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Comment by diegoholiveira | Hacker News Reader

The web is not free. You pay with your data and ads.

Odd. This site is on the web and yet I don't pay with either.

Maybe you're confusing the web, as a network and set of protocols, with individual sites on the web, which can but (unlike with web3) aren't required to operate under a surveillance-based commercial model.

Here, you pay with attention, same as with advertising. Arguably this whole site is an advertising platform for YCombinator, and they keep you coming here by maintaining an engaging community with interesting posts/comments. So while you do get something out of it in the form of potentially useful information, YCombinator also certainly benefits from running this platform.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31470304

Looks like an Ad to me. Maybe also try clicking the Y button in the top left, or leaving ‘news.’ out of the URL bar.

If you don't think you pay for Hacker News with your data, try deleting an old comment.

How does that "pay" for anything? Who is that data being sold do? How is it being used to target advertising to me?

try search in HN, algolia is mining the data of HN for sure.

Mining for what?

I bet they couldn't care less and haven't ever touched the data since the implementation.

you can perfectly make websites that dont have ads, or use websites that dont have ads... and what data you share with a web server is still up to you.

not only that, you can also host websites for free, using your home computer as a server.

The current web is good. If you dont want to pay with your data, dont use their websites.

Well, that home computer isn't exactly free... But pedantic point aside I think the core point is that as long as you can connect to the web, it can absolutely be free.

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