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Comment by philwelch | Hacker News Reader

Frustrating as this might be, CondoInternet is going building to building to provide gigabit Internet to apartment dwellers and even building neighborhood-scale fiber service to Eastlake, while CenturyLink is laying gigabit service to other neighborhoods, one by one. Even if we were on Google's shortlist, by the time they came to town they'd have competitors. Competitors who don't have a business model of monitoring people's web usage so they can target ads at them.

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You're saying "they'd have competitors" as if it is some kind of a downside. It's good thing if Google had competitors, it is also a good thing if the competitors had Google. Honest competition keeps participants honest and agile. Of course, honest competition is hard to achieve in a place where the most important proficiency required to achieve success in a business is proficiency in navigating a byzantine network of regulations, permits and requirements, and that, instead of delivering stellar service, becomes a core competency of a successful business.

As for Google monitoring web usage, you're saying it like it's unique for Google. All advertisers to that, and ISP is not the best place to do it anyway (content-side is more efficient and not confused by things like HTTPS/SSL/VPN). Moreover, targeting ads is by far not the most evil thing one might do - in fact, if the ads were as well-targeted as it has been rumored for decades now, I'd not have to install adblocker first thing I do on the new computer. Right now I have to because the ads shown to me are so annoying and irrelevant. I'd like to discuss our all-knowing perfectly-targeting advertising overlords, but we'd have to get some first. So far they are nowhere to be found, and in the meantime our internet connection sucks and costs an arm and a leg. Is it worth having sucky internet access so Google couldn't nefariously target their ads for me? Not for me.

> You're saying "they'd have competitors" as if it is some kind of a downside.

Well, it is to Google.

> Is it worth having sucky internet access so Google couldn't nefariously target their ads for me?

No, but in Seattle you have other options: live somewhere where you can get good internet access from someone who isn't Google. That's what I do.

I find it odd how vocal and numerous the ad blocker users are on HN. You "have to" install it because the ad are so annoying? How have you coped with TV advertising, or magazine advertising?

Simple - I don't watch scheduled TV (I either record it or watch it online via Hulu/Netflix/etc.) and magazine ads don't bother me because I can simply leaf through them. And, also, I don't read magazines that have too many random ads. Those that I do read either have relevant ads or have them nicely segregated so they don't bother me. I never saw a magazine that has an ad with auto-play video, high-frequency animations, auto-play sound or is placed in a way that makes other content unaccessible until I spend several minutes on it.

I don't know what I would do if I didn't have the modern options. Switch to DVD/reading books probably - that's what I did before I had DVR and online streaming.

I know that many sites rely on ads for their income stream. I do not feel an obligation to sacrifice my psychological well-being in order to make that model succeed. Fortunately, they seem to be doing just fine without me.

If you don't watch TV or read magazines and block online ads, you will start to find ads annoying as well. I can't stand TV.

Says you. After it came out that Verizon is actually changing request headers in Internet traffic to inject tracking tokens, I wouldn't trust any company to not do/track anything. In fact, it's in their best interests to track your usage - they can sell that information to advertisers and make more money from you.

Not trusting Google but trusting some unknown competitor is strange to me.

Particularly because they all include in their TOS that they can change their terms any time.

CondoInternet certainly isn't unknown to me, since I've been a customer for almost two years now.

We know for a fact that Google and Verizon track your Web usage. I would take an unknown company over the certainty of being tracked any day.

Using businesses that support your preferences is the only real economic power that most people have.

Stick with Verizon and Verizon recognise that they can do/track anything without consequence.

On the other hand, leave Verizon for a competitor who is not currently doing/tracking anything and this becomes a selling point for the competition.

CenturyLink is playing the FUD game. I live in Olympia, had door to door sales come by. "You may have heard about Google Fiber. We are coming around to let you know that we've been installing fiber..."

Err, yeah. Fifty five miles away. So what?

People's web usage data is a valuable asset. IMHO most ISPs are very likely selling it to Google and others.

CondoInternet (and CenturyLink) are only going to newer very large buildings though, it doesn't make economic sense to go to older/smaller buildings for them. So your only option is Comcast.

Did you read my comment?

> CondoInternet is...building neighborhood-scale fiber service to Eastlake

http://www.condointernet.net/fiber/

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