I laughed in a sad way.
I would actually pay for Firefox now, but I think charging for it isn't going to work out. (See also: Opera)
It's kinda like how cable TV started with no commercials as a contrast to over-the-air TV, and then quickly introduced them...
One of the biggest problems with this whole discussion is that people, including those who should know better, are not making distinctions between ads based maybe on broad characteristics vs ads that are based on tracking every move you make across the internet, purchases in stores with credit cards, and micro targeting based on specific interests.
With just ads you can place a direct value on how much people are willing to pay to not see them. Netflix does this. Hulu does this by offering 2 services, as free and and supported at different prices. Normal business practices should create a market that allows people who are willing to see ads and those who wish to pay more to be ad free to both be serviced.
The problem right now with micro targeting and extreme spying is that you have a race to the bottom that has users paying for the services they use not through watching ads, or monetary payments but through data and information about themselves. That data is much more valuable than just for ads. It makes it extremely difficult for someone who isn’t the biggest player in a market to, for example, compete with the entrenched power. So it’s not just people watching creepy ads, but it also entrenches monopolies, and allows the likes of Google and Facebook to create new monopolies based on data they have gained from their existing monopolies.
Ads are, if anything, the least problematic part about the spying and data collection because at least they are open and obvious to everyone. Google and Facebook do far more creepy things than what they do with the ads privately, but the largest uproar has been about ads simply because that’s the most transparent use of the crazy data collection practices.
That very broad and general advertising of which you speak will only dwindle with time and therefore the distinction will not be a very useful one. Already ordinary billboards are being upgraded to smart billboards that can scan and identify the people walking by (facial recognition, Bluetooth, perhaps soon gait, etc.). The decline of print media means that we’re losing the one kind of advertising that can't hook into technology to track you.
Maybe we should use terms like dossier.
Ads are universally bad, targeted or not.
Ad money isn't innocuous. It's about control, because if the recipient were to do something an advertiser doesn't like, they pull the money... for example strong privacy/anti-advertising technologies. This desire to please the interests of large corporations leads to large scale conformity.
But having absolutely no ads might not be ideal (or realistic).
A model where a site shows you a notice asking to opt in for personalised ads (otherwise show generic ads anyway) would be fine. But this means no site, no third party service should be allowed to track the user or collect data unless opted in.
Essentially, as opposed to profiling the user, profile the content. And give content creators more control over the user experience to discourage sleazy ads and encourage ads creators actually want on their site.
There's some optimism wrapped into this, so I look forward to someone popping my optimism bubble.
Within capitalism, some regulations can make it slightly less invasive but the imperatives of the system will over time break down those regulations.
Users requested an ad-free paid membership, but when we ran the numbers, we found that those people willing to pay made the site much more in advertising than a reasonable subscription could.
However a while after I left they launched the service, so maybe they’ve managed to make it worthwhile.
I was a big fan of Pluto TV until it got purchased by Viacom or whomever. Now, just like cable TV, there are 800 channels going at any given moment, and all of them show their commercials at exactly the same time.
I joke, but only partly, that there's not a jury in the country that would convict me if I murdered whoever instituted that change.
It makes more sense if this is understood as paying to continuously keep the software up-to-date. But then, this would be the most honest thing to do: Request money for each update but let the user executive a particular version as long as they want.
Because otherwise, we will end up in a world where no running code can be older than a month and software that is not actively being developed as part of a profitable business is automatically dead.
Code does not rot and can be copied arbitrary many times. Why do we bend over backwards to turn an abundant resource not just into a scarce but into an expiring resource?
What software subscriptions don't work this way?
The true desktop subscriptions, where you lose access to the software after you stop paying, seem to all offer the traditional alternative (pay once for the current version).
Firefox would regain market traction without monopoly-funded loss leader Chrome.
There's a heavy [FLOWERBED] fee."--Team America by way of the Babylon Bee