This is one of the most interesting and fundemental discussions happening. Meta absolutely depends on being able to deliver targted ads towards users, it is a must for that business model.
So in the end it seems fair to ask users either to pay for the service costs, or accept the directed advertising.
What is even more interesting is what other ways this could work? How can a platform - in general, not just meta - provide a “free” service, without monetizing it with targeted advertising?
Are we going to have to get all users to pay for every little service we use? Are we willing to do that to avoid advertising? To avoiding targeting?
This outcome of this will be a lot more important than most people realise.
I think there is a key distinction here: providing ads is fine, but tracking users and sending them targeted ads requires explicit consent. Forcing them to consent to giving up that privacy or else paying is not a fair choice. It’s not even financially fair either as meta is apparently making 80usd a year per user.
Why not give a choice to a user to get ads but not being tracked and not getting targeted advertisements? Where is that option?
When you pay meta, do they comit to stop tracking you or only stop showing you target ads? Because I certainly care about the tracking part and giving users the false sense of privacy because they pay is so disingenuous…
I’m not so sure that hyper targeted ads based on a ton of granular data about me is a requisite for modern business not to collapse in on itself.
Advertisers made do just fine for quite a long time only being able to target the sort of people that would probably be consuming a given magazine or TV show. Ok so this is an auto enthusiast magazine, so lets advertise auto parts. This is a parenting magazine so advertise baby stuff. Etc. Same thing can be done online.
They don’t need to have a creepy level of information about us and if they do their business model maybe doesn’t deserve to stay afloat.
Meta depends on free collection of user data. That data has value, their entire business model relies on not paying users fairly for the value they take.
You can’t build a car without paying for the nuts and bolts. We should be paid, not the other way around.
How can a platform - in general, not just meta - provide a “free” service, without monetizing it with targeted advertising?
One option would be contextual advertising, rather than advertising based on tracking the user.
(Contextual, as in: if you’re looking at a Formula 1 community, you might be interested in car-related products.)
I explained my opinion here, but they can even pay the user and keep their business going.
Login-wall. But what’s that? I can use a Google or Facebook account! Yay!
Just a link to my comment in this thread, sorry. Not something so important but I think they should pay instead.
I am not actually sure about that. I have done some ad campains on facebook, and with the price I see per. impression, if the average users sees 1000 ads or promotee posts a month, the the price is about right.
That is 33⅓ ads or sponsored posts the user will scroll past every day, I don’t think that is unrealistic.
The pricing should be the opposite. I should be payed for watching their targeted ads and letting them still use my statistics.
Oh, wait, according to their logic, I should like targeted ads.
Thus, if I choose no targeted ad, I should be paid even more for that. And they can still use my anonymized statistics for their business.
Their logic is completely broken.
No way we have to pay $200. F*** off.
So, if Facebook does it, it’s evil, but it’s fine if publishers and newspaper do it on their websites?
NOYB has also filled complaints against newspaper, who uses pay or okay. For example against an austrian newspaper or against german ones
I really hope whenever it comes into a decision regarding that in many years that our courts won’t bend the knee to the corporations again.
Anyone can, and should, file a complaint about them to their local data authorities. Actually it’s a good time to get some experience with filing a complaint to ones local data authorities because it is a very helpful and legitimate way of getting your rights.
I have filed a few complains but threatened to file even more, in order to have my data deleted according to GDPR. Even when companies tell you, that you have to download an app to delete your account, they “fins a way” to do it, if you mention the authorities as an alternative
