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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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They seem to have copied the approach from multiple European newspapers that consists to disable tracking if you subscribe. And unfortunately most data protection agencies seem okay with that.
It infuriates me that you have to pay for the basic right to not be tracked, given that you already have to be particularly tech-literate to avoid tracking by yourself...
I find it a tough one, because they offer a product/service that costs a fortune to maintain and operate, and if they can't make money from your data then what do they do? Not having your data harvested is just a side-benefit of paying for the thing you use a dozen times per day.
If they couldn't use your data or charge then it would shut down.
You wouldn't run a business at a 100% loss.
I don't understand why people think digital things should all be free.
Not being tracked doesn't mean they can't have ads.
TV ads are still a thing and so are billboard ads.
They could simply show ads depending on the context of the content you're looking at.
You can serve ads without any of the invasive tracking, and you can have paid access without any of the invasive tracking...
I don't think most people actually think digital things should be free, just that they're not invasive data-hoarding piles of crap.
You can serve generic ads, which pay less, requiring more ads, reducing the quality of the product.
Like me, a man, getting tampon ads, for example. The tampon company doesn't want to pay to target me, but if the ads are generic then they have no choice, so they pay less per ad placement, which means Meta earns less, so they need more ads.
None of that is an argument as to why they should track people. You even mention why its not a problem not having tracking, since they can just increase amount of ads to compensate for lower earnings per ad. The ad-supported free teir is probably going to be even worse dogshit than it already is, but the paid tier would be better than it is now because it wouldn't have ads. And neither would have privacy invading tracking, it's a win-win since they get to earn money on their product and we won't be tracked.
...Of course this under the assumption that their business is actually providing a service to their users and not just using it as a fly-trap for data-farming and profiling of their users. In case of the latter, yeah fuck 'em and let them earn no money if that's the case. i hope legislation removes that business model from existence.
It's not a matter of them being free. I don't care if Facebook requires a paid subscription, what I care about is that my tech illiterate mother isn't being tracked because she uses a website the majority of the population uses. Cable TV has a free option and always has without the need for tracking. Billboards exist and I've never felt tracked. Posters at the mall don't track my shopping behavior and stores don't change prices because they know I went to a similar store and they think they can pull one over.
I don't understand why people think digital things need to know everything about me and share that info with anyone.
No one's saying they can't run ads. The problem is the extreme invasion of privacy to run targeted ads. If their business can't survive without violating your privacy, then maybe their business doesn't need to survive.
I won't even touch on the political ramifications of what privacy exploitation has created.
Here's the problem I see with that: What do you think their sites/apps would look like with un-targeted ads? You get less revenue from those, so you'd need more of them.
I mean, their site is already quite cluttered with ads as is. But again, if it becomes so cluttered with ads that it resembles going to a pirate streaming site without ad blockers, then so be it. People will get sick of it and stop using those sites, which I'm completely okay with. That type of hyper social media has had a net negative effect on society at large, so we'd honestly be better off without them. And yes, Lemmy is a form of social media, but it's hardly the super addictive dopamine exploiter that algorithm driven sites/apps are.
and there is still ads, you don't pay for an adfree version, just to not be tracked, which is a joke