Oddbean new post about login | logout The new bit of news to me out of @b92dcc07's writeup of Google's enshittification is adding hidden terms to a user's search to trigger ads. https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics I'm surprised the details made it into the public. The article also mentions how techbros tend to label their clandestine conversations as "I'm doing a crime here" as well. It very much makes me think of Trump and how he wants people to know he is doing a crime but does not want to suffer any negative consequences.
The latest @b92dcc07 is full of so many fantastic points. I've forwarded this a half dozen ways with seperate pull quotes for each friend "For a lot of people, the analysis stops here. "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Google locks in users and sells them to advertisers, who are their co-conspirators in a scheme to screw the rest of us. But that's not right. For one thing, paying for a product doesn't mean you won't be the product. Apple charges a thousand bucks for an iPhone and then nonconsensually spies on every iOS user in order to target ads to them (and lies about it): https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar John Deere charges six figures for its tractors, then runs a grift that blocks farmers from fixing their own machines, and then uses their control over repair to silence farmers who complain about it: https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it " All from: https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics