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by horsawlarway 1325 days ago
Except very few things are free.

That lettuce company is making revenue somehow, or it will go out of business anyways. In which case the world ends up in exactly the same spot.

So lets make the analogy closer to real life - the lettuce company funds the burger making because everyone MUST eat a salad at least one a day, using lettuce they have paid for with real money. This company wants it to be their lettuce. So they fund the burgers, and make up for it by charging more for their lettuce.

You see my point? Some small subset of folks might end up getting a free burger, but it's at the cost of many other purchasers choosing to buy lettuce with a higher markup.

The lettuce company (ad companies) aren't some fucking fairy tale good guy handing out free stuff - they're very carefully adjusting the habits of shoppers to make MORE money. They are not good - the world is not less good by avoiding them.
1 comments
jefftk 1325 days ago
In the previous round of this discussion I tried to flesh out the lettuce analogy more, and make it more similar to online ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32766236
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lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1325 days ago
Let's try a different reason for the free burgers: the lettuce company makes money by selling information that's (somehow magically) sent to them from inside my mouth while I am eating the lettuce about how I chew, maybe using certain aspects of my mouth and stomach which allows them to isolate me as an individual.

Given all that, they put effort into requiring that their lettuce makes its way to my mouth with a free burger. Fine, I'll pay for the burger: Big Lettuce is still adamant about getting their tracking lettuce in my body. One has to go to great lengths to find a burger place that doesn't have a deal with such a lettuce-provider. Whatever, I'll just take the stupid lettuce off.

(I agree, it's a weird analogy.)

Anyway, the stakes are different with free food vs. free content, so to the point that one is selfishly undermining the ability for others to get content for free: that decision is not what makes the world worse. If the content is truly worth seeing, it's likely that someone will be inspired to make it as accessible as possible[0], regardless of the lack of potential profit, and other content will become less available. (Maybe I'll sing a different tune when Khan Academy is overrun with ads.)

[0] https://www.khanacademy.org/

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