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1. dick_turpin (dick_turpin@mastodon.org.uk)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 17:58:51 JST dick_turpin

   • stannard

   You've gotta laugh: Everyone loves using Google's services, especially as they are free, as in money, and yet the very thing that allows Google to provide those services for free, adverts, folk complain about or do their utmost to avoid. I wonder how many people are bitching at this announcement from Google?

   https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/google-chrome-will-limit-ad-blockers-starting-june-2024

   Thanks to @stannard for sharing the original link.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 17:58:51 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • stannard

     @dick_turpin @stannard It’s a systemic issue, and not really a funny one at that. When you have VCs investing nearly all available capital into creating people farmers like Google, folks don’t really have a choice. They’re limited to a menu of undesirables by Silicon Valley and their ilk. And the problem isn’t ads per se but tracking (ads aren’t the pinnacle of human achievement either). If anyone’s to blame it’s the surveillance capitalists, not their victims.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 18:25:18 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • stannard
     • z428

     @z428 @dick_turpin @stannard I don’t know, seems if people are willing to pay billions – sometimes trillions – for their armies, they may be willing to pay a small fraction of that for a system that guarantees their human rights and the future of democracy.

     Yes, I’m saying we should be paying for this with our taxes and funding technology for the common good from the common purse.

   • z428 (z428@loma.ml)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 18:25:23 JST z428

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • stannard

     @aral While I tend to agree here, I still wonder: Would people be willing to pay actual money for a tracking-free service? No matter where we look - sustainable agriculture, fair traide, ... - there's one thing to learn: If we want more "ethical" "products" / solutions / whatever, the absolutely first to expect is things to get quite a bit more expensive (looking at Fairphone pricing vs feature set in example). In "alternative" technology, it sometimes feels like people are enraged fighting against tracking and spying, but few to none actually question whether these services really could be "gratis" or "free" - or rather whether a solid, sustainable funding would be _the_ very thing to begin with here. 😒 (And yes, I think this is a systemic issue too.)

     @dick_turpin
     @stannard