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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don’t promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
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As horrible as it is, that they should follow Apple’s lead.
I know people rag (for good reason!) on Apple for all the dongles and the hardware lock-in…
But dedication to selling extra hardware that’s overpriced and getting people locked into your hardware ecosystem so they keep buying your products has allowed Apple to mostly avoid having to succumb to the same business model of harvesting and selling data. (once again, mostly)
As much as that sucks in a lot of ways, companies do need to make money somewhere, and realistically, I’d be happier with companies making actual products rather than placing another roadblock to using their already existing digital services with either ads or a paywall.
Will it work for every company? No, especially not startups, who are not in a market position to fight against an entrenched Apple.
However both Microsoft and Google make hardware, and they could choose to focus on hardware as opposed to selling ads, but I think ads is “just easier” in a lot of ways for them, compared to actually needing to make quality products people want to use. (Part of the reason is it is hard to get individuals to pay for an OS, while you will always have advertisers willing to spend a buck)
Also, in general, I would advise against the push for everything to be Software as a Service. My OS doesn’t need to be a service that I pay for. An OS should be a neutral party to running services. It shouldn’t be the service itself. The “service” an OS is providing is already given by dint of being an Operating System, and by making it a subscription, you’ve actually just taken away the benefit of that service and hidden it behind a monthly paywall. It’s disgusting and pathetic and painfully obviously a money-grab. Shame on you, Microsoft, for considering it. And shame on you, Google, for pioneering an OS that makes money through ads, which set the stage for all of this.
Personal opinion, I think ads should be banned at the OS-level. It’s a serious conflict-of-interest. OS-level “advertising IDs” should also be illegal.
Its not just ads that are the problem, its that the data is even being invasively aggregated in the first place. I don’t believe APPL actually does Privacy to the fullest extent so much as they imply and boast about it. If that were the case, all their Apps and everything should have the No Data Collected checkmark or be limited to analysitcs and junk. They should never be collecting and claiming ownership over User Content and similar outrageous datagrabs
I agree, which is why I emphasized “mostly.” Apple still has an ad-wing. They just don’t rely on it almost exclusively for income, like Google. Ads are basically the only profitable arm of Google. Apple has an incredibly strong hardware wing with sales that justify it, allowing them to treat ads secondarily.
As I said at the end, the real issue is that ads shouldn’t be allowed at the OS-level and similarly an OS should be neutral and not collecting data. It’s there to be used by the user not to be dictated how the user uses by the company, as it is increasingly becoming.