The law defines what companies can or cannot do around privacy. So Meta can't go around telling users to pay to get the privacy the law affords them anyway or conversely, if users don't pay they don't get the privacy.
The root of the issue is probably the "freely given consent" that the law defines. If Meta charges users unless they consent to something, then the consent isn't freely given.
I think the issue is not actually how freely given consent is defined, but that these tech giants want to not only offer a useful service, but they also want to be allowed to do whatever they want with user data accumulated through usage of their otherwise useful service. For providing their service, they don't have to use data in the ways that they want to use it. If they were running an honest business, they would be charging the user for using their useful services, not trying to make dime with user data without consent, manufactured "consent", or extorted "consent".
They wriggle and wriggle, instead of running an honest business, where people buying access to their platforms would actually reflect the usefulness and real value of people being willing to pay for a service. That would be a very transparent number, and that cannot be made look more than it is to shareholders though. I think if they did this, then their whole value would collapse massively back down to sane levels. Now they have blown this whole ads and attention machinery waaay out of proportion and will do anything to keep it pumped up. Heck, they want to pump it up even more, because we all know iiiinfinite growth! They would not be satisfied, if their business spanned the whole solar system.
No, the ruling said that the free version shouldn’t gather/use as much data as now. The problem is with the free part, not that you can pay for the ad free version. If the free part is not that invasive, it’s completely fine to keep the pay-or-use-your-data model.
Facebook offered paid subscription for ad-free experience in Europe.[1] First, europeans complained it is too expensive. After a price cut, they EC still wanted a free version with less personalization.[2]
If google offers something similar, I am pretty sure Europeans will find something else to complain about.
About a decade ago google trialed a program where you could pay monthly to "buy out" ad spaces. So you wouldn't get served ads, or you would get served fewer ads, and the money would be deducted from what you allotted per month.
Of course
"What kind of dumbass would pay to not see ads when uBlock Origin is free? lololol"
It didn't ever get traction or last very long before being canned. This is the mentality that money-compensation-business-plan tech companies would have to face; "What kind of dumbass would pay for your product?"
The more you’re willing to pay to opt out of ads the more valuable the ads are. Also the ads are auctioned and in opting out you’re all ways going to be the highest bidder. Additionally how would you know the other bidders were real, it’s a massive information asymmetry that’s open to abuse. And I’m pretty sure they have abused it in the past.
I use substack and patreon and I wish we had micro transactions that’ll enable more of this model for content.
Now much of the same info is recycled via AI, instead of reading blogs / stack overflow etc I just ask AI and so far I can use AI without ads. I do pay for a subscription to Gemini.
Because it's extortion just like paying the mafia for "protection" from themselves.
See, ads are not a pro-social service. Their fundamental goal is not to inform and facilitate mutually beneficial exchange of goods/services. Their goal is to allow companies who spend ad-money to gain an advantage over competitors who don't, regardless of quality of the product.
Ads are a fundamentally anti-competitive practice.
1) Your lack of proper punctuation makes some sentences hard to read and it comes off as disrespectful.
2) Generally, people use the > character for quotes. You use " and that's fine but your third quote is not an actual quote from my message. This case is harmless but it's generally rude to put words in other people's mouths and mislead anybody else reading this into thinking I said a particular thing I did not.
3) Since "You paid with your data" is actually your phrasing, you admit that data is a form of currency. And since as you said, I paid, it cannot by definition be free.
4) Your insistence that state-issues currencies (or only the dollar) are the only valid currencies is wrong. People commonly perform other forms of exchange of both goods and services, surely you wouldn't claim e.g. somebody is performing work for free when he asks you for a counter-service or non-monetary compensation. I suggest reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration , it is closely related.
5) Disadvantage means one side of the negotiation has more information it can leverage to make a more beneficial deal to it at the expense of the other party. Since I don't know how much money my attention and data makes the company, I can't negotiate a fair price for me to pay in monetary terms instead of attention and data.
6) I am clearly important enough that my data, time and attention have monetary value.
7) What if I belong to a minority which would be targeted under a different regime? My data can be used to profile me. If the data can be sold or published today, there's nothing stopping a future government or even non-governmental organizations from using it. The right to privacy and the right to control my data is just as important as free speech for maintaining a free society.
Guarded by a "privacy policy". This is Google. How come this "if you're not paying for it, you're the product" crowd doesn't get that it doesn't matter if you're paying or not, you're always the product?
I don't like this argument since this is can be applied to everything and You expect people to roll out their own service for everything since everything is a product in some form or another
its okay to depends on some product because they are just good, for example people free to use Office alternative which is free btw but people literally dont choose that because MS Office is just better
all of this deep talk discussion is irrelevant since User want an working product that they expect them to
Because we're not idiots and we read the "privacy policy"? And shock, it's different for their enterprise products? What, do you think all corporations using google are just stupid and giving up all their confidential data?
The vast majority of peope put very little value on their time and attention and sense of aesthetics (even if they might say otherwise). It's the only explanation for why advertising is as pervasive as it is.
