If your business can't make money because you have to respect the rights and freedoms of your customers, then close your shop up. If your business can't make money because you have to pay your workers enough to live, then close up shop. If your business can't make money because you have to abide the laws of the countries in which you operate, then close up shop.
This bizarre entitlement that entrepreneurs have, especially but far from exclusively in the tech space, that just because they want their business to exist and make money that they therefore have this strange innate right to transact and draw profit, even when providing subpar service, paying subpar wages, cutting corners in the work they do, etc. etc. has been entertained for far too long. The way I was always taught it, markets select for firms that provide service well, at competitive cost, and business is a RISK because of those things. Sometimes risks don't pay off.
You have it backwards. None of these tech companies are candid about how they monetize. I'd imagine that all but the bottom 10% of users at this point understand what is going on. So the problem isn't entitled corporations, the problem is users are willingly using these services.
It would be way more fruitful if you redirected your anger towards the users who continue to just shrug and hand over their data. Or the ever growing contingent of people who are ad-blocking everything anyway, eating the fruits of garden while keeping their wallets taped shut. For them, the system as it is now is best.
It depends which side you think has the responsibility to be candid and informed, the business or the consumer. While I'm all for informed consumers making good decisions, I believe there is also room to acknowledge the sheer amount of shit a consumer, today, must be informed about in order to properly operate in all the markets they are more or less required to. And with that in mind, I err more on the side that a business should be transparent about it's pricing and policies because the business is looking to make a profit. Informing your customer about your product used to be a very normal thing. A lot of sales training in the days of yore was about assessing customer needs and tailoring products to meet them. Now it seems to be a mad dash to get as many as you possibly can as quickly as you possibly can with as little work as possible.
I have a strong dislike of the notion that the only way for customers to avoid being taken for a ride is that they have to know things about the businesses they are interacting with. I ask you: why should we permit this? Why do customers need to be experts on how their data is used to avoid it being done, or worse still, have to pay for the privilege of not being surveilled? What is the gain in that decision for larger society?
I get your argument, but like I said, pretty much everyone is well aware of data collection and targeted advertising. And they still use those services.
Just like people are aware that Ubereats is a pile of fees on top of higher menu prices...and they still just use anyway to avoid having to call the restaurant to deliver or pickup themselves.
everyone is well aware of data collection and targeted advertising
they may be aware of it happening, but they are not aware of the consequences, risks and dangers. they have no idea how that data can be misused. identity-theft, scams, stalking, harassment, doxxing, leaking of private information (your daughter is pregnant, gambling or other controversial activities) and who knows what else that can be enabled with access to this data.
> I get your argument, but like I said, pretty much everyone is well aware of data collection and targeted advertising. And they still use those services.
I mean, sure. I don't think that's inherently wrong. All the parties making decisions in this transaction didn't do so at the same time, and I feel the temporal context is important as it amounts to a large scale "conversation" if you will between the public and Facebook:
- Facebook initially launched it's product some time ago and offered few if any features for ad targeting.
- As it grew in technical complexity and aptitude, as an organization, it created and refined more precise targeting measures which required more user data to operate, which incentivized the collection and categorization of more user data
- Users despite enjoying the product are (rightfully I feel) uncomfortable with the idea of being surveilled, but this doesn't necessarily mean they are prepared to stop using the product. Facebook has engineered their product to be at least somewhat addictive, and even that aside, social media is not totally without uses and enjoyable aspects.
- Users then instead of divesting from the product are asking their leaders to legislate rules about how much their data can be used in this way. Their leaders have responded with legislation mandating transparency and establishing rules about user's data.
- Facebook then responded basically saying "if you don't want us to use your data for this purpose, you need to pay X amount of money instead to cover the ad revenue we cannot make"
- Users individually make this choice, but also the leaders whom have been charged with working on this issue come forth and say, "you cannot paywall a user's right to privacy"
- The proverbial ball is now back in Facebook's court, it can either divest from it's EU users, or fall back on un-targeted advertising which makes them less money, or it can make the subscription fee give more back to the users and make it a more compelling offer where it can operate outside of being basically a protection racket.
I summarize all this to point out that users are not limited to simply using the product or not using the product. The EU suffers less from the malaise I feel has infected the United States, where we've forgotten that the letter of the law is not simply for punishment, but also to shape the society we want to see built, including incentivizing and disincentivizing behaviors of private organizations via regulation. In this case, users do want the product, but they are altering instead via public policy what is permitted to happen when they choose to use that product. That is a fair action on that part and Facebook's response, IMO, amounts to corporate whining. This is a reality of the business they've chosen to engage in: complying with regulations is not a new concept, and it is not unfair either: regulations are always subject to change at the whims of those in power, for better or worse.
It’s ironic that you’re talking about entitlement when the EU is more or less telling meta to provide its services for free.
Given that many EU countries are part of the 14 eyes alliance, these laws seem more like hypocritical protectionist legislation. They don’t care about the privacy of EU citizens. They only care about the survival of ancient EU companies. Ie why aren’t EU publishers subject to the same terms? Why can they offer targeted ads in lieu of payment?
EU protectionism is also one of the reasons why the US is growing tired of continuing to subsidize the EU’s defense.
Meta (at the time Facebook) decided to provide it's services for free at the time of inception of the product. The EU did not force their hand and they're free to stop providing services to EU users at a time of their choosing.
I find it rather amusing how the notion that a business that can't make money in a given region is so wholly incompatible with your thought processes that you just jump immediately to "the EU is trying to get them to operate for free!" Like just... what if Facebook just wasn't in Europe? Like... that would be fine. The planet would continue spinning, Facebook would still make shit tons of money. It's honestly kind of wild how committed you are to this one shitty product remaining available in this one region.
> It’s ironic that you’re talking about entitlement when the EU is more or less telling meta to provide its services for free.
No. Facebook can paywall their services.
What they condition the use of their services while respecting user's privacy to payments. It is like EU fighting against a criminal organization that offer "protection services" if you don't want them to burn your shop.
That analogy makes no sense as a retort to why EU publishers don’t have to abide by the same rules. EU publishers also have n free articles per month. It’s still just protectionism at the end of the day.
I think the key is the EU's Data Protection Board can't probably fight all abuse at the same time and target first the biggest (in term of audience) first.
