So I should probably lower the quality of my life to make a statement that will have no impact on them at all?
>You can't change how they operate.
Sure you can, by petitioning your government to draft laws and so on.
God forbid we "lower the quality of our lives" for such lowly things as principles!
>Sure you can, by petitioning your government to draft laws and so on.
Else what, you'll vote for another party? Both parties (in the US) take money from Big Tech, and they vote the same shit anyway. That will "show them" nothing. Especially since their stance on such laws is 1/100 of the things you vote a party/candidate about (so you will still vote for them if you agree on other matters).
(Edit: I mention mental wellness because those products, and the ads they carry, are designed to be addictive.)
If you write "teen movie about vampires" or something equally vague, Google is king.
If you write a direct quote or the exact error message, without typos, DDG gives better results. I can also put sentences in quotes to force an exact match. DDG is just an older school search engine, so old school tricks work better.
Instagram is a great tools for business, and now it's practically impossible to run one without using it. Twitter and reddit can provide you a ton of useful info that you will have a hard time finding anywhere else (or it will take way longer). I've built a business on Play Store.
It's all about how you use them.
I use GMail, Google Search, Youtube Twitter, Amazon, and Facebook.
I'm not thrilled about FB but it lets me keep tabs on friends. Sometiems I interact with a few people who are friends but sucked in by a lot of the disinformation around, so I try to engage with them sometimes but not often. I also spend maybe 15 minutes a day on it, tops.
Twitter never stresses me, I don't follow toxic people, just friends, entertainers, tech people and such. Again, maybe 15-30 minutes a day, tops.
I get a lot of satisfaction from Youtube, I even pay for premium so I don't get ads, and follow a bunch of great creators.
Amazon's pricing and delivery are great. that makes me happy. I just make sure not to by crap/scam products and I'm good. I use Amazon Music every day, and their video streaming is great too (although they need to stop changing the name).
Google Search is by far the best, IMO, and saves me hours every day.
I have my personal domain go to gmail, and it makes managing ages of email a breeze.
So I can't see a way in which ditching any of those would benefit me, and aside from Facebook, I feel NOT using them would cause me more stress, or less enjoyment.
I'd love to know how you find leaving them has benefitted you.
Whether you realise it or not, the algorithms behind these services are having a subtle impact on you and show you things for various shady reasons. For me, that was enough just to ditch those services.
It's good to see that you're limiting your exposure to them though.
But you trust yourself so much that "advertising DOES work on me, but only insomuch as it alerts me to potential things"
That sounds a bit contradictory to me. (I think I could describe myself somewhat like you did in the latter part, and I still have absolutely no illusions that ads would not be able to get me. So I just actively try to avoid them. And I do not need or want anyone to alert me on potential things. Even further, I try to live by the principle of never, ever making any kind of commercial transaction with anyone where I have not been the intiator of the communication.)
Only if you're massively moving the goalposts.
The claim wasn't anything about "subtle impact" or "shady reasons". It was about whether those services are causing major stress and problems.
Why do I care? That's the implicit bargain, I get a free service in exchange for ads. I don't care about the ads, they don't show up in my actual mail feed, just on the side so they're easy to ignore/block.
> Psychological profiles are collated from every click you take on each of these platforms and pulled into ad brokerships.
Why do I care? We build profiles of every person we meet in our heads. I'm a very open person.
> The people that are hired to do this profiling often have crossovers into government sectors, as this is just another form of surveillance.
Again, why do I care? I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I truly do not care if people know I looked at new Kias, or I use Old Spice deodorant. I don't find any of that information being out there harmful to me.
> I am personally shocked (not necessarily appalled) at anyone feeling OK with this level of scrutiny being applied to themselves at all the times by government bureaucrats, or companies just looking to make a buck off of your behavior without you even knowing. We're past the point where anyone can claim ignorance of these facts.
It's not that I'm ok with it, I simply don't CARE. It doesn't impact me in a negative way. There is no human out there looking at my buying/watching habits and taking notes, passing them on to men in trees with binoculars plotting to abduct me. There are machine learning algorithms using them to suggest things I might buy, or might want to watch on TV. They're right sometimes, so I actually get some value out of it.
I don't make it easy, I opt out of everything I can, but I also don't really care as long as I can not hook my TV to the network to avoid Samsung's built-in ads which is offensive bullshit and SHOULD be regulated, then I'm ok. When I go out into the world, I don't have any rights to who can see me who what they can learn about me, it's the same online. As long as I have the power to control what comes into my home, that's what matters. Outside, or out on the internet at large, I'm on someone else's property, and if I don't like their rules, I can leave.
There's a difference between watching me in public and forcing me to do things. One is your right which doesn't harm me, and the other is NOT your right because it CAN harm me.
They use highly optimized and self-optimizing techniques and psychological tricks (including A/B testing, consulting experts in cognition, using dark patterns, and everything) to get you hooked on dopamine hits, make you jealoush of your timeline peers, anger you, milk your engagement etc.
The idea that "I'm different, these ads don't work on me" is basically the 21st century version of "I'm not addicted can't quit anytime" of the drug addict (not to mention that it's not just ads, but the feed that's problematic, from reasons that range from echo-bubbling to comparing yourself to 1000s of people you don't know but are your "friends" -- and even with actual friends, people used to have less visibility to their spending habbits, vacation photos, etc, not share everything including pics of their branch).
I completely agree with the echo-chamber effect, but I also don't feel Facebook or Twitter are actually good sources for political discourse or information so I'm not exactly trusting anything I see there. I think cable news is far more "addictive" and mood-warping than Facebook, though. It's totally passive, you just sit there and absorb the anxiety-laden "coming up in just minutes, how some politician is literally trying to kill you and your family with new regulations on ocean cargo ships! After these ads."
Yes, they absolutely want to boost engagement and use. Yes, they use tested algorithms to select content appealing to you. Yes, some of them even have sleazy policies on content and ads. Some types of content and some types of personalities lend themselves well to that type of information dissemination, especially right-wing content due to the more conformist/authority-pleasing nature of those mentalities. Do I think Facebook and Twitter actually want to make me angry at people? No. People that use FB and Twitter for propaganda reasons do, but that's what propaganda from any source is meant to do, highlight differences between groups and increase inter-group tension to reinforce tribal identity.
But, you didn't actually answer my question. I asked how they affected YOU, not what the goals of these platforms are. I want to hear how they actually affected a person, not how they might affect groups. I'd really like to know how Google and Amazon fit in there too. Again, feel like it boils down to "maybe you shouldn't be so affected by people you don't know and ideas you haven't checked" but also again I don't want to victim blame. I also don't generally like blaming tools for problems, so I'm trying to get more data.
But it's worth to note that most people are delluded in this regard, thinking they're different. Besides "different in tolerance" and "hookable" are not entirely contradictory. One might resist Vicodin and fall for social media echo- bubbling for example, the same way some can resist alcohol, but fall for drugs or food at obesity-level, and so on. In other words, some are different in the set of tolerances, but still human, in that they have their soft spots.
>But, you didn't actually answer my question. I asked how they affected YOU, not what the goals of these platforms are.
That would still be asking the wrong question. We don't live in isolated fishbowls. What negatively affects others also affects me (that's not even to mention the direct harm to my family, relatives, and friends, I'm speaking in more general community terms).
> how were they negatively impacting your mental wellbeing?
I think the answer to your question is obviously very personal and will change from an individual to another.
For me personally the stress came in 2 forms:
* Outrage/politics, especially on Twitter and Reddit. On Twitter, it's impossible to escape this, even if you carefully sanitise the list of those who you follow, due to the trending section being visible to everyone. On Reddit, if you visit the site while you are not logged in, again you will see all of the above.
* Time sink. The worst offender here was Youtube. E.g. "I need to do X in my aquarium let me just quickly double check that video by Aquarium Co-op" - 2 hours later (spent watching "recommended next" videos) I would realise "wow I just wasted 2 hours of my life". Note that I can still quickly view a video without having an account, but due to not having followlists and such, the recommendations are less addictive. Facebook and Instagram were also a time sink and unlike Youtube they weren't really useful in any obvious way, except maybe a couple of Facebook Groups I was part of (e.g. my daughter's school parents group where I could get some news about the school - I now subscribe to their newsletter instead).
* Instigating compulsive spending, e.g. Amazon - this is quite obvious due to it being an e-commerce website and knowing well what you're thinking to buy. I now shop on local retailers whenever possible and as a last resort on eBay, since at least it is less pervasive - unlike Amazon which entices you to take advantage of the rest of their ecosystem e.g. Prime Video or Kindle or Twitch, then "follows" you in all those places with tracking ads.
> Google Search is by far the best, IMO, and saves me hours every day.
If you use Duckduckgo, you can add !sp at the end of your search, and you will get proxied Google results. You don't need to have a Google account for that.
> I have my personal domain go to gmail, and it makes managing ages of email a breeze.
Having a personal domain is a great first step, well done! I didn't have it so I had to setup an "out of office" message, warning everyone that my Gmail address would be deactivated soon...
Youtube CAN be a time sink, but so can movies, books, and music. It's my responsibility to manage my time, but I appreciate that it makes it easy to find content I WANT rather than crap.
I grew up dirt poor, homeless twice before I was ten. I make 6 figures now because I work hard, I'm good at what I do (and also because being a white male in America is very useful), and because I know how to spend and not to spend. Good tea is worth it, grocery store milk and butter are fine. A good car is essential, it should work well and look nice, but I'm not buying a Mercedes ever. I have an $1,000 TV that I got for $450 because I love to bargain hunt like some people like to actually hunt.
I don't _generally_ care about remarketing ads, as long as they don't go on for months. My biggest problem is when I see ads for three weeks AFTER I BOUGHT THE DAMN THING.
So I can go to Duck Duck Go, get Google results, but without the benefit of having a profile to determine what's most likely more relevant to me? That doesn't sound useful. I LIKE that Google says, "hey, the last three things he searched were actors in the same TV show, I bet when he's typing a name it's probably related to that same show." I like that Google knows if I search "stars fell on alabama" the chances I want the lyrics to the Frank Sinatra song are 100%. That's beneficial to me.
I have a personal domain for vanity reasons, and also control, yes. If I decide to leave, it's on my terms.
I applaud you for being in charge of your own life, I think I am too. I will say, however, that I think you probably concern yourself with the concept of privacy than me. I'm not a big "what if" person, not a big existential question person. To me, privacy was ALWAYS a lot less encompassing than we ever thought, and at the same time, no one cares about us nearly as much as we think they do. Do FAANG know a lot about me? Yep. but I don't care, because they don't care about me, I don't matter to them. I'm a line in a database, nothing more.
My life philosophy is, "The universe wants to kill me. Eventually it will. My priority is prolonging the magic." That doesn't include worrying about how many databases know I like BSG, Sinatra, Mountain Dew, and liberal politics.
Oh of course, I never suggested otherwise! We all have different priorities, and also our heads all work in different ways.
But, I wanted to make it clear that, if one has moral exceptions, then they can quit those services and be OK. Many are under the impression that they could not possibly live without X or Y, that's the idea I wanted to dispel.
I came to the same conclusion. It is much easier to blame some internet website (which is basically just some pixels on a screen) instead of figuring out internal psychological reasons for being addicted. If a person is looking for addictions, they will find them. If it won't be facebook, it will be porn, binge-watching, sugar, compulsive excercise, compulsive talking, etc. etc. The list is endless.
I just don't buy an idea that some pixels have more responsibility for their choices than the person itself does.
Also when they start mentioning "dopamine" it makes me laugh. Brain just doesn't work that way. Dopamine doesn't make you do things, you make you do things. Dopamine is just a way for the brain to encode whatever you like. If you want to be addicted to facebook - it will encode facebook. If you want to have a healthy life - you'll get your dopamine exactly the same way when you get up in the morning, look outside and just think for yourself "this is a beautiful day", or when you solve a particular puzzle in your work, or when you say hi to a stranger. Brain has no shortage of dopamine and it is you who decide when it is released. Unless you are addicted of course. But don't blame the thing, work with the addiction instead, it's the only truthful way to stop being addicted.
Now, for some people who are highly addicted, quitting facebook completely - might be a good thing. Like for an alcoholic, it might be good to quite 100% of alcohol for a while. But it doesn't mean that a healthy person can easily enjoy a glass of wine every now and then and don't have any problems with it.
My bet’s on the latter. And so long as we all continue to support them (while claiming “but my boycott won’t do any good”), they’ll continue to use that financial support to ensure the continued non-involvement of the government in their affairs.
Doing nothing costs nothing, but it also changes nothing.
I quit Facebook along with most Google services, I feel much happier and more well adjusted than when I was using them. Meeting with family and friends is also much more interesting because I don't have a constant stream detailing their life.
Good luck petitioning the government to act on it... this goes double for US businesses and people who live outside the US.
Offhand the parent post would require me to give up Google Search (including via DDG), Gmail, Google Cloud, AWS, Amazon, Zappos, Audible, Comixology and Woot Shirts. I barely use Facebook or Twitter but the rest would lower my quality of life (and not just due to the large drop in employment opportunities I could take).
Especially when considering the unethical nature of these businesses and how they abuse their power.
That ties into the quality of the platform and it is alarming that some people will tolerate it for some comfort.
I think YouTube is a far stickier service than Google Search, just because it's acted as an informal video archive of the past 15 years of internet video history. But I fully recognize the risks with this monopoly structure in place and have started to embrace alternatives like https://odysee.com/ and https://rumble.com/. It's time to disentangle from monopolies. Take your digital sovereignty back.
DuckDuckGo doesn't use Google Search, so you'd be okay there.
Which if you were to give up Google Search, is something you wouldn't be doing (or would have blocked).
Quality of life is not a binary, where you either 'have' it or not, so I don't think it makes sense to say "your quality of life DEPENDS on google or Facebook"
Many things make your quality of life a bit better, and some things make it a bit worse, but no one says they can't have a quality life without Facebook or google.
The person is saying that stopping using Facebook and google will slightly decrease their overall quality of life, but will have zero impact on Facebook and google.
I still maintain it's sad that removing Facebook/Google can have any significant drop in your quality of life. And by significant, I mean one where you're willing to debate about it.
I like to keep my happiness as far as possible from the services that some soulless multinational provides.
Protonmail comes to mind:
1. Using standard IMAP/POP is only available for Paid users and only on the desktop. Not Mobile.
2. Conversation view is not implemented on their mobile clients. It has been over 5 years - https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-feedback/sugg...
3. Their conversation view on the desktop groups messages based on the sender and not always the subject. It results in old conversations being grouped together.
They are working on all these issues, but till then, my productivity was impacted a lot by switching.
Do you see a doctor, or use any healthcare services? Or use any pharmaceutical products or cosmetics that are mass produced? Shampoo? Soap? Hand sanitizer?
Do you wear clothing that you didn't make yourself from raw cotton you made? Or shop at a store like Gap, Cotton On, Target, Zara etc?
Do you drive a car? Or take Uber? Or use something like a bus or car, or other vehicle made by a large multinational engineering company?
Do you eat any fast foods? Or eat at restaurants that use any produce or mass produced raw ingredients? Or use any kitchen utensils or kitchenware? Do you shop at say IKEA?
Or do you use electronics like a laptop, phone or desktop computer?
Or do you keep any of your money at a bank? Or use things like car insurance?
It slightly irks me when people claim they want to stick it to the man, and don't like "those corporations".
We have a Green party politician in Australia who lives off the grid, and grows his own produce. Whilst I don't agree with all his policies - I respect that he lives consistently with his beliefs.
If you're on HN - I'd posit that your life (like mine, and billions of others) is dependent on multinational corporations for our current quality of life.
If you don't agree with one of them, that fine, but often it's less to do with principles and more "their customer service is terrible" or "they didn't fix this one issue that is very important to me", or "I read on Reddit/FB/Techcrunch this terrible fact about them"
Petition the government if you like. It doesn't matter. You don't have millions to donate to the next campaign or their personal enrichment. You're not who they care about.
Quitting Facebook will objectively increase your quality of life.
--
"'It ate his head. Another loser.'
She said to the two of them, 'It's easy to win. Anybody can win.'"
-- A Scanner Darkly
Ask the government to do something about it? They're allies, they're in it together.
There is no scenario where they don't take out encryption this decade. It's a top priority and big tech is going to very happily assist them. Big tech will give them what they want, they will act as an arm of tyranny assisting the government in smashing human rights, and in return they'll get to continue to expand (they'll get a light touch regulatory treatment). It now has a lot in common with how China handles their giant corporations (so long as you do what we tell you to, you get to exist and thrive), and big tech in the US looks more like a CCP apparatus by the passing day.
All forms of expression and speech will continue to be restricted more by the passing year. The government won't need to do it themselves, big tech will do the dirty work with a wink and nod. That includes all app stores, all online content and forums, all software.
So, when you can't petition your government any longer because it's hell bent on taking your liberty away, what does that leave? The War on Domestic Terrorism of course. They'll create it, spur it, and then have an excuse to crack down on their own invention (not terribly different from how they ran the war on drugs). The US will be a horrible place to live in the near future. The foreign war on terrorism, in which the US did such unbelievable vicious things to other nations, will now turn inward, and the monster will come home, rolling over human rights as it goes.
If that's how it is where you live, and you live in a democracy, you can change that.
If you want to reason from labels as if they are tautologies, here's a word for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anocracy
The alternative interpretation to what you propose is running for office. That's not out of the question but it's a decades-long pipeline with a lot of protections built in by convention. Outsiders are going to have difficulty until the current gen of representatives fades with age, and making headway is feasible only with the hope that the growing sphere of elite replacements are less competent behind the reigns if they decide to maintain their predecessors' policies.