NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: In the Mirror, Privacy vs. the Color of Internet Greed
On 6/3/2012 3:25 PM, Lauren Weinstein wrote: > They pile up in my inbox every day, without fail. People who explain > to me how they don't want to be "tracked" on the Internet (though when > I ask them what the word "track" means in this context, they usually > hem and haw and it's pretty clear they haven't really thought this > through). > > Then there's the more generic ad haters. These are the correspondents > who revel in explaining how they haven't seen a Web ad in YEARS thanks > to various ad blockers and other tricks, but still use and depend upon > the underlying Web services. "Aren't we smart?" "Aren't we clever?" > > Aren't you greedy? > > More and more, I see how the Internet has become -- through no fault > of its own -- a sort of greed amplifier, elevating "something for > nothing" from a slogan to a veritable religion. > > And increasingly today, "privacy" is being invoked as cover for what > is really technologically facilitated avarice. I agree 100%. Back in the 1950s, director Alfred Hitchcock hosted a series of TV shows, called (appropriately) "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". These were short (1/2 hour, later 1 hour) mystery or thriller pieces, introduced by Hitchcock. At one point, he appeared and gave the following short speech: When I was a young man I had an uncle who frequently took me out to dinner He always accompanied these dinners with minutely detailed stories about himself But I listened because he was paying for the dinner. I don't know why I am reminded of this but we are about to have one of our commercials... I think that pretty much says it all. The adds are paying for our "dinner", and if we eliminate them -- or make them less valuable by preventing them from being accurately targeted -- we will have to pay for our own dinners. Probably on a fee-for-service basis, with all the inconvenience that entails. Imagine having to pull out a credit card every time you want to do a websearch. And will we even _have_ search engines if every for-profit website in the world requires payment before you can look at their content. All that will be left is websites like http://www.lasfs.org, which I webmaster. It's as much vanity as moneymaking, but if we pull in 12 new members a year it pays for the domain name and hosting service. And pure vanity websites, like http://www.kayshapero.net/ Facebook? MySpace? Twitter? Blogspot? Google Images? Google maps? Forget it. Want information? Better have some spare cash in PayPal or a credit/debit card handy. And even PayPal will probably charge higher fees (no more free transfers to personal accounts, for example) if they can't pay for part of it with ads. Why do people want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad