Look, EU, it is difficult to take you seriously when you forced all this cookie notification bullshit on us.

Mark Koek

@codinghorror @Setok @dalias I am actually fine with Facebook charging €6 (iirc) for a privacy-friendly account. Also fine with the new kind of cookie banners on some newspaper websites that say up front that either they track you, or you pay for access. Just be honest about it. It’s the sneaky profile building that I totally agree with being illegal.

nLupo :anarchist_flag: :antrans_flag:

@AugierLe42e @codinghorror GDPR just makes it more obvious and more obnoxious.

Jeff Atwood

@nlupo @AugierLe42e yes, if we make the Torment Nexus a bit more Torment-y, perhaps it will go away? GOOD PLAN EVERYONE EXCELLENT WORK

Jeff Atwood

@mkoek @Setok @dalias the least-worst path here is being honest "what is this so-called 'free' really costing me", but do it without one zillion popups please.

Cassandrich

@codinghorror @mkoek @Setok Really telling what kind of person would blame the pigs and not the farmer...

Jeff Atwood

@dalias @mkoek @Setok we are, in fact, a different species than pigs. All I'm saying is, try to design systems that work with observed real world human behavior, and not against it. I am tired, so very very tired, of watching so many tilt at windmills for decades

Cassandrich

@codinghorror @mkoek @Setok When the behavior of some humans is actively hostile towards others I care about, I absolutely am going to work against that behavior, and encourage others to do so too.

Not doing that is how we got where we are. Letting bad people keep pushing norms and boundaries to do harmful things they wanted to make money doing.

Jeff Atwood

@dalias @mkoek @Setok you have to realize that, statistically speaking, all human beings have an insatiable bloodlust for "free"

G

@codinghorror @mkoek @Setok @dalias that's funny because SO doesn't pay the content creators either

and the main point left out on these discussions all the freaking time:

the reason the popups exist is because the cost of a thousand advertising "impressions" is roughly less than a cent for an unknown user, and around $12 for a user with a full profile, hence sites try to match you every visit.

Open Risk

@codinghorror

dunno, imho thats overstating it. People pay for pretty much everything, either directly, or indirectly via taxes. And many of the things that are now supposed to be "free" used to be paid for (newspapers, magazines etc.) without even thinking about it.

rather than a deep homo sapiens malfunction, the issue is more of a silly mix of adtech conditioning (here, free email for your data) and publishers not gettting their act together for the digital age.

@dalias @mkoek @Setok

LisPi

@dalias @codinghorror @mkoek @Setok Fun fact about this: This relates to the nature vs nurture argument.

Nurture accounts for a lot and there's considerable archeological evidence for egalitarian societies.

"Real world human behavior" is either a uselessly constrained set designating exclusively the state of current societies, or a uselessly broad term that can encompass basically any possible society.

Augier (fr & en) 🇵🇸🇺🇦☭🏴

@codinghorror Well stop tormenting ppl then?
@nlupo

Gregory

@codinghorror tracking users is not a technical requirement for any website to work. The intention with these warnings was to deter tracking, not almost every website punishing its visitors into submission.

Jeff Atwood

@grishka "no plan survives contact with users"

Oblomov

@codinghorror @grishka especially when the “users” are malicious leeches and rent-seekers

Forum Federato

Look, EU, it is difficult to take you seriously when you forced all this cookie notification bullshit on us.