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by EGreg 871 days ago
Just out of curiosity, why are so many people on HN who are against crypto-based payment systems and decentralized networks (always using shibboleths like “scam” and “ponzi”) at the same time so totally for the equally “ponzi” model of advertisers supporting free sites via giant centralized brokers? Most advertisers quickly find out that the ad money is wasted and only the slickest and most misleading campaigns win, same as the meme tokens. Clicks and visits can be astroturfed same as fake volume of crypto.

But what makes the ad supported model far worse than crypto is the dystopian centralized control, system of incentives and Surveillance Capitalism that always grows up around it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism
2 comments
carlosjobim 871 days ago
You're letting your imagination run. I'm not the slightest against crypto. I'm not against people using adblockers and I'm strongly against advertisement online and in other media. But the website owner also needs a chance to be reimbursed for his labour and put food on the table. If he choses to do so with ads, that is his right.

Because people do not donate, even to stuff they love and use a lot. For a company to block those legitimate ads and then put their own, while pretending they are helping website owners - that's a scam. And nobody would swallow it unless it came with the promise of sharing some scam money with the users.

I'm for a free speech internet where users pay a cheap and fair price to creators for content, that's a much better model than ads – and it is probably the future for any quality content.

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kerkeslager 871 days ago
A lot of HN works in industries which benefit from advertising. It's motivated reasoning.

In general, HN users can be trusted to take the side of corporations over humans in the vast majority of situations.

EDIT: Downvoting without giving reasoning just lends further credence to my point that their views are based in selfishness rather than reasoning. ;)

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carlosjobim 871 days ago
No need to sugar coat it. If that's what you really think, then write it clearly: "Hey guys! Hey my fellow hackers! That poster is a... is a... CORPORATE SHILL!"
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kerkeslager 870 days ago
That's not what I really think.

Most of my audience aren't hackers, at least not in the sense I think you mean.

And the poster is likely not a corporate shill. "Shill" has connotations of undisclosed association and intentional deception, neither of which are things I'm accusing anyone of. I don't think there's any reasonable expectation of disclosing associations on a pseudonymous forum. And I don't think most posters here are being intentionally being deceptive--they probably believe what they're saying, as most people will go through great mental calisthenics to believe what they're doing isn't harmful.

The late-stage capitalist ideologies held by much of this forum are extremely harmful, but I don't need to accuse people of malicious intent to say that. People can intend the best and do great harm.

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