What a crazy read! Terrifying but somehow also hopeful?
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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Indeed, long but good read. Showed in great detail how we got here and what has to change
Fuck, inject everything Cory Doctorow says into my veins please
that was my thought process when I added his blog to my RSS reader... turns out he says an absolute buttload of things.
Comment unclear. Does he say a buttload of good things that should be read more broadly?
yes, but you'd have to make it your full time job in order to read everything he posts.
Zero per cent of app users are running ad blockers
Not to take away from his point, but... Pi-Hole.
I use AdAway to modify the host file on my Android phone. I literally can't load ad content; sometimes it gets in the way since the ad is the easiest way to get to what I want to click occasionally, lol.
Also, the Vanced app can modify apps to eliminate ads. Or X-Manager for Spotify does a similar thing.
Then there are alternative front-end apps, like NewPipe/LibreTube for YouTube, Xtra for Twitch, and others.
Or there is just straight piracy to avoid the ads, but in their own apps. Stremio + Torrentio + a Debrid service is basically a pirate Netflix app with full control of your stream quality.
Regardless, I think his point mostly stands; it's a very small percentage of users modifying apps to avoid ads or telemetry.
Yeah, <1% would be the more technically accurate answer.
I'm still not sure why that works, honestly. If I was going to be evil I'd load the ad data via the same packets as the app payload. It wouldn't be hard and there's no way I'm the first to think of this.
If too many people were blocking the ad servers, apps could tunnel the ads through a single connection to the app... but that would only work for ads served by the same platform as the app (like Meta ads in Meta apps, Google ads in Google apps, etc.), with 3rd party ad networks not trusting random app developers' tracking and engagement data to send them a payout... so blocking the ad servers is likely to keep working for those, and for the larger platforms as long as they don't see much value in spending resources to counter it.
with 3rd party ad networks not trusting random app developers’ tracking and engagement data to send them a payout
Ah, that's a good point! I hadn't thought of that.
There's some approaches you could try there, but at some point I could actually be helping somebody, so I'll shut up.
And, ime, a lot of corporations are serving content through third party (or at least non-native) servers, which means that any blocker which touches any of those servers breaks content completely. I've experienced major Travel, banking, and retail sites which simply don't work unless most blacklisted sites are allowed. That means either turning blocking off for that main site entirely, or spending an hour testing every one of their 30 off-site connections to see which ones break. I don't have that kind of bullshit time, and the rest of my family don't have the patience or skill to do that troubleshooting. PiHole turned out to be multiple hours a week of frustration so I gave up - I already have a full time job and full slate of hobbies. In-browser blockers are, at least, easier to toggle on and off.
The vast majority of mobile ads are served from google or apple, which likely is not where the rest if the app data is served from. It makes it particularly easy to block mobile ads from adMob or whatever the apple equivalent is called.
You don't even need pihole, there are VPN-based apps that screen and block ad domains.
You don't even need apps, you can set your private DNS on you phone or desktop browser to an ad-blocking provider (which I think is probably similar to what a pihole does, though I don't know the technical details)
I agree that pi-hole is an option here, but yeah, the reality is that most daily users don't even know what it is. At least, not yet.
Adblock Plus and it's betters became ubiquitous in large part because they were so incredibly easy to install. As easy as gramma accidentally installing yet another yahoo toolbar on accident. Like, too easy.
Pi-Hole isn't hard to install, and there are some fantastic guides to help users get it running with essentially zero prior knowledge. But in my opinion, I think until it gets closer to "push-button" easiness, pi-hole and systems like it will really be limited to the <5% of users motivated enough to go through the steps, who aren't mortified of logging into their router's admin page. I want us to get there faster, and we're a hell of a lot closer than 10 or even 5 years ago. But we're not quite there yet.
Edit-typo
Closest thing to "push-button", are probably VPNs with a built-in ad blocker... which might as well be a pihole. Not sure what % of people use those.
Another way is through DNS (eg. noads.libredns.gr).
This looks really cool! Any downsides/dangers to this? 🤔
The main downside is that there is a lot less customization of filters short of using a different DNS. There is also the potential for logging DNS (present with normal DNS servers as well). LibreOps claims they don't log requests, and personally I don't think they have much reason to lie, but there is still that element of trust. Many of the more well known DNS servers don't offer ad blocking DNS, so you'll most likely be switching to a different provider.
Thank you for the insights! 👍
NextDNS is another option that'll give you PiHole level control and customization. I will say PiHole is pretty easy to get up and running tho.
Finding it ironic that I’m literally not able to finish this article because it keeps plastering the page with ads.
Get Firefox, or any of the lemmy clients that offer reader mode. Avelon, voyager, Thunder, I’m sure there are plenty of others.
Reader mode is a must for everything I read these days.
Do you happen to know how to open the link in Read Mode in Voyager (pwa)? 🤔
Yeah, voyager is the one I use most often on my tablet. Open the link normally, make sure your links are set to open in-app, and as the page is loading, look across the top, where the “done” and “share” buttons are. You’ll see the “Aa” button switch to what looks like a rectangle with lines across it (mimicking a page with lines of text). If you catch it while that icon is showing, it opens right up. But if you miss that brief icon change, you can still click the “Aa” and it’ll bring up a drop down menu. Click “show reader”
Strange, I'm not seeing that at all on my Android phone, neither in the PWA or the native app. Are you on iOS? Maybe it's a Safari thing 🤔
Hm. I am on iOS. Sorry, I just assumed the app would have same functionality, if maybe even a different layout. Check your settings, in the “link handling” section maybe
Thanks! I am using Voyager and FF so I was surprised they came up. I’ll see about reader mode.
@Gaywallet As usual, Cory Doctorow writes beautifully and insightfully (go read the article, it isn't just a litany of what is bad, it is about how it is bad and why it is bad). Hard to pick just one pull quote but I'll go with "the potential anti-enshittification coalition is massive".
It's also got a substantial helping of "here's how things are getting better, and will continue to get better in the future."
So, fun fact, until recently I only knew him as the guy XKCD makes fun of occasionally. I read one of his posts on something recently, though, and I was pretty damn impressed with the depth of research.
This is a really great read, but I'm less optimistic than he is.
Retirement rates are up and new workers in the work force are down. (Look at a demographic pyramid for more details)
Instead of “saving for retirement” by giving money to investors to invest in growth opportunities, now retirees are taking money out of the system to live on. Suddenly the pressure Is no longer on growth for companies, it’s on generating revenue that can be passed on to share holders, ether by stock buy backs or dividends. And there are not nearly enough new young workers coming to the work force and putting away savings in investments to make up the difference.
Capital is getting rarer now, if companies want it, they need to prove they can generate revenue, no more blitz scaling, no more “we’ll figure out how to monetize later”. Suddenly the free services need to make money, enshittification is the inevitable result.
Just to be clear, generally stock buy backs are not to increase revenue or dividends, but to increase the stock price by creating a false scarcity. Potential dividend increases from corporate stock ownership are a shell game as the corporation received the dividend and it is simply added to the cash on hand and book value.
Nearly all growth in stocks is capital based. Every corporation wants to increase revenue and profits because that forms the basis for valuation. Yes, there are young companies who are "forward looking" and trading on factors based on revenue and not net income, but most of the market is based on a net income multiplier (which varies by industry).
As much pressure as the boomers (and soon GenXers) will place on revenue, it will never be enough to support the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. Rather, they will be selling capital to fund their retirements. This will lead to long term stagnation of stock prices (in the best scenario) or a collapse of market value as retirees try to sell their stock for the next 9 month round-the-world cruise. This is a negative feedback loop, too, as the more people sell, the lower the value of their stock, requiring they sell even more shares to get to a fixed value in cash. I think of this as just one more Fuck You (added to the collapse of public health and public retirement subsidies) the boomers will be handing Millennials and GenZ. Actually, I thought you might catch a break with housing, as the value of housing as they all move into retirement homes would drop with the glut of units coming to market. Alas, corporations have found they can buy those units and rent them back at exorbitant rates, so they'll be tag teaming the boomers in fucking over the youth of today.
What I meant by stock buy backs as a way of generating revanue was more that it’s a way to take revanue and pass it on the shareholder without using dividends, which are what the corporate tax is on. The way I worded it was really poor.
I don’t think the current generation of retirees are screwing over younger generations maliciously, they just haven’t critically examined the whole economic system and don’t seem to get that the current system is incredibly unsustainable, they just want the money they were promised. They are so insulated from the decision making process that they don’t understand the reality of what they’re demanding.
I'd say it's not even really their place to be "examining the whole economic system." Each individual is just a regular Joe who put in their time at a job over their life and would now like to reap the rewards of their effort in retirement. It bothers me when people insult other people simply for being caught up in a systemic issue that's beyond their control.
The solutions for systemic problems need to be systemic as well. If we as a society don't want to see housing move over to an exclusively rent-based system then we'll need to address it through things like zoning changes and other legal reforms. When people oppose those things by voting against them, then we can start to apportion blame around.
I totally agree, systemic problems require systemic solutions. If a system is failing “just being better” is never a solution.
My point is that failure here is in the economic system that encourages this kind of detachment. That the retirement system is built around accumulating value and investing into capital to pay for retirement later, makes these kinds of situations inevitable.
I learned about Cory Doctorow when I found a copy of Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom at a bus stop. Never been disappointed.
Seems to be very similar to his The Enshittification of TikTok post, linked here on his own platform (no ads).
I didn't do a full comparison, though.
Its literally the same author, doing a follow-up to that article.
Cory 😍😍
Perhaps you know of examples from Smart City, such a downgrading of public services in your cities?