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Comment by antisthenes | Hacker News Reader

Google's been siphoning value out of people's data (the entire North American continent and beyond) through dark patterns for the better part of 2 decades now.

Adblockers are a form of civil protest against that practice.

Maybe infra isn't free, but how much does the average person consume in terms of bandwidth compared to how much value Google gets out of their data?

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Google monetizes that data by serving ads. If you block ads that data is pretty much worthless to Google.

Good. That’s kind of the point.

Proper civil protest would be not to use any site that has google analytics. And when you find one that has that you have to use spam the owning company until they remove it.

How many successes have you had using this method?

> Google's been siphoning value out of people's data (the entire North American continent and beyond) through dark patterns for the better part of 2 decades now.

... but if users start paying for the services they use, they reverse the business incentives. "If the product is free, you are the product"

> how much value Google gets out of their data

The value of your data is in serving you ads. If they don't serve you ads, you have no value to Youtube.

They don't stop the incentive though. e.g. TVs that cost several thousand dollars have ads (and almost certainly tracking) built in now. Cars that cost 10s of thousands of dollars track your location and sell it. The advertising industry is a cancer and should be blocked without a second thought. Especially if you have kids; it is a moral imperative to keep ads away from them.

The reality is flipped: block all ads and tracking from your life and help others to do the same. Then companies like Google/Facebook that dump free services onto the market and make it impossible for ethical companies to exist in the space will have to start charging money.

> "If the product is free, you are the product"

And if you give them money, you are also the product, and also a sucker.

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