I'm so glad you bring up "ad-driven services". We've all been duped into believing that ads give us stuff for free. The truth is there is no free lunch:
- The cost of ads are far greater than the loss of privacy: the opportunity cost of using products optimized for ad revenue rather than user revenue, the cost of collateral damage, such as the tremendous amount of link-bait and other garbage that advertising perversely incentivizes, and perhaps the greatest cost of all, the social cost of all the manipulation and deceit inherent in advertising.
- Even the "free" part is a lie. Advertisers pass the full costs back to us via the things we buy. So we are still paying, and we're paying the overhead of indirectness on top.
- The cost of ads are far greater than the loss of privacy: the opportunity cost of using products optimized for ad revenue rather than user revenue, the cost of collateral damage, such as the tremendous amount of link-bait and other garbage that advertising perversely incentivizes, and perhaps the greatest cost of all, the social cost of all the manipulation and deceit inherent in advertising.
- Even the "free" part is a lie. Advertisers pass the full costs back to us via the things we buy. So we are still paying, and we're paying the overhead of indirectness on top.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237.