this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Unpopular Opinion

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There is nothing wrong with websites, browsers and search engines using our data to make money. (lemmy.world)
submitted 15 hours ago by Sackeshi@lemmy.world to c/unpopularopinion@lemmy.world
50 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Data privacy is all the rage and people want to have an internet where companies need permission to sell your data and where you can use the FREE service without letting them tell advertisers what you actually like.

There are only 2 possible models for the internet

  1. A free internet where websites, browsers and search engines make money by selling your data to companies who want to sell their products to users.

  2. A subscription based internet where you companies don't use your data but charge a fee to use a specific website, browser or search engine.

I can guarantee that all these people complaining about "muh privacy" would not like having a paywall restricted internet.

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[–] considerealization@lemmy.ca 14 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

That looks very much like a false dichotomy to me. You left out:

  • advertising (which does not require selling data, this is just an invasive additive)
  • donation and volunteer based (Wikipedia does this quite successfully)
  • funded from tax income (as are online government services, crown corporations etc.)
  • companies that sell something thru the internet l, and website is an advertising or pm selling platform. This accounts for most sites, tbh, from brands to retailers, to marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and Craigslist.

These are just off the top of my head. But the point being is that your major premise of obviously false.

Most companies that are harvesting our data are also requiring or pushing for subscriptions now, so the dichotomy is also false in that respect.

Finally, it is clear that millions of people are quite happy to pay reasonable fees for valuable services, which is why so many fee based companies are doing fine.