undefined | Better HN

0 pointslittlestymaar2y ago0 comments

> Also, if Facebook's users were all paying for it (and all its competitors), there would be no advertising on it,

Ah yes, much like how cable TV has no ads on it, right? Or newspapers. Or how Microsoft Windows has no ads on it because you paid for the OS? Or like how smart TVs aren't spying on you because you bought them…

If there's money to be made by spying and putting ads, it will be done, no matter if you pay for it or not.

And that's the reason why it is probably illegal: if you accept the cookies, they track you, if you refuse cookies and pay, you have to agree to their terms and conditions which allow them to track you as well. Head they win, tail you lose.

0 comments

ako2y ago

With cable you’re paying the cable company, not the content provides. For that you’d have to pay the stations as well. Similar to Netflix, pay for your network, and pay the content provider.

Terretta2y ago

> With cable you’re paying the cable company, not the content providers.

Cable and satellite such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable or DirecTV pay networks like ESPN and TNT a certain amount PER CUSTOMER for programming content each month. The median price paid for each channel a subscriber gets is 14 cents. Sports content costs the cable company the most, ESPN was estimated to cost $8.37 per month in 2018, but arguably actually should cost much more if you consider time each channel is watched versus its cost:

https://www.thewrap.com/cable-network-carriage-fees/

https://variety.com/vip/pay-tv-true-cost-free-1234810682/

littlestymaarOP2y ago

That's exactly the kind of BS Facebook would say to defend their ads for paying customers as well: “you're paying for the portal, not for the feed, the ads pay for the feed” or something like that.

In fact, I'm pretty sure Google will eventually do this for premium after some time: “you're paying the platform, ads are paying the content creators ”.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse