“Last month, Mozilla made a quiet change in Firefox that caused some diehard users to revolt…”

  • ganymede
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    1 month ago

    imo we’re all lacking innocence, regardless of using adblockers or not. we all, myself included, haven’t funded mozilla fairly for FF.

    even if viewing ads for a website was an ethically sound exchange (in principle? probably achievable; in modern implementations? highly debatable),

    regardless, that revenue is naturally for the sites not for the browser. maintaining a modern browser requires non-trivial resources, alot of us get hours/day from our browsers, advertisers are getting paid, and meanwhile ff has been missing out.

    i could be wrong, but my gut feeling is mozilla is (mostly) a legit organisation with genuine good interests at heart. and if we’d all donated even a fraction of what its genuinely worth, they probably wouldn’t have to make these kinds of faustian deals.

    giving advertisers enough to leave innocent people alone

    I think this is very optimistic, the ad industry has virtually zero incentive to play fairly here. afaict they’ve currently got it far too good to have any genuine motivation to make concessions?

    if i had to guess, one of the biggest actual threats on their horizon is somehow maintaining s̶u̶f̶f̶i̶c̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ infinite growth, which is further reason for them to NOT be satisfied with an equivalent or lesser scope than they already have right now.

    imo its not a matter if but when it will be discovered meta’s behaved in bad faith here. i could be wrong, and hopefully i am because it would ofc philosophically be a step in the right direction.

    • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al
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      1 month ago

      if we’d all donated even a fraction of what its genuinely worth, they probably wouldn’t have to make these kinds of faustian deals

      That’s wrong. The creation of PPA isn’t about getting paid, it’s about trying to safeguard the privacy of the average (non tech savvy) user. I don’t understand where this suggestion that this is a means for Mozilla to syphon money, comes from.

      • ganymede
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        1 month ago

        That’s wrong. The creation of PPA isn’t about getting paid

        ok that’s fair, thanks for the useful info i didn’t know that. until money or other resources change hands i’m happy to withdraw the view that while firefox is underfunded by the community, it may not have resulted in these kinds of collaborations.

        what i’m not understanding is how average non-adblock running users will be better off?

        i appreciate you’ve stated how the sole purpose of this collaboration is intended by mozilla.

        yet unlike the current implementation which appears to be opt-out, afaict meta’s particpation here is entirely opt-in, isn’t it? if meta etc decide on a whim they want to have their cake and eat it too, what is stopping them?

        • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al
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          1 month ago

          You live in a town and to get from say the supermarket to the school, everyone cuts across a field. The problem is the field is quite overgrown and while it’s okay in groups, it’s considered dangerous with more than one incident taking place and people still insist on taking the path. The town mayor decided to put lights along the makeshift route that people use and also cut the grass. The residents of the town are mad because they never asked for the field to have its grass cut or for the lights to be put up. The major hopes that their actions will reduce the danger, but only time will tell.

          • ganymede
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            1 month ago

            seems roughly accurate.

            but probably would add

            the mayor is a good person, and genuinely appears to want to see the best in people. but most of the reported incidents involve thugs with overt connections to an organised crime syndicate which is currently so powerful they mostly don’t have to answer to anyone.

            the same crime syndicate has been granted the contract to light the field, cut the grass and keep everyone safe.

            the mayor has a fairly good record of delivering on good community projects. so on the one hand mayor has a good rep, on the other…it’s an organised crime syndicate who is literally one of the worst offenders when it comes to making the field unsafe in the first place.