> you're pushing a behavior-modification scheme onto users
In general I think that your comment is reasonable. I just would like to point out that such "behavior-modification" schemes are sometimes introduced for genuinely good and ethical reasons.
For instance, it is in my opinion desirable to make it more difficult for users to delete all their photos by e.g. having to confirm their decision in a dialog first. Because it prevents them from accidentally doing something they might not want to do and which is potentially impossible to revert.
What is the motivation for such a measure? In other words, which problem is it trying to solve? And how it is supposed to do so?
I think that we should not carelessly invent laws that just "sound good" to some lawmakers but have no real fact checking done to support them and are not backed by science.
Because, in my opinion, then there is a high risk that these "good intentions" will backfire spectacularly. While not getting even close to achieve the desired effect.
> Every time this comes up there are comments assuming that ads are being injected into the normal plans
No. The distinction between the unpaid vs. cheap vs. expensive plans is irrelevant here.
The main controversial point about this topic is to include ads in the output of an LLM-backed AI tool responses. It does not matter at all in which tier it occurs.
The discussion is about the fact that it occurs in the first place.
Ok. But that is in my opinion a distinction without a difference.
It does not matter whether the ads are built by the AI itself and seamlessly embedded into the regular responses. Or just made separately and placed into the same window as the AI's output.
The bulk of the controversies in relation to doing this are still roughly the same, whatever the origin of the ads may be.
Your implication that "you will be fed" other ads if you block the main ones is unsubstantiated. But even if it was true, it does not matter. Because the so-called "opaque" ads can and in my opinion should be blocked as well.
I think that in general blocking all ads is always a good idea.
The reason is that there is no negative consequence in doing so. A person has absolutely no obligation, not even an implied one, to watch or otherwise consume any ad. I think that as long as there are ways to remove or block ads, people should use them.
That being said, if the companies wish to intertwine their products with ads that are indistinguishable from the actual content and therefore unblockable, it is okay. They have the right to do that if they want.
But, in the same fashion, the customers have every right to turn away from all such products. And never consider using them ever again.
>Because the so-called "opaque" ads can and in my opinion should be blocked as well
You can't, that's one of the main purposes. Instead of having ads marked and delimited, the are woven into the content, even if you could detect them (as a plugin or gratis moderator), removing them would potentially corrupt the product. It may be a part of a joke or the plot itself.
Such a conclusion cannot reasonably be made from the data you have presented. It merely means that your web app was not preferred over your native app.
> Such a conclusion cannot reasonably be made from the data you have presented.
I’m responding to somebody who presented the following with absolutely nothing to back it up:
> Make it a PWA. This will make it accessible to many more people. Nobody wants to install an app. Nobody wants to install a PWA either but they will at least use a "web site" (a surprising number will install it if it's good).
The stats I’ve seen point in the opposite direction and I see no reason not to share that. Why are you giving them a free pass to share their opinion with zero stats but pull me up when I actually base my opinion on real stats? Looking past somebody saying “a surprising number” to complain about somebody sharing actual numbers is bizarre.
> It merely means that your web app was not preferred over your native app.
No, I’m talking about hundreds of apps hosting a wide range of independent communities. It wasn’t a single app for a single demographic.
This should not be a controversial stance. Saying that people prefer native to PWA on the desktop is not a controversial stance and the advantages for native on mobile are even more pronounced. The very existence of the App Store came about because when Steve Jobs told everybody if they wanted to build apps for the iPhone they should be web apps, the market demanded native apps.
PWA uptake is dismal. People strongly prefer native apps.
> Man, paying Google/Apple $5/mo is surely a much better solution for her.
According to which criteria?
There are values beyond "basic convenience" that are important as well. Being independent from a subscription service is one of them. Having full control over your own media being another.
Moreover, subscriptions in general have disadvantages. For example:
1. If a subscription service decides to increase their prices tenfold, there is nothing a customer can do to stop them.
2. If they decide to stop operating completely, a customer also has no say into the matter.
3. If the subscription service decides to just unilaterally stop offering the service to a particular user, they can do so at their own discretion, at any time.
This all means that whatever value is being "obtained" by using a subscription service, it is only going to last for as long as the provider wants it to last.
There are very efficient ways to block all ads, including YouTube ads. uBlock Origin browser extension is one of them. SponsorBlock browser extension would also skip over in-video ads.
This is a dishonest analogy. In your example, there is only a limited amount of cookies available. While there is no practical limit on the amount of time a certain digital media can be viewed.
You are allowed to take one cookie. But you are allowed to view a public website multiple times if you so want.
You're trying to use a quite unfunny "sarcasm" to move the goalpost to the strawman (they never claimed they handcrafted these pages) and quickly gloss ove the fact it's 20 years of work so why not?
You're ascribing an adversarial attitude to me which is actually held by nobody except yourself. The question was genuine and out of curiosity, and they can answer for themselves, however they choose. From the posting guidelines:
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
I am a friend, not a foe, and so are your other fellow HN posters.
> So why did you want to know if my 6M pages were handwritten
I didn't ask if they were, I just assumed so. My assumptions are sometimes wrong, though, so feel free to correct me there, if you want to.
> why was the method of production relevant here exactly?
This being Hacker News, you should expect to see questions along the lines of "how did you do that?" when mentioning something impressive you did. People here are (to grossly generalize) interested in learning how to do things, and how things work.
On the other hand, AI bots scraping stuff, isn't impressive, and having already read many posts on that issue, I'm not as interested in rehashing what we both seem to already know.
But enough about me. As long as we're going meta: Why do you want to know why I want to know what I want to know? I want to know :)
There sure is a limit in the load that the server you're DDoSing can take or the will for people to post new worthy content in public. The supply is limited just not at the first degree. Let's make a small edit: Are you allowed to take all the cookies and then sell them with a small ribbon with your name on it ?
> you're pushing a behavior-modification scheme onto users
In general I think that your comment is reasonable. I just would like to point out that such "behavior-modification" schemes are sometimes introduced for genuinely good and ethical reasons.
For instance, it is in my opinion desirable to make it more difficult for users to delete all their photos by e.g. having to confirm their decision in a dialog first. Because it prevents them from accidentally doing something they might not want to do and which is potentially impossible to revert.
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