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Comment by zahrc | Hacker News Reader

When using free products, I don’t mind ads, I do mind being tracked.

The problem nowadays is that tracking and ads are pretty much a mutual thing today. And the worst about it is, to this day I still have to find an ad which seems relevant to me…

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The issue is the ad is basically worthless without the tracking. No one wants to blindly advertise. They want to target, and then track the effectiveness.

I will never understand why I can't just select things I am interested in on Facebook and then have it advertise based on that. I have problems in my life and money to solve them. I know what my problems are, but Facebook is so obsessed about tracking that they won't advertise to the things I am interested in.

Agreed. I find it reassuring in a weird way. I bought a toilet seat last year and got nothing but toilet seat ads for months. Because if you just bought a toilet seat you must need 10 more!? It surprises me they don't have a list you can at least cross things off...

A related problem is that many people prefer not to be tracked but only if it doesn’t mean giving up something in exchange. As a result, differentiating your product by not tracking people isn’t enough of a selling point to make it valuable for many businesses. I wish we had more ad-free alternatives but often companies aren’t incentivized to offer them.

most paid products actually add tracking as a condition to their terms of use.

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