[akersten]

> Agreed, this can't be worse than what it's replacing.

The mistake is assuming this replaces anything instead of becoming just one more piece of the tracking puzzle.

Even if it did "replace" cookies or whatever, it's strictly worse than "before" because it's giving advertising a front seat in the browser. My browser should be doing precisely nothing to help you attribute your ad impressions or whatever. But now Mozilla et al have to waste their time maintaining and augmenting this opaque piece of mathematical faff.

[Ajedi32]

This is a debate I've seen many times now on HN. I sympathize with what you're saying, but the flip side is that many users seem to prefer a free ad-supported funding model over a paid, ad-free model. If a site is going to be serving me ads anyway, then all else being equal I'd rather them make as much money off each impression as possible to incentivize them to keep providing me with free services. The privacy and resource cost of a user's browser sending anonymized attribution statistics is very minimal.

[troupo]

> many users seem to prefer a free ad-supported funding model over a paid, ad-free model.

You don't need pervasive and invasive tracking and wholesale trading of your data to display advertising.

[Ajedi32]

Correct. The whole point of this proposal (and other related ones like FloC/the topics API) is to get rid of the former while preserving the effectiveness of the latter.

[nemomarx]

Do you want to click through and spend money on the ads?

If not you aren't really working towards them paying a lot for ads, right?

[gruez]

>Do you want to click through and spend money on the ads?

Nobody "wants" ads, but they do want the free content they get today, which are funded by ads.

[curtisblaine]

Nobody asked for free content. It was pushed on us so they could track us. Before the Internet, you normally paid for what you consumed (at least, more than now. And before that even more).

[cm2012]

Newspapers, network tv, etc has been subsidized by ads for 100 years+

[curtisblaine]

And for the most part of this time period they weren't free.

[Ajedi32]

Maybe? Depends on what the ads are for. Obviously I'm not going to buy something I don't actually want just to support the site I'm on, but I have no particular objection to buying something I discovered through an ad if it's something I would buy anyway if I discovered it organically.