preferring that brand or see it as more trustworthy. Among other tricks.
These companies are filled to the brim with utter sociopaths, Especially Facebook. Companies that internal metrics with them fully aware of the mental health damage they're doing at a massive scale to young children, and buried it.
Companies that did psychological manipulation AB tests.
The judgement requires Meta to change their platforms within 2 weeks so that the user's choice is persistent. If not implemented in 2 weeks, there is a daily penalty of €100'000, up to a maximum of €5 million.
In Dutch this is called a "last onder dwangsom": an injuctive order enforced by a conditional fine.
Their annual report is online at https://2024.bitsoffreedom.nl/en/ for people who want to learn more.
Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a!
That is the implication. The point of the first fine isn't to actually hurt Meta. It's to signal that there will be consequences, that the excuse of "but we thought it was legal" is gone now and give them one final chance to get their act together.
It's to pre-emptively clear away any possibility for Meta to appeal to either higher courts or the court of public opinion that they're being treated unfairly. Which they would do if you immediately hit them with a say, €5 billion fine.
Meta: lol
Though, practically speaking, America has been threatening to make the trade war they started much worse for the EU if it tried to enforce things like DSA and GDPR fines. We'll have to see how enforceable these laws really are.
Perhaps this case doesn't warrant it, but generally speaking I'd like to see allocating jailtime across the top shareholders as an option.
If my dog bites somebody, I'm on the hook, it should be no different with a company.
So not entirely useless.
I would be curious if the order stands as for curation as well. Someone could have 1000s of friends, and you cant show posts from everyone in a reverse chronological order for a good ux.
Of course, there is something to be said about the dangers, effectiveness, and societal impact of social media. But companies should have the right to decide how they conduct their business. They should also have the incentive to innovate and improve- without being threatened by overly strict or poorly designed laws.
on the contrary, companies leaving will allow and force us to develop european alternatives that can actually compete in europe. they don't need to compete on the global market.
Nope - not if it is to the detriment to society ( as decided by society via democratic means ).
In the UK - when radio and TV came along, society recognized the power of these platforms and the danger of how they could amplify single voices with money in an anti-democratic way. As such political advertising on such platforms very tightly controlled.
In addition there are overall limits on campaign spending.
Then along comes companies like Facebook and money powering political ad campaigns comes in through the back door, and in addition a lack of transparency on the overall spend as it's now much easier to hide.
Moves to curb this is simply society re-asserting it's existing rules, not some new imposition.
If your "technological progress" is dependent on algorithmic feeds and pervasive tracking, good riddance.
What Meta does is the equivalent of dumping nuclear waste in the middle of your city. I'm sure you don't think companies have the right to do the latter.
I'm very sceptical of the origin of comments like these. I don't know any actual Europeans who share these concerns because they know that the status quo is that the entire EU market is captured by US tech. And that this has been done through anticompetitive tactics as well as offloading trillions in negative externalities onto societies.
If you're truly a concerned European, you're incredibly naive, and need to read much more about how banally evil Meta is.
Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuckerberg: Just ask Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuckerberg: People just submitted it. Zuckerberg: I don't know why. Zuckerberg: They "trust me" Zuckerberg: Dumb fucks
I guess they're writing the paperwork to cut off that particular subdivision as we speak.
This comment is akin to asking farmers cut off from repairing their equipment "why don't you buy tractors from a different company instead of fighting to fix your existing ones?"
The investment in the case of social media is the network you've built. In my country most local events are announced primarily on facebook for example.
In the first step, you get everyone to invest into your platform. You provide some valuable services to people, and they sign an implicit contract as a result.
In the second step, you reap what you sow. You switch the platform entirely and change its core nature and functionality. It's hard to stop using Facebook when everyone else is using Facebook, and this fact means you can do things which would normally have people leave your platform in droves.
This ruling limits the extent to which you can run such a bait and switch campaign. It's somewhat remarkable, because it extends some basic consumer rights to tech companies, even if there's no direct product nor a subscription in place. Personally, I think it's long overdue.
You can opt to not use facebook yourself to protect your own data, that is more or less fine. (Though we can talk about Facebook's collection of non-user data another time)
You can't individually opt out of the election influence.
That’s pretty much what I do. Discoverability happens off-site, which might be a hindrance for you, but I don’t necessarily want more stuff to watch for the sake of more stuff to watch.
It would be nice if youtube could include some of these handy features in the settings, but it is not something they want to do it seems.
(it also lets you disable Shorts and suggestions and so on, pretty fantastic actually)
All people should see the same information, in the same order, with the same metadata such as likes and comments.
Example:
I go to Reddit. I see a list of only the subreddits I subscribed to. This is fine. But within this subreddit, I should see the same information as other users do.
Currently, you don’t even see the same comments and same replies, likes, dislikes on topics. This puts people in bubbles, and makes it impossible to enforce fair reporting, illegal content or manipulation.
in my not so humble and often overly verbose opinion, we desperately need to get back to a place where we have more control over what our own inputs.
a handful of people are now in control of the overwhelming majority of what we see. whether that’s the few websites most people visit or the wildly merging media ecosystem which is now also overwhelmingly controlled by a tiny few with even more mergers on the immediate horizon. to the corporate live event space. it’s insane that weve allowed such a tiny few to control nearly everything our people ingest.
anything which counters this stranglehold on our inputs is a good thing, no matter how small.
Those people are in the app because of the social features and the feed in the first place. The messaging features were built on top of the platform.
Requiring companies to make and maintain a separate app entirely if their product has messaging features is an unreasonable requirement. If someone has such a strong self-control problem that they can’t message someone without becoming addicted to the feed, they shouldn’t be involved with the platform at all.
Just exchange emails, phone numbers for SMS, or any other type of communication. I seriously doubt that your friends are only able to communicate through exactly one communication channel and it happens to be Instagram.
the better alternative is to require interoperability with other messenger apps, so can use the app of my choice. this is a proposal under discussion since years ago.
I seriously doubt that your friends are only able to communicate through exactly one communication channel
some people do exactly that. they refuse to communicate on anything but their messenger of choice. and sometimes keeping in touch with that person is more important than my preferences. oh, and for many people i do not want to share my phone number, which limits the available messaging platforms we can still use. we'll be lucky if there is one.
I disagree. I think it's more than reasonable. Facebook designs its features with dark UX to cause addiction, it's not about self control, it's about Facebook engaging in anti-human behavior.
It's reasonable to use the State to force a corporation that makes tens of billions of dollars of profit a year to behave in a way that's beneficial to people. The corporation will be fine, it's air conditioned and listening to its favorite music.
In this case Meta already has such an app (Messenger), and it has at times supported instagram messaging. I'm not sure why they broke that association a little while ago, but it's not unreasonable that they could reconnect it.
Well, I suppose that's one take on it.
I would argue that people are in the app because Facebook gave out Facebook Messenger. Then Facebook changed how Facebook Messenger works. You could call it a rugpull, I would call it US business practices.
I don't think it's unreasonable and I'll take it further - messaging should be forced to use an open protocol. No more iMessage or Facebook messenger. If you want those, great, then open them.
Now everything works with everything and the world is a utopia and also we cured cancer. Downside: Meta will make slightly less money. I can live with that.
2. SMS is probably the most insecure protocol created for anything, ever.
3. The experience is as close to as shit as it can get.
4. Most modern messaging features aren't supported.
5. Most devices don't support SMS.
6. You can't sync SMS across devices.
Please for the love of god do not make legal requirements about how to build an app and what features can be included.
> We need to be able to message our friends without seeing a feed without having to convert all of our friends to a new platform.
lol, you have no legal right to how a chat dialog must be presented.
Why don't you try innovating instead of suing?
Anyone can make any social app work the way they want to. But that doesn't mean the same rules and laws applies - or should apply - to one with 1B users as one with 100 users.
Even if the government agency makes the worse decision possible, which they probably will, that's still an improvement, because we're completely maxed out on shit levels. That's how bad many products are today.
IIRC, around 2008-2009, "most recent" was the only kind of feed, and within the span of a couple years, they added their "personalized" feed but would let you switch between the two freely (and the setting would persist), and not much later, the setting would no longer persist.
The moral panic over feed ranking models will seem to history as quaint as the moral panic over the telegraph and the train.
If your new technology isn't attracting a swarm of moral gnats buzzing about it corrupting the youth, are you even making something impactful?
Facebook is a massive part of social media. Billions of users. It is apart of society in its sheer size. A society decided “we want to make this better” and acted appropriately. I think it’s a noble pursuit for a society to attempt to reduce the clearly negative aspects of social media.
There is no real freedom of choice. The network effect cements big players positions. Try telling an 80 year old grandma with a 20 year old laptop to use mastodon. Likely no one she knows is on it.
Finally, individuals make essentially no difference when choosing to not use FB. But when choosing to not go to a local bar, that may be 0.03% loss of their monthly revenue. The only actor that can reasonably bargain with huge organizations is other huge organizations.
but there is? simply choose to not use facebook.
So your analogy should be more like there’s one big shopping mall network in the city that basically everyone has to go because certain stores are only there — and the owners bought any competitor that seemed to start becoming popular in the past so there’s no perspective of competition either.
