The alternative to that is the hell that is the current internet.
this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
31 points (89.7% liked)
Firefox
1058 readers
204 users here now
The latest news and developments on Firefox and Mozilla, a global non-profit that strives to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the web.
You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:
Related
- Firefox Customs: [email protected]
- Thunderbird: [email protected]
Rules
While we are not an official Mozilla community, we have adopted the Mozilla Community Participation Guidelines as far as it can be applied to a bin.
Rules
-
Always be civil and respectful
Don't be toxic, hostile, or a troll, especially towards Mozilla employees. This includes gratuitous use of profanity. -
Don't be a bigot
No form of bigotry will be tolerated. -
Don't post security compromising suggestions
If you do, include an obvious and clear warning. -
Don't post conspiracy theories
Especially ones about nefarious intentions or funding. If you're concerned: Ask. Please don’t fuel conspiracy thinking here. Don’t try to spread FUD, especially against reliable privacy-enhancing software. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Show credible sources. -
Don't accuse others of shilling
Send honest concerns to the moderators and/or admins, and we will investigate. -
Do not remove your help posts after they receive replies
Half the point of asking questions in a public sub is so that everyone can benefit from the answers—which is impossible if you go deleting everything behind yourself once you've gotten yours.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
The alternatives for Mozilla are: A) Try to become an advertising company, or B) Don't.
So the argument here is that, without ad targeting, ads are less valuable to advertisers, which means that they will pay websites less, which means that only the lowest-quality websites remain?
It seems remarkably optimistic to think that this stuff will shift the supply supply curve of advertising to the right, lower barriers to entry for spammers, and crowd out quality content.
This would require increasing the number of people willing to accept that their web browsers are made by an ad company, that they'll be subjected to all the ads, and that the software they use is designed in part to measure and analyze the audience of which they're a part so that data can be sold to advertisers. I don't think there's room for that number to increase much further.
More likely, the only substantial result will be Firefox losing ground even more quickly in the battle against a Google monopoly on web browsers and either someone else comes along to take up the fight or we'll have to give up this "world wide web" thing and go back to writing our comments on bathroom walls, if there are some left that aren't covered in ads.
This would require increasing the number of people willing to accept that their web browsers are made by an ad company
There are billions of people using browsers built by an ad company.
More likely, the only substantial result will be Firefox losing ground even more quickly in the battle against a Google monopoly on web browsers
It kinda feels like you didn't read what I wrote, but I didn't really go into competitive analysis; I assumed that PPA was the new game in town.
I assumed that PPA was the new game in town.
It kinda feels like you didn't read what I wrote. That very assumption is what I was calling optimistic. Unrealistically so, I think.
Perhaps -- and maybe I can try exploring that.
Still, the supply curve of content shifting right is already happening. Quality content is already being crowded out. PPA is just part of the monetization story.
True, I was ignoring the distinction between the supply of shitty web pages and the supply of attribution-recording advertising opportunities provided through them. Not quite the same thing even if they do seem likely, as you proposed, to be closely correlated in the scenario where Mozilla's product somehow ends up surviving to become a hugely influential new ad platform.
I assumed that this would be standardized - not assuming that the Mozilla platform would be the one that was influential.