
Facebook's Brilliant but Evil design - toffer
http://bokardo.com/archives/facebooks-brilliant-but-evil-design/
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fauigerzigerk
This kind of abuse is a logical consequence of ad based business models. If
the person who uses a service/software is not the person who pays for it the
result is a conflict of interest and quality will suffer. We're seeing
different variations on this theme in enterprise software and in public
services. It doesn't even matter that ultimately the user may indeed pay for
the service indirectly. Once you cut the direct ties, the alignment of
interest is lost and the whole thing becomes a futile ethics debate.

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aston
That's not necessarily true. Google's advertising market is based entirely on
matching the impedance between customers and advertisers. People advertising
valuable things that customers often click on don't have to pay much to get
good placement, meanwhile spammers trying to get an undeserved spot pay a ton
for the privilege.

Where Facebook differs is that with ads that aren't based on click through
rates or some other user action, there's no concern for how users like or
dislike what's being advertised. Facebook can focus on making the advertisers
happy, and the customers have to bear that inconvenience as their cost of
using the site.

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fauigerzigerk
You're assuming, in principle, that ads can add value to a service. That's
disputable. If at all, it's only valid for some types of sites like fashion
magazines. Most of the time it's an inconvenience that people bear as the cost
of using the site, no matter how well the matching works.

The question is whether this way of bearing the cost helps the overall quality
of services. And I think the answer is clearly no. If there was a direct way
for users to pay the exact same amount of money, services would be better.
Unfortunately there is no such alternative way in many cases.

