this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023

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A rant, with useful information, about the ‘Web Environment Integrity’ proposal by Google" (orowith2os.gitlab.io)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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One of my first blog posts in a while, I go over Google's recent web proposal, and point out exactly why it won't turn out well. Hope y'all have fun with it.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Users don’t use adblockers because they don’t want to see ads at all; they they use adblockers because getting a usable web experience requires it.

Users don’t block advertisements; they block annoying advertisements. They block trackers. They block malware. They block privacy invasion.

I block advertisements because I don't want to see any advertisements. They are poison for the mind and I want to eliminate any form of advertisement I can control. Obviously you can't avoid a lot of it - but I can definitely avoid it in my web browser.

I would prefer a subscription based model or a donation based model. For example Wikipedia or Lichess I've donated to because I believe they provide a good service and show no ads. Or for example Kagi which is a search engine that charges a monthly fee.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My personal rule is that I seek out a product/service, not the other way around. And ads really annoy me because they're not useful, they're just trying to sell me something, or get me to sell myself (looking at you, TikTok).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

And they inevitably turn every service into an ad delivery service. Thus, enshitification. Subscription services directly convert the utility of the application into revenue. It will always make a better platform, but it might not scale as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Non-obtrusive ads will always be the best :)

Or make them interesting if you want to be the focus. I can definitely say I've stayed and watched a few interesting advertisements.

I'd argue your viewpoint here is along the lines of opt-in telemetry - nice in theory, but not practical for the ones that need the information. And you can have respecting telemetry (as you can advertisements, just that nobody does so).

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't want to see any ads either. Even unobtrusive ones. It's just different levels of annoying and given the choice, I'll pick zero annoyance. I also don't want to be the product. Not just as a target for advertisements, but from information gathering for profit.

I do see the problem with this. Most sites are run with the expectation of profit. And while not explicitly my intent, I go out of the way to be as unprofitable as possible to these kinds of business models.

I do opt to pay for a couple of privacy respecting online services and I... rarely but not never donate to sites I use frequently that are privacy respecting and not ad supported. And that gives me some feel goods to support sites and services that align with my values but it's not really viable for the internet as a whole right? Hoping for some spare change from a tiny fraction of your visitors.

I don't know what the solution to this is. But I mirror OP's concerns about this specific thing. I don't want my browsing to be DRM'd, and I have zero trust for Google. If this happens, they will abuse it.

Edit: Changed organizations to services. Felt more accurate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

but it’s not really viable for the internet as a whole right? Hoping for some spare change from a tiny fraction of your visitors

Why not? It works for kbin/lemmy instances. It works for Wikipedia. It works for Lichess.

Sure, some things like video hosting are going to require a lot more bandwidth / server storage so perhaps those need to be subscription based but I think large swathes of the internet could be turned into a donation/subscription model. it just isn't done that way because it's less profitable.

look at which video games are the most profitable - it's always the free ones. fortnite, league of legends, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My general cynicism of people as a whole drives my opinion, I suppose. While it can be successful sometimes as you point out, I don't think enough people would contibute for a donation based model to work in most cases. And people already have subscription fatigue just from online streaming services.

But you know what would be awesome? If I was wrong. Especially about the donation based model. Enough people opting to donate for high quality content that it becomes a viable default? I want that kind of web.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

yeah it's still a sort of new frontier but the patreon model I think really should be the way going forward assuming it's possible. everybody gets the content for free, but those who can afford to contribute do so. and to be honest, if you live in a 1st world country throwing a couple bucks here and there isn't that much to ask. for the same price of a lunch at mcdonalds you can give $3 a month for nearly half a year to Wikipedia for example

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Coming from someone with an unstable source of income, and that can just barely get by: I'll take advertisements over a subscription/donation based model. Just don't flood your website with them. Or use shitty ad services. And don't make it an unusable experience cough britannica cough

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Trusted computing is back in a new form. :\

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Trust us, we are Google".

Yes. Yes you are... The filth of the web.

And every time these companies remove freedom they do it under the guise of protecting users.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Yah, nah, eat a bag of pig bung, Google. I will simply not use any services that goes along with this fecal material. The users who will are going to be very low margin in regarded to ad revenue.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I can block users I don't want visiting my site? I can't speak for every web developer, but I'm all in for this. Saves me time and money too. Hell yeah!

This virtue signalling of how "internet freedom" only applies to users is showing its consequences. Users don't want ads or trackers, that's fine. But you want all the things that are funded by it? You can keep using adblock, Online platforms may be soon able to block you too. No ads and trackers for you, No wasted resource for the website. Everyone is happy

Everyone in here/reddit is always whining about the old internet, but nobody ever takes time to do any thing to contribute to it.

And these strawman arguments are what people in a bubble make up to give themselves a pat in a back. You don't want to use it, then don't. let people who want to use it. Aren't you for "Internet freedom" or does that just apply to your contrived version of reality when you're the main character?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago

You want to block users from visiting your site, go for it. But you should quit "virtue signaling" yourself that people need to just volunteer their privacy for the internet to even exist. Tracking is only necessary for rich corporations to get get richer by brokering surveillance data, and all we really get in turn is an ad for diapers on a tech blog instead of what might have been flash storage or something. It's dumb.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

People like you are why AdNauseam exists, FYI. If you make the non-adblock experience intolerable and then ban adblockers, people have a nasty tendency to fight back rather than knuckling under. I say that as someone who'll whitelist ads - or donate to - sites I use regularly that aren't run by shitheads throwing video ads in my face and selling my data to the highest bidder.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

The problem with ads is not a few ads here and there, it's how it negatively impacts every interaction with those sites:

ads that load in later than the rest of the page, because they first need to finish the auction of who gets to show their ads... And bam I again missklicked the link because the whole fucking page got shiftet down a notch
needing a short guide how to do something? Yeah first look at these five (5!) ads which are longer than the guide you want to watch, except... The freaking algorithm favors long videos, so the 30 second guides get padded to over 10min...(with more ads inbetween)
these ads we show you, yeah they might contain some java script... So you screen them, correct?... Nonono, we can't do that at this scale!
hey google where can I download this free tool?... Here is a list with download links... Ehh, the first five are ads and lead to some crazy scam site. Don't you check what you deliver as ads.?.... Nonono we can't do that at this scale
look at this ad for this shady mobile again for the 25ths time today... But youtube that game doesn't look at all like in this ad!.... Thanks for your report... Here's the same fucking ad again!

There was also a report recently that google also screwed their customers (those companies who pay for the ads) where google showed ads as in-stream ads in some auto-running videos in the background.

The whole industey is just broken. Present me with non-intrusive, static ads served from your own site and nobody bats an eye (also ad blockers are a non-issue then)

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

nobody ever takes the time to do any thing to contribute to it

You are literally on the direct counterexample to this. Lemmy is like the old Internet.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

well, you certainly live up to your name

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I contribute to my masto instance. I will contribute to my Lemmy instance. I contribute on occasion to individual creators (big help if I can use apple cash because most of my "throw away" money is in cash or apple cash).

You do what you want to do. I just went to Linux as my primary OS to further distance myself from the commercialization and inevitable enshitification of everything that I've watched take over for the past 30 years.

And you know what? You and your users are welcome to play in your enshitified capitalistic wasteland where the only content is some form of propaganda or engagement trap. I'm going to find a community of folks who just want to share. And I'm going to contribute my own money and knowledge because I'll know it's being used by individuals and not going to shareholders profits making rich folks richer. Enjoy what remains.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Block users all you want, but don't expect me to "attest my hardware and software" from a 3rd party. Let alone make this a standard and think about leaving the keys to parties which are probably "themselves" only.

How on earth the expectation can be giving authority to third parties to set my hardware and software to be validated so they attest to an arbitrary standard which I will never have control over?

See the current SSL certificate authorities mess. I have to pay to a third party to asure my clients that my server can securely communicate with them. Now they are doing this to clients with a more strict manner.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fine. Good luck. I will just use a different site. I do agree though... the web needs a better way and that way should not be ads and tracking.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That way should not be intrusive ads, and it shouldn't be tracking without user consent.

On their own, exposed to the user in an easily understandable way and easily customizable, they're not bad. They can even help; used right, you can get advertisements relevant to you and your interests, and developers can know what to improve on.

The problem is when this is abused to hell and back by companies that want to strip you of every penny they possibly can, without giving you the choice.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Literally the only point of advertising is to manipulate people into buying stuff. I don't need your product, I don't want your product, and I hate it when you shove it in my face exclusively for your own profit.

If I decide I want something, I go looking for it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Your opinion might not win any popularity contests here, but I'd have to agree that this is a natural consequence of the fact that people feel entitled to use online services for free, including not wanting to watch ads.

Voluntary donations generally just won't work well enough for it to be a viable option in many cases, so sites have more or less had to optimize content for ad generating ad views because that's usually the only way they can stay afloat.

Sure there's some sites that get by with donations, voluntary payments or merch sales or whatever, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

I find it ironic when people eg. complain about clickbait headlines and at the same time refuse to pay for news. This idea that we have to get everything for "free" online has directly led to the enshittification we all know and love

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Note what I mentioned in the blog post: most will probably be fine with advertisements so long as they aren't annoying.

You don't get to act the victim when you actively hurt the UX by having avertisements that get all up in your face and want to eek out every single penny like we're slaves.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There are plenty of non-annoying ads around. When ABP (I think?) tried to introduce a non-annoying ad white list, people collectively shat a brick and decided ABP had "sold out", and not because the list was bad but because they don't want any ads at all, period.

And it's not like I love ads; I'd rather pay for services than have to see ads, but a lot of the time that's not an option. We wouldn't be in this mess if people were willing to either pay for services (which understandably is a problem for poorer people) or be subjected to even boring banners or video clips that don't cover content.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Said the person using an online platform for free, without ads

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Almost like I said there are exceptions but they are exceptions rather than the norm. How about let's not get into the whole "aha gotcha" mentality and actually read what others are saying?

I guess I have to spell this out: services that run purely off voluntary payment / donation do exist and I'm using one right now, but good luck running a business or even making ends meet with that model. It's doable but rare and mostly non-profit.

And no I'm not saying a profit motive is necessary, but you can't expect people running internet services, or writing newspapers, or whatever, to do it for free and alongside their day job. Yes, again, some do, but it can be a ton of work and not everybody has the capacity for it, for one reason or another

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