[stared]

> 1. Do a study and check how many people want to be tracked.

Ask the same people if they wanted websites to stay free.

I bet 80%+ would want to eat a cookie, a have it too. (No anti-pun intended!)

(Side note: the proposition of banning things if 80% don't want to use them is dangerous. No wanting something personally is not the same as banning it for everyone.)

[whakim]

I'm willing to bet that a lot of HN users block third-party trackers, but the average user has no idea how to do that. Why are we allowed the choice between (as you put it) "websites stay[ing] free" and privacy, and yet the average joe isn't? (To be clear, I don't even believe that's the choice we're facing.)

[scotty79]

I don't block any tracking because I want the web to know me and serve me with the stuff I might want or need.

Logging out of youtube feels like falling kneedeep into the gutter. What I personally want is more and smarter tracking, not less.

When I'm at random site I rather see ads for electronics kits I considered purchasing recently, not liposuction or some other gross random things I would never want or need or even like to be aware of.

[lrem]

Because there isn't enough of "us" to topple the web economy. Once a critical mass is reached, we'll see a (slow) mass extinction in the open web as we know it. Then a bunch of new business models will fill the niche.

Disclosure: I'm a Googler. Not sure how that affects my fatalism here.

[esarbe]

Not sure what you would describe as "the open web", but from my perspective, the "open web" died with the hypercommercialisation of the web. Nowadays everywhere you look there are walled gardens, if they aren't walled gardens they are honey traps to lure you to divulge private data.

[TeMPOraL]

I think Google is working off and promoting a peculiar definition of "open web", which is an ecosystem of a) commercial actors, and b) resources (individuals) to be exploited by said commercial actors. The "openness" of that web is focused mostly of making it easier for the commercial actors to make money off exploiting resources. Efficient and unencumbered exchange of information or culture doesn't even enter the picture.

[lrem]

That's not the impression I got. Note that Google does not need the hypercommercialization to earn money. The moment you allowed your site to be indexed, Google earned its cut.

[whakim]

I'm not sure that really answers the question, though. My point was that only those with enough technical know-how get to choose to remain private; shouldn't everyone be able to choose as to whether they believe free stuff is a good trade for their privacy?

Also, why do we assume that the choice is between the status quo and the total collapse of the internet ecosystem? That there's no way for digital advertising to generate a profit without gobbling up ever greater amounts of our personal data?

[SquishyPanda23]

The websites aren't free, you pay by letting others track you.

This seems like it's a silly nitpicking point, but in this context that's the whole point of the discussion: whether your users understand and consent to paying that cost.

[nofunsir]

The onus is on the "website" to find an ethical business model, not the people who have been (rightly) trained that the web is free.

[moron4hire]

People say this (ads keep the Web free) but it's not true. What keeps the Web free is the altruism of the vast majority of people who pay for their server costs out of pocket. The long tail of sites won't reach the threshold necessary to receive a payout from their ad provider. So tracking makes Google money at the expense of users and most websites.

Example: my personal website costs me about $35/mo to run. If I put ads on it, Google would tell me I made about $5/mo, and then take that $5 for themselves because they have decided they don't need to pay out small amounts. So I basically get to pay to host ads for Google.

[somebodythere]

The vast majority of web usage these days happens on YouTube, Instagram, etc. Ads certainly keep those parts of the web free.

[hk__2]

> The vast majority of web usage these days happens on YouTube, Instagram, etc. Ads certainly keep those parts of the web free.

Counterpoint: Wikipedia.

[stared]

...or grab it for free (which you are obliged to provide) while you cover the cost. It doesn't sound like a fair deal to me.

If you were able to say "tracking or subscribe" it would made much more sense.

[Guest0918231]

Not quite the same, because right now tracking is suppose to be opt-in. Free cookies are not.

A fair comparison would be a law saying people need to opt-in for paying for a cookie. You can't charge the customer or hide the information, they need to agree to pay for the cookies, and they need an equally clear option to not pay for them.

However, stores bend the rules. They have someone stand at the entrance saying, "Thanks for coming to our store, we have cookies for sale at $0.99. Would you like to come in?" If you say yes, then you're charged for cookies you buy. To get the cookies for free, you need to realize you can say "No" to entering the store, and then through a complex 5 minutes conversation, you can get the person to let you into the store for the free cookies every person is allowed to have according to the law.

Most people don't know about the free cookies. Others can't figure out the correct questions to ask to get permission to enter the store for the free cookies. Some people want the free cookies but they don't have 5 minutes to waste talking to the person, so they just decide to pay.

At the end of the day though, of course everyone wants the free cookies. I want them. You want them. The law says the store is required to give free cookies. Why introduce all the complex interactions and rules that businesses will not follow, and customers will find annoying? Just give everyone the cookies and be done with it.

If you don't want a blanket statement allowing free cookies everywhere, what's the ideal process? 97% of people want free cookies all the time. 2% of people want free cookies "sometimes". 1% of people never want free cookies. Asking people at each store for their preference (similar to a website cookies pop-up) is only beneficial to the 2% "sometimes" crowd. For the other 98%, they're just being annoyed and repetitively giving the same answer to every store. Require the banks to allow a setting on credit cards to toggle free cookies on or off, and have stores respect that setting without needing to ask.