Inspired by a question I saw a while back, is it possible to make my data/online presence useless/undesirable to companies to purchase?
Inspired by a question I saw a while back, is it possible to make my data/online presence useless/undesirable to companies to purchase?
Its super unpopular on Reddit and even less popular on here but… Have my data, i dont give a fuck.
What are you going to find out? I’m a straight white man approaching middle-age. I’m into DIY, cars that were cool 20 years ago, music that was cool 20 years ago, cooking on my bbq and trying desperately to avoid becoming old AND fat. I’m wearing New Balance runners and cargo shorts RIGHT NOW. I’ve become a complete caricature of a “Dad”.
You think you can find some embarrassing shit with my porn history? Nope, Ill tell you what my jam is for free. I dont care.
I’m already tighter with my money than a dolphins asshole. Put the prices up, I just wont buy it. I’m on a playthrough of a 22yo videogame on a pc I built with second hand parts because fuck paying $130 for a brand new AAA title.
What are “they” going to mine from me?
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In the 1960s Alka Seltzer was in poor shape financially, they came up with a new slogan “Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz” because although 1 tablet was generally considered to be a sufficient dose, 2 is more. Its more effective and it sells twice as many.
In the 1920sa meat packing company wanted to sell more bacon, so they hired Edward Bernays a marketing exec. He asked his agencies doctor if a heartier breakfast could make people healthier, when he said yes the asked him to write to 5000 other physicians 4500 of them agreed in principal that yes, a more substantial breakfast of which bacon could be a part could make people overall healthier. The marketing company leveraged peoples trust of doctors to pound them full of salt and saturated fat.
People all of a sudden love to act like manipulating people came along with Facebook and we were in some fantastic consumer utopia before. Nope. Its just more of the same shit, just new vectors.
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I think we are talking about our “Data” very differently. When I say “fuck it, they can have mine” I mean the crumbs they can pick apart from someone who takes the most basic data privacy protections and who doesnt go on facebook filling out surveys and literally volunteering their information away. That demographic is their wet dream and they out number people who do understand this stuff by orders of magnitude. Im just not using TOR and HTML scraping to deny giving them so much as a single tracking cookie while hiding behind over 9000 proxies.
I use Firefox with most of the tracking protections turned on, I clear my cookies and cache. I dont fill out surveys or join mailing lists to get access to exclusive offers and I dont like or share every last thing I see on social media. But I still have facebook because I like marketplace and I still use google for searches because its handy and yeah I do turn on “private browsing” for porn.
I’m aware of what they are doing and can do with mass data collection, the real problem as I see it is that people like you and I who do understand are shockingly outnumbered by people who actively give them more than they could ever use, people who honestly beleive they couldnt be manipulated by what the algorithms feed them. Those people have been manipulated by basic psychology tricks since long before data collection and Analytica on social media.
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This is the answer. Clarity and frugality. It doesn’t matter that they can make accurate predictions of your interests if you simply never click.
they wouldn’t spend millions on ads if people were immune to them
The expression “a fool and his money will soon be parted” or a variation of that was first published in 1573.
“A foole & his money, be soone at debate: which after with sorow, repents him to late.”
If you cant go on facebook without buying some T-shirt for $40 because some targeted add knows you’re all about Pickle Rick right now. The problem isnt targeted advertisement.
You basically described the other half of me right here. I waffle back and forth between your view and trying to do something about it. I go back to feeling it’s futile and doesn’t matter anyway, before getting fed up with targeted ads again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
I’m aware of it, thats how I fight back.
Ive needed new day to day runners for months, the inner heel is shredded and the soles have very little tread but I havent seen anything I like on a decent sale yet. I know the prices on most of the shit I want and on all the shit I need.
Now my facebook regularly shoves adds for shoes at me 365 days a year. The last pair of new all purpose runners/training shoes I bought retailed for $150 - $200, I saw a targeted advertisement for 25% off and I clicked on it and I got a pair thats usually $160 for $120 did they win or did I win?
I’d say they did, nobody actively advertises a product they don’t want to sell, unless it’s some type of loss leader.
Of course, you got cheap shoes out of it, so perhaps you both won?
The thing is what is valuable or not is up to you. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean they don’t want it. What’s perfectly legal and mundane today can be illegal tomorrow.
If they outlaw blondes with big tits there will be a revolution.
There are a lot of good advice given to me that I didn’t take so I’m not coming from a holier than thou place. I know all the amazing benifits of regularly working out and yet I’m still a lazy bum.
The only difference is I don’t go on the internet replying to posts on working out about how much I don’t give a shit about my health, picking fights with strangers.
Very nicely put :-)
But still an illusion. You are still a true and well adapted consumer, connected to all your pipes in The Matrix.
Saying that you are tight is equal to saying that you feel powerless, because all your money=power is owned by somebody else.
You are actually consuming. You are actually spending your money. You feel like you have no choice, but you have - if you only recognized it.