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by SomeOldThrow 2575 days ago
> It's difficult for me to imagine the Justice Dept being able to argue that "customers" were harmed...using services that were free.

C'mon, not offering any choice in how you pay for the service is inherently anti-consumer behavior. It's certainly not free, and they certainly never offer the consumer any insight into exactly how they are paying for it.
2 comments
joshuamorton 2575 days ago
> C'mon, not offering any choice in how you pay for the service is inherently anti-consumer behavior.

This might be the best take I've heard yet. What constitutes choice in method of payment. Since it appears you consider "forcing users to pay with data" to be anti-consumer, is "forcing users to pay with dollars" equally anti-consumer? Does that make, like, restaurants that don't let you pay with personal info anti-consumer? What about companies that take data and don't offer anything in return (Equifax et. al, ISPs, etc.)

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SomeOldThrow 2575 days ago
I'm not against paying with currency, except insofar as this inherently benefits a subset of humanity. But the issue is not that ads are inherently bad, it's that the interaction is inherently dishonest. A more honest way would allow you, the end-user, to bid for the same ad spots to allow a proper valuation of the ad to the perspective of the consumer. My impression is that Google goes to large efforts to obscure the 'value' of a web page from consumers. If there were proper exchanges between ads and money this might make sense, though I can only imagine the number of ads you might watch to pay for a meal would drive anyone insane.

Plus, ads try to target users with money, so presumably their value is proportional to your value. That's probably also a key reason why you don't see this anywhere: it's a blatantly classist practice.

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joshuamorton 2575 days ago
My recollection is that google has tried variants on what you suggest (contributor). Publishers don't like it (I don't know why), and I think I recall consumers not wanting to pay enough.
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SomeOldThrow 2575 days ago
> https://contributor.google.com/v/beta

If this is a serious effort it's incredibly disappointing.

> Publishers don't like it (I don't know why), and I think I recall consumers not wanting to pay enough.

Not wanting to pay enough for what? To even justify giving us a choice? Inexcusable.

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joshuamorton 2575 days ago
> If this is a serious effort it's incredibly disappointing.

This was the second attempt, after a previous one (in 2015?) also failed.

> Not wanting to pay enough for what? To even justify giving us a choice? Inexcusable.

To justify providing a service. Unfortunately Google isn't a charity. To clarify, my recollection is that contributor leads to less revenue because consumers are unwilling to pay as much as advertisements provide for the same site. That means that either

1. You as a consumer have to pay more than you're willing (and maybe you're willing to pay more, but not enough people are)

2. Google subsidizes contributor users

3. Publishers take less money.

It appears you're suggesting that its inexcusable that a corporation doesn't want to subsidize your preferences.

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kortilla 2575 days ago
Google makes it obvious they make money from advertising. You are not forced to use google products. It’s going to be really hard to make an anti-consumer argument here when you’re essentially saying you want google’s product but don’t want to pay the advertising price.

That’s like saying McDonald’s is anti-consumer because they don’t let you buy a cheeseburger by singing a song.

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SomeOldThrow 2575 days ago
> You are not forced to use google products.

That's like saying "you're not forced to use a car to travel", it's just not practical to use the internet without it for many reasons.

> It’s going to be really hard to make an anti-consumer argument here when you’re essentially saying you want google’s product but don’t want to pay the advertising price.

I'm looking for a transaction rather than pimping your data in a completely opaque manner, which is inherently an anti-social interaction, for the end of selling you products you don't want and don't need, another anti-social interaction. It doesn't need to be this way.

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