this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Why are we saying “engineers” when we know full well there isn’t a single qualified engineer in there that thinks this bullshit is a good idea?

This is management being management.

[–] DrQuint 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's a bad idea to assume everyone in the field is of a similar mindset and philosophy. There are a LOT of people who genuinely want to make the world worse and see things like adblocking as piracy.

In fact, I've met people who hate the concept of Open Source and want things to be closer to creative fields. They're shortsighted of course, greedy. But the basis doesn't change the outcome. Yes, it's blatantly their desires to "own" a piece of code the same way musicians often own a movie's score and get licensing fees on them that led that path. But they still walked it and they still exist and they're still out there, hoping for the day they get to go against you.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I dunno, I’ve met a few engineers that fancied themselves as being smarter than everyone else. Their ideas were the only ones that held merit due to their belief that they were ‘enlightened’, so to speak.

The vast majority I’ve met are normal, well-adjusted human beings that think the ‘smart’ ones are full of it. Specifically, they they can’t seem to see the forest for the trees.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Ah, Elon's.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But they will still implement it. Does it really matter if they didn't come up with the idea if they are the people that will build it up?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

The world collectively decided that just following orders wasn’t excuse for doing something wrong. While this might be quite as cut and dry a situation, it is definitely partially the fault of those who implement this. Engineers aren’t the type of laborers that risk homelessness and suffering when quitting a job typically. They have the privilege of withholding their labor that most Americans don’t. They choose not to exercise it, which leaves two options, indifference, or support, of these implementations.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It does matter, because the article uses the word “want”.

[–] MeshPotato 12 points 1 year ago

Louis posted a video on a much bigger problem that Google has with ads. These campaigns seem to completely neglect.

https://youtu.be/hWJrsz_cmas

In short: it's fake views. That's were advertisers pay for viewed ads, but the view happened to a bot. Ad block at least doesn't discourage advertisers since they don't pay for unviewed ads.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So these assh… are going to pay the wasted data from metered connections? they’ll pay me money? they can also guarantee that malware is not spread anymore via ad networks? sure sure.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When a machine gets infected with malware because of drop-in ad content, the ad broker should be liable to the machine owner for $$$.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Should be. As far as I know they are. But nobody seems to care...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

We should ask the EU already

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Technical explainer:
https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/blob/main/explainer.md#how-it-works

It apparently requires some kind of proprietary operating environment to function, thus making it compatible with free (as in freedom) computing. You would need either a proprietary library/OS or an open OS but a proprietary piece of vendor hardware to act as the attester.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Assuming you meant incompatible.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

It's been evident big tech wants their own corporate intranet of sorts. Perhaps we're seeing the beginnings of a great net split. That's if there's enough movement to forge on with a free (as in libre) standards regardless of what big tech is doing on their own.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'll just use AI to filter out ads in future. Too bad advertisement needs to be recognizable, so AI can.