sadly he did not foresee that two thousand years later in the valley those two personas more or less ended up being the same person, so now we have to contend with Zuckerberg as our new Augustus.
I don't love ads, so if you goal is to just not have ads on your product, I get it.
We had the same choice on Read the Docs, but didn't really have any other way to make money. We decided to build Ethical Ads, so that we could be proud of the ads we show, knowing we weren't adding to massive pool of data out there. I talked a bit more about it here: https://www.ericholscher.com/blog/2016/aug/31/funding-oss-ma...
We talk about what ethical advertising is here: https://www.ethicalads.io/advertising-vision/ -- and if you're building a dev-focused site, know that you have an option if you want monetization without sacrificing your values.
I would agree with you that 99% of advertising may be compromised, but it isn’t clear to me that it’s inherent.
If I say “I will be paid $5 if I tell you about the positive experience I have had with product X, would you like to hear about it?”, what is unethical about that?
I'm not the person you responded to, but I view this scenario as unethical because you felt it was appropriate to profit off wasting my time -- even under the veneer of politely asking, for the same reason that there any other number of things you can politely ask to do but should know better than to ask to do -- and didn't even think the share the profit with me (at a minimum with the majority share being mine, since clearly you value your time less than I value mine, otherwise you wouldn't be giving me an advertising pitch).
Your scenario has the appearance, more or less, of a not especially pushy door to door salesman. Don't knock on my door. Leave me alone. You know no one wants their door knocked on. Leave everyone alone.
> I'm not the person you responded to, but I view this scenario as unethical because you felt it was appropriate to profit off wasting my time.
How does one know what will ‘waste someone’s time’ without asking?
Perhaps the product will save someone’s time.
For most of my life, I thought wristwatches were a pointless anachronism, since the time is visible on so many screens. I held this opinion without having had the experience of owning an analog watch.
Recently, I have come to understand that a watch benefits me enormously, and saves me a lot of time and stress.
I wish someone had articulated the benefits of a watch to me decades ago. It’s one of the pieces of advice I’d give to my 18 year old self.
This would have been valuable information, paid or not.
-- even under the veneer of politely asking, for the same reason that there any other number of things you can politely ask to do but should know better than to ask to do
Clearly true for some kinds of advertising, but not obviously true for all kinds.
I can see this as an a explanation for why many kinds of advertising are inconsiderate, but I don’t see an ethical argument.
-- and didn't even think the share the profit with me (at a minimum with the majority share being mine,
You can always decline an offer you don’t like.
In my watch example, I’d be happy for the salesman to have received a commission or even a tip from me if I had known how much it would benefit me.
Again - I am understanding your preference, but there is no ethical case here.
> since clearly you value your time less than I value mine, otherwise you wouldn't be giving me an advertising pitch).
I don’t see an ethical or a logical argument here.
> Your scenario has the appearance, more or less, of a not especially pushy door to door salesman. Don't knock on my door. Leave me alone.
This is reducing my example to a strawman rather than making an ethical argument.
> You know no one wants their door knocked on. Leave everyone alone.
This is obviously true for straw man inconsiderate salespeople. But obviously false as a generalization about all advertising.
I am not disputing that most advertising is compromised - I said 99% above.
What I am asking for is an ethical argument as to why all advertising is unethical.
> For the transaction itself: the payment you get incentivizes you to portray it in a positive light, rather than giving your honest opinion.
That was fully disclosed in the hypothetical offer.
Why is it unethical?
> For society at large: advertising amplifies the speech of the rich, which is inherently antidemocratic.
It does amplify the voices of the rich, but you are making it sounds like it only amplifies the speech of the rich, which is not true.
It amplifies the speech of anyone who’s
business is profitable and who chooses to invest in advertising, regardless of whether they are rich or not.
That is fundamentally democratic.
It is also fundamentally anti-democratic to restrict people’s speech in general, however much money they have.
To prevent advertising, you’d have to police what the poor could say, in case they were caught taking money to say nice things about the products of rich people’s companies.
I see legitimate criticism of capitalist wealth accumulation feedback loops (which could be fixed e.g. with a wealth tax) in what you are saying, but no valid argument that advertising is inherently unethical.
> That was fully disclosed in the hypothetical offer.
> Why is it unethical?
If people were good at actually taking that into account then advertising wouldn't be effective, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
> It amplifies the speech of anyone who’s business is profitable and who chooses to invest in advertising
AKA (a subset of) rich people.
> That is fundamentally democratic. It is also fundamentally anti-democratic to restrict people’s speech in general, however much money they have.
1 person = 1 vote = 1 voice
> To prevent advertising, you’d have to police what the poor could say, in case they were caught taking money to say nice things about the products of rich people’s companies.
Is it wrong that it's illegal for the police to let you off with a warning in exchange for a bribe? Is it wrong that it's illegal to sell votes?
There are plenty of things that are legal to do of your own volition, but are illegal to sell. That's not a restriction on the performing those deeds in themselves, it's a restriction on commerce.
> If people were good at actually taking that into account then advertising wouldn't be effective,
This makes no sense. Yes, advertising can by deceiving people about how beneficial a product is.
It can also work simply by informing someone about possible benefits of a product the otherwise wouldn’t be aware of.
> and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
See above. You are affirming the consequent here.
> It amplifies the speech of anyone who’s business is profitable and who chooses to invest in advertising
AKA (a subset of) rich people.
Obviously false. My local coffee shop started by Latino immigrants advertises their coffee.
I started buying their coffee as a result.
They are not rich.
> That is fundamentally democratic. It is also fundamentally anti-democratic to restrict people’s speech in general, however much money they have.
1 person = 1 vote = 1 voice
You are going to have to explain what “1 voice” means. Does it mean no speaking to more than one person at a time? No public speeches? What exactly?
> To prevent advertising, you’d have to police what the poor could say, in case they were caught taking money to say nice things about the products of rich people’s companies.
> Is it wrong that it's illegal for the police to let you off with a warning in exchange for a bribe? Is it wrong that it's illegal to sell votes?
Neither of these are speech. It’s an absurd comparison.
> There are plenty of things that are legal to do of your own volition, but are illegal to sell. That's not a restriction on the performing those deeds in themselves, it's a restriction on commerce.
Yes, and there are reasons speech is protected from such laws.
I see that you are wholeheartedly confirming that you would have to police what the poor could say, in case they were caught taking money to say nice things about anyone’s products.
> Yes, advertising can by deceiving people about how beneficial a product is. It can also work simply by informing someone about possible benefits of a product the otherwise wouldn’t be aware of.
These are just the same thing spun different ways.
> Obviously false. My local coffee shop started by Latino immigrants advertises their coffee. I started buying their coffee as a result. They are not rich.
If they own the coffee shop themselves then yes, they definitely as rich. If not, well, they work on behalf of, under the control of, and for the benefit of their rich investors.
> You are going to have to explain what “1 voice” means. Does it mean no speaking to more than one person at a time? No public speeches? What exactly?
No coercing other people to amplify your message. Surely this would be obvious from the context?
> Neither of these are speech. It’s an absurd comparison.
Why?
> I see that you are wholeheartedly confirming that you would have to police what the poor could say, in case they were caught taking money to say nice things about anyone’s products.
> Yes, advertising can by deceiving people about how beneficial a product is. It can also work simply by informing someone about possible benefits of a product the otherwise wouldn’t be aware of.
> These are just the same thing spun different ways.
It seems like you are saying that explaining the benefits of a product is always deception in your mind.
Is there any kind of speech that doesn’t count as deception?
> Obviously false. My local coffee shop started by Latino immigrants advertises their coffee. I started buying their coffee as a result. They are not rich.
> If they own the coffee shop themselves then yes, they definitely as rich. If not, well, they work on behalf of, under the control of, and for the benefit of their rich investors.
What about if they own the business themselves bootstrapped with a small amount of family money which is now spent?
All they ‘own’ is the business name and reputation and the right to continue working under that name to earn income.
This is very common in food service businesses.
Why does that make them rich?
> You are going to have to explain what “1 voice” means. Does it mean no speaking to more than one person at a time? No public speeches? What exactly?
No coercing other people to amplify your message. Surely this would be obvious from the context?
Who is talking about coercing anyone to do anything?
> Neither of these are speech. It’s an absurd comparison.
> Why?
Are you unable to make a distinction between speech acts and any other acts?
It seems like you can’t be a supporter of freedom of speech.
> I see that you are wholeheartedly confirming that you would have to police what the poor could say, in case they were caught taking money to say nice things about anyone’s products.
Although prostitution may involve speech, the criminalized part is not a speech act.
There are obvious problems with criminalizing a market for speech even if you don’t criminalize the sellers.
It seems like this would mean employees of companies would be unable to talk about their products. They are paid. What if they say something nice about their products?
They talk about how "current mainstream ads technology has become a pseudo-surveillance system", but I feel the same mistrust for crash reporter SDKs on iOS and Android. Unless it's an open source library, I'm very careful to include it in projects.
I thought that there were a couple of free options for iOS/macOS, but to be honest I haven't looked into it for a couple of years, our in house solution is good enough.
They aren't exactly clear on that, though they seem to imply they are looking for other revenue streams:
> As a heads up, in the future we may partner with like-minded companies, but any sponsorships will not involve the sharing of your data.
It is easy to be cynical about statements regarding the protection privacy these days since many of claims are so distorted that they should be treated as outright lies. On the other hand, there are people behind every business and it is possible those people have become uncomfortable with what they are doing. They may be willing to make some compromises until they find a solution which fits their values. Alas, the problem lays in figuring out whether the latter is true.
