| Personally, I disagree with this one point. > Cynics will tell you that using your “real name” is so they can sell your details to advertisers. That’s not the case. Facebook is selling access to their profile of a person for targeted ads and tracking across the web - which includes a real name. No, I haven't worked at FB, but I get the business side from a Product Management perspective. Yes, ad impressions can factor into it, but one could argue that there would be more engagement using a name that a person is currently using or known by, resulting in increased time on the newsfeed, not less. It's all about a story to sell advertisers though. Facebook is an advertising platform. We use "real names" is just a marketing bullet FB can hold up to advertisers in glossy material and sales pitches. Real name policies are indeed a made up solution mistakenly used by some to address trolling issues as well. The thing is, that argument has been proven false, time and time again. Ello, that underdog social community, is proving right now that pseudonymity can work. I guess the real question is, "Are we willing to walk the talk and support the companies that are standing up for users on this issue as well as privacy?" Of course we might have to sacrifice some features we are used to, but ultimately it's the only way to send a message that will be heard. Google, afterall didn't change it's stand on real names just out of some epiphany or random act of kindness. That story is a little more complex for sure, yet our eyes and where they spend time is the ultimate metric in today's ad model. My eyes choose Ello these days. |
An interesting question.
So on one hand we see that we have some kinds of companies that can provide useful global services (facebook, google, wikipedia, sourceforge (before ads), mozilla, github, etc), but it is impractical, unsavory or counter productive to make "users" pay (because we're not only passive "users", but active contributors to the services facilitated by those companies.
The "solution" found by those companies is to extract the needed money from other companies in exchange for advertisement.
On the other hand, we can print money to give to banksters only to satisfies their shareholders, and with no benefit whatsoever to the general population, on the contrary.
What if, instead, we printed money to give to those internet companies and associations providing useful services? They wouldn't then have to use advertisements, and therefore could better protect the privacy of the users/contributors.