Half the comments here are just pointing out that ad blockers exist, which is missing the point.
The damage of an advertising-based internet economy is not limited to just "seeing ads." The entire content and structure of the internet is warped around this economy. Search engines, SEO, content discovery mechanisms, types and variety of content... all could have been different and better.
Interesting you say "seeing ads", because lately when I am volunteering with legally blind population as their "tech-mate", I can't explain them why technology isn't doing what they want it to do. It's a million times worse when we put ourselves into their shoes.... My strategy has changed from helping them learn technology, to helping them avoid how to use technology. One of the person I help, who is legally blind but can see font size 50+, asked me to teach him how to search for lyrics of songs so that he can play his guitar. I tried to teach him, but it was pointless because of how the websites were full of ads. I did install an ad blocker which helped a bit but in the end, I gave up and now I just print out lyrics for him.
step 1: install & use Firefox
step 2: install and use adblockers (multiple)(I got ublock origin, adblock plus, noscript, privacy badger, privacy possum)(nothing gets through!!)
step 3: install "Open in Reader View" addon (not affiliated in any way). With this, when I DDG-search for something, especially lyrics or something for which I am interested in only the text, I right-click and "open in reader view" so it does exactly that.
step 4: set the Reader View (F9) in FF, to the font size, color, etc.
and the your 'friend' will Google for: Metallica enter sandman lyrics, and just right-click and pick the "Open in reader view", and presto! new tab with just the lyrics
EDIT: tip: tell your 'friend' to search for Band Song_title AZLyrics (not affiliated) so the first hit will be from "AZLyrics.com" which will have a standard format (I always search for ".... azlyrics" instead of just "..lyrics")
I don’t think we fully fathom how much everything on the Internet has degraded. And we and our children have degraded with it. Like frogs boiling alive in a pot, we never noticed it because of how gradually they increased the temperature.
N.B., he is right on the Gen-X/Millenial border. So, we can now look retrospectively at a good chunk of his generation’s career. The tech industry we’ve built does, in fact, suck.
Although, Millenials seem to be pretty annoyed by all this, and aren’t really anywhere near retirement yet. So maybe we can figure out some way to apply the brakes.
That's such a copout quote. The people working on ads aren't the best minds, if they were they wouldn't be working on ads. We somehow bought into the lie that "maximize profit" has anything to do with intelligence. And that a bank account is a equivalent to an intelligence score.
No, the problem we find ourselves in is that we let ad companies buy the entire economy and infect it with anticompetitive behavior. The people working on Android aren't working on ads. Their work is being exploited by an ad company and twisted to serve ads.
I personally find my doctor infinitely more intelligent than any Google tech bro. I find the group of people making Little Kitty Big City infinitely more intelligent than some Facebook wanker.
The comments you criticised describe a solution or at least a workaround, but you are just stating a problem, thus my honest question. No need to get snarky.
Give every Internet user a domain name and routable IP for free with their Internet account.
That won't magically fix all the problems in an instant, but the core of everything wrong with the Internet starts with the Internet being separated into consumers and providers, instead of being a true peer2peer network.
Even in the olden days of the Internet when ISPs would give you free webspace with your Internet account, you still didn't get your own domain name, meaning all your Web presence would bust when you switched providers.
Alternatively, get Freenet, IPFS/IPNS or any of the other distributed alternatives working, but after 25 years of people trying, I kind of given up hope of it ever happening.
The same way we actually have been fixing problems for the past few hundred years: legislation.
Spooky, I know, but contrary to what armchair economists will tell you, the invisible hand doesn't do shit outside what it needs to. It's a lot like Natural Selection in that way. Yeah it works... to get the job done. And nothing more. Because it doesn't need to.
Step 1: remove Section 230 protection for algorithmically-elevated content.
If you're going to have attention-mining addiction-creating software funnel people into rabbit holes, then those rabbit holes need to be verified, safe-to-consume stuff. Watching 5 hours of 5 minute crafts is at worst, going to make someone spend too much money at Hobby Lobby. Certainly not good, but a workable issue. Watching 5 hours of white supremacist propaganda is how you get our current sociopolitical climate.
How is that a "step 1" when thats describing something else entirely?
How much would you pay to own an account on social media? If your answer is $0 then you're not addressing anything, you just want someone else to subsidize your entertainment and you want to call the shots on top.
I don't work for free, and I know damn well neither do you.
> How is that a "step 1" when thats describing something else entirely?
You asked "how do we change that" and I'm assuming the "that" referred to the subject of the PC: "The damage of an advertising-based internet economy" which in turn exists in the context of the linked video in the OP, which enunciates the consequences of machine learning being applied to creating hyper-addictive and extremist social media websites, in 2017 by the way, and the speakers broad hypothesis seems, in my eyes, broadly confirmed.
And the principle issue there is thus: an algorithm that consistently directs you to more concentrated and extreme versions of whatever you're consuming (vegetarian -> vegan, for example) can be utterly benign or perhaps annoying in that context, but gets notably darker when it's moving people from Donald Trump's rallies to The Jewish Question.
I have no issue at all with the former example, I have a LOT of issues with the latter.
> How much would you pay to own an account on social media? If your answer is $0 then you're not addressing anything, you just want someone else to subsidize your entertainment and you want to call the shots on top.
In that equation, I'm the product. I have every right to call the shots because the social media company only makes money by my participation in it, which is why I left Facebook and have only atrophied, ancient presences on most websites. I'm fine being shown ads for weird tech junk I might find cool. I'm not fine having the intricacies of my personal beliefs sanded off by weirdos trying to sell white supremacy like it's Pepsi.
He did not, you are ascribing another person's quote to them.
> And the principle issue there is thus: an algorithm
Section 230 does not stop people from using algorithms to enforce harmful content consumption loops for the purposes of selling advertisements. It specifically protects them from the consequences, but repeal that and now you've created a common incentive to sell Cocomelon for American adults.
We keep Section 230 because, even when it's retards like Elon Musk at the reigns, adults deserve to be treated with maturity and respect.
Would you support blocking BLM and black supremacist propaganda too? Essentially you are just proposing traditional government censorship. The good thing about Soviet TV is that it had only wholesome content - not that western capitalist stuff.
BLM content does not promote hate the way white nationalist content does and I'm immediately suspicious of your motives with you trying to make that equivalence. BLM is about justice and equality under the law. White supremacy is decidedly not, like, it's in the name. That's the supremacy part.
As for black supremacist content, yeah nix that shit too. It's corrosive for the exact same reasons. Was this supposed to be a hard question?
They aren't proposing blocking content. If a business-controlled algorithm recommends something, the company should be responsible for what it pushes because amplification falls outside what Section 230 protects. Hosting is protected. Deliberate, profit-driven curation is not.
The damage of an advertising-based internet economy is not limited to just "seeing ads." The entire content and structure of the internet is warped around this economy. Search engines, SEO, content discovery mechanisms, types and variety of content... all could have been different and better.