Baffled by the number of people itt saying "I can't believe it costs that much and still has ads." It can't not have ads. It's cable TV, YouTube has zero control over whether or not it has ads. They can't broadcast the USA network without ads. Cable has had ads for like 40 years, and traditional cable providers are much more expensive than this. Are y'all 14 years old? idgi
YouTube TV injects ads on certain content. I know it's there for on-demand TV shows, and some live sports. It's literally overlaid on top of the channel's ads in the live example.
I think years ago when I first subscribed one of the major benefits was the ability to skip through these ads just like DVR, but you can no longer do that.
Cable TV broadcasts include both the network's ads and slots for the carrier to run their own ads. They're not inserting bonus ads on top of the actual content. Again, this is exactly the same as any cable provider has always worked.
We don't have a choice. That's how cable works, and YouTube TV exists for those of us who need it. They can't magically create an ad free broadcast of TNT or something. How would that even work?
You don't have to like broccoli but it'd be weird to complain that it doesn't taste like chocolate.
Over the last 15 years the expectation from online content has been "If I pay money ($10-20/mo), I shouldn't have to see ads." There's been a lot of pushback on this expectation, with sponsored content and tired services. This is the strongest pushback on that expectation.
Of course we cannot get around the limitation of a streaming content provider displaying ads as part of their stream. It's just that $73 buys a lot of entertaining content on the internet that won't have that issue. It doubly feels like a bad deal because the content on cable TV is almost always not the highest quality content available. They are charging premium prices for standard content with long ad breaks.
I wouldn't say "I can't believe it costs that much and still has ads" but I would say "I can't believe that people see enough value to spend that kind of money for that content with those ads." In my adult life I have never paid for cable or satellite tv. My parents still do.
I remember my father complaining about the ads when he started paying for cable in the 1980s. I still complain about it.
You can get a decent amount of channels for free in most metropolitan areas with a digital antenna. You get commercials but a one time cost for a $100 antenna is worth it.
Does YouTubeTV carry public television stations? Aside from underwriting sponsor mentions at the beginning and end of a program, they're prohibited from mentioning sponsors [1].
I think the confusion arises because people view "cable" as something that requires coax and a set top box, and they view "streaming" as anything that goes over the internet, therefore they mistakenly view YouTube TV as streaming, when it's actually just cable. The US government uses the term "multichannel video programming distributor" for platforms like this, which is a mouthful, but at least defines the concept separately from the distribution method.
For a lot of people I imagine they are only used to ads on free stuff, like Pandora, while paying for the service removes ads. It's just an old world vs new world disparity, where old-worlders (pre-internet or slow moving area residents) are used to things like ads on cable and broadcast radio, while new-worlders (people who mostly grew up on the modern internet) didn't experience the same world at all.
Some people aren't comfortable with the amount of data Microsoft is collecting about them. There are a lot of privacy issues, and their terms of service are really quite jarring if you read them. Even turning all the the tracking and telemetry off, you cannot be sure they are not collecting your personal data.
But they were already collecting that data. They're still collecting it on 7 and 8. You almost certainly use several other services that collect the same data, or more. The only reason you think Windows 10 is unique in this is because Microsoft did THE RIGHT FUCKING THING and made their privacy policies understandable to regular people. And they're being criticized and villainized for this. It's childish and indefensible.
Do you have a source for the data collecting for Win 7? Windows 8 is a slightly different story since they incorporated signing into your machine with a Microsoft account, so they have more personal identification linked to your machine (email etc).
Yes other services and companies use your data, including Google and Apple. But these are usually (as far as I know) more annonimized. Microsoft is taking personal data collecting to a new level. From their TOS:
“Microsoft collects information about you, your devices, applications and networks, and your use of those devices, applications and networks. Examples of data we collect include your name, email address, preferences and interests; browsing, search and file history; phone call and SMS data; device configuration and sensor data; and application usage.”
And also:
“If you open a file, we may collect information about the file, the application used to open the file, and how long it takes any use [of]it for purposes such as improving performance, or [if you]enter text, we may collect typed characters, we may collect typed characters and use them for purposes such as improving autocomplete and spell check features.”
There are also reports they are taking sound recordings and webcam captures. This operating system is like an NSA wet dream. If this doesn't make you feel uncomfortable, go ahead and support the new normal. I don't want any part in it.
Google collects just as much as Microsoft if not more. If you're using an Android phone with a Google Account then they pretty much know everything about you.
I guess it's a good thing I didn't use Tu quoque then, now if you'd said I made a Fallacy Fallacy you might be closer to the truth.
I wasn't disputing the op's conclusion, just pointed out the invalid assumption in his argument. Though I could have just dismissed him entirely by saying he made three separate Fallacies of Alleged Certainty. But then I'd be dismissing his statement the way you dismissed mine.
No one is excusing Microsoft, everyone is freaking out and fear mongering about Windows 10 but no one seems to care that the computers we carry around in our pockets daily tracking even more information. People are using their phones more than their PCs these days for internet activities, their phones carry all of their contact information (not just email addresses), they know where we are, where we've been, how active we are, and dozens of other things that PCs don't even begin to track. But no one seems to be outraged about that, they laugh at things like Blackphone and say it's for paranoid alarmists. If we're going to get outraged, lets spread it around and not just hate on Microsoft who happens to be very late to the party.
With phones, it's easy - do not sign in with Google Account. There's no need to flash custom firmware, getting custom hardware, etc. Just do not use your Google Account and be picky about the apps you are going to install.
Yes, it is possible to use Android phone like this. I used it for several years this way - my contacts, calendar and email came from Exchange clone (Kerio) using ActiveSync.
The freaking out regarding Windows is, that you cannot opt out. You don't sign in with Microsoft Account? Does not matter, it will send data anyway. You turn off everything, that is possible to turn off? Does not matter, it will send data anyway. And that's all for something, that was not necessary in older versions - the impression is, that something was taken from you.
Actually it's not that easy because Google Services will transmit data back to Google even if you're not logged in. At a minimum it transmits back statistical information but it's not entirely clear what is sent. Which is just like with Windows 10, we don't know exactly what's being transmitted.
A clarification: Windows 7 always collected limited telemetry data, but it wasn't until Windows 8 was released that most aspects of your daily computing experience were collected by default. I believe that some of the more aggressive data collection methods in Windows 8+ have started trickling down to 7 via recent updates though, mostly due to the GWX Windows 10 compatibility checks.
I did it because of issues with W10 disconnecting from my Bluetooth mouse and WIFI issues. I tried many things such as reinstalling drivers and applying fixes suggested by others that were experiencing the same problems. Also, my computer got slower: slower booting up, and slower shutting down. I'm not blaming Microsoft because it could very well be my laptop that has the problem; the fact is, however, that ever since I downgraded to W8.1 my laptop is working fine -- all over again.
I'm strongly considering downgrading to Windows 7. After the upgrade I can't put my PC to sleep - it wakes up all by itself after a couple hours,for no reason whatsoever. I tried doing "powercfg - lastwake" and it just doesn't show anything. I've disabled every single wake timer in the task scheduler, and also completely disabled wake on lan in device manager and in my BIOS. It annoys me enough that I actually want to downgrade.
My Windows machine is for gaming only and I have no interest in Windows 10 cloud integration and data collection, much of which cannot be disabled or blocked.
I made the switch from Windows 7 a few days after release and I'm learning more and more about what is going on under the hood of Windows 10 that is making me seriously consider going back to Windows 7.
Windows 7 had reporting and telemetry, but not even in the same league as what is happening in Windows 10.
I'm aware. I've gone to some extreme lengths to disable these things.
Group Policy editor, registry edits, hosts file additions and added entries to Comodo Firewall to block any suspicious Microsoft processes from making outbound connections.
Different reasons for different machines; my wife's laptop was simply unstable under Windows 10 so it went back to 7. My gaming desktop ran great, but I purposely planned to test Windows 10 and go back to 7 after about a week, just to make sure it would run well. Given some of the privacy revelations the past few days though, as well as some incompatibility with older games, I may just keep Windows 7 on that machine indefinitely. My wife's desktop is running great with 8.1 and she has no complaints, so it will probably be a while before we upgrade it as well.
My main workstation runs Slackware Linux so Windows 10 doesn't enter into the picture there, and my laptop is so old (Dell D400 from 2003 also running Slackware) that it wouldn't run 10 due to no DirectX 9 hardware, and even if it did I'd have to buy a copy anyway since that machine came with XP originally.
The complaints I'm hearing from folks running Windows 10 is that it is broken enough to interrupt their work. (E.g., crashing while using an IDE to code.) That's all the reason needed, really. If you can't quickly find a solution, you'd have to spend the time to revert.
Your thesis is that you have control and ownership of your content; misspellings tend to make it look like you don't take your own advice to heart. I'll grant that it would be unfair to evaluate everything under a microscope, but there are pretty obvious mistakes that a pass-through should have caught. On your "about" page in particular there's a handful of mistakes that you should have caught.
It's really mean-spirited to cherry pick embarrassing examples, so I'll email those to you privately and publicly suggest (to everyone with a site) a quick pass through of the static content (don't bother revising all the blog posts unless you have plenty of time; just be more careful with your writing in the future and do several pass-throughs).
The value in a personal website is that the content of the first search result is all yours (as in, rather than letting Facebook be the first result with all the embarrassing stuff your friends might tag you in, the first result will be entirely self-sourced). Arguably, that puts even more onus on you to be absolutely confident in the quality of that result, because people are expecting this to be your best foot forward.
I THINK, and I could be totally wrong, but I THINK that on at least some platforms, when an app requires access to information stored locally on your phone, it's an all-or-nothing thing. So if Spotify needs permissions to local media files (which it obviously does) then there's no way to grant that without also giving it access to your local photos, for example. Could be totally wrong, I don't know, but I remember hearing that several times.
Awhile ago there was some major app, I think Facebook, that updated its Android version, and everyone freaked out because the new version required a seemingly-outrageous level of access. Some kind soul went down the whole list and explained by everything it requested was critical to the functionality of the app, and I seem to recall one of those explanations involving access to local files.
Also, people need to take a step back and look at these privacy notices for what they really are: legal liability waivers. When Spotify says they are allowed to give your data to third parties, they are not saying "we are selling your data to third party marketers as we speak." They're saying, "if this data ends up in the hands of someone other than Spotify, you cannot sue us." That's it.
Explain please how it is ABSOLUTELY not. It must be at least a bit, because you can tick off a few from the list of the definitions:
Noun
cash grab (plural cash grabs)
1. (derogatory) product designed without love or care, with the sole intent of generating profits
2. (politics) Legislation that serves primarily the purpose of generating revenue.
3. An activity engaged in with the intention of making money quickly.
4. The money generated by a cash grab.
5. A game in which players attempt to grab as much money as possible.
You're doing exactly what Forbes wants you to do: fear mongering. Privacy policies are legal liability waivers. They are not statements of intent. There is absolutely no indication whatsoever that Spotify is harvesting your data and selling it to third parties to make some money on the side. That is a ridiculous assumption, and you need to provide damn good evidence if you expect me to even begin to consider that.
What any REASONABLE person would assume is that Spotify is simply doing what everyone else does, which is track your usage of their product in order to better target ads.
And we all know that if everyone else is doing it it's alright!
The next "reasonable" thing to do is to let them use your phone's camera 24/7 to film your life so that they can get an actually good grasp of your consuming habits.
I'm hyperbolising here of course but this trend of using niche features like syncing your playlist's BPM to your pace as an excuse to track even more data and destroy your user's privacy must stop.
I don't understand this concept. I pay $10 a month get rid of ads, to be able to use the mobile app, and to get higher quality streams. There was never any reason to believe being a paid member had any impact on the data Spotify collects from you.
I notice two things: 1) why shouldn't Apple collect the very same data? 2) apparently users are willing to pay for privacy, that's pretty cool! Something like vysk will actually have some space.
"1) why shouldn't Apple collect the very same data?"
How do we know they don't? Has anyone read the privacy policy lately?
I mean, the only reason anyone flipped about Microsoft's privacy policy is because they took the unusual step of making it understandable to the layman. And they were crucified for that.
From a juridical point of view that was really nice of them. It's a step toward Latin Law, where each man is entitled to understand what he is signing (opposed to the Anglo-saxon where you assume anything can get signed, therefore you need additional laws to protect the people - I am not commenting on such laws)
It appears that the privacy policy makes several references to advertising. I pay money so I don't receive any advertising, so Spotify make no money from me that way.
The part that concerns me is that my data can now be sold to someone else, with ever more excruciating detail about me. Thats the part that concerns me; I don't have an arrangement with those third parties.
My experience with panic about privacy policies is that they virtually always sound far worse than they actually are. For example, access to local files (contacts, photos, music) tends to be an all or nothing thing, and Spotify of course needs access to your local music files.
I also don't think they are selling your data to generate revenue. That's a baseless assumption at best and reckless fear-mongering at worst. The one area where many agree Apple Music has got the leg up on Spotify is music discovery. It's pretty obvious, to me at least, that Spotify wants to gather as much data as possible about what you listen to and how you listen to it, then have the freedom to pass that on to third-party data analysis companies who might be better than they are at identifying your tastes. The Discover Weekly playlist, for example, has been a big hit and was created by a company they acquired.
I'm sure the privacy policy is the same for everyone whether you're paying or not. As far as i remember, a huge part of spotify users don't pay, but listen to those awful ads (i have no idea how one can enjoy music with ads).
So i'm pretty sure, they won't show/play us (paying) customers any ads. Because if they would, many people will cancel their subscription (me included).
The fact that otherwise intelligent people seem to genuinely think that AI would take over and run amok like the fucking Matrix or something is pretty ridiculous.
Modern humans have not demonstrated either particularly good foresight or an ability to correct the things we've set in motion. Case in point is nuclear arms.
If antibiotics had always been regulated as tightly as pain pills are today, resistant bacterial strains would never have proliferated.
Malaria carrying mosquitoes in Africa were not overwhelmingly resistant to pesticides before Jane Fonda's emotional pleas swayed the public to call for the end to DEET spraying.
Crop monocultures not bred for disease resistance led to the loss and destruction of entire cultivars at enormous cost. Insects and other vermin that have coevolved with humans have entire industries dedicated to and required for their control.
Granted neither mice, mosquitoes, nor bacteria are as intelligent as humans, and certainly none of them are actively trying to enslave humanity, but intelligence isn't what makes these things dangerous- they're mindlessly disruptive, and even worse at foresight than we are.
We shouldn't foster a culture of lax attitudes toward security or an IoT primordial soup for AIs that lasts into a different century where the conditions might make it impossible to contain or eradicate. The flags need to be waved now not just so that when something unexpected happens someone can smugly say they told us so, but so that the future is designed in such a way that the worst case can't occur.
