As I stated, you are ostensibly providing a service that is not disclosed to the users on a prima fascia basis. If I provide a space IRL for people to have coffee and chat but in reality every tenth person is a salesman for a different company, I have deceived the patrons into thinking this is just a place to have conversations. Even worse is when you MAKE your patrons talk to the salesmen to get their coffee. Do you see?
Discussion
I think the selling point of this particular platform is the relationship to advertising. The client knows you want to see ads because you're choosing to use their client. You're not there because you wanted coffee alone. You could have gotten that at Amethyst Brewing for example that doesn't give you ads while you drink. By visiting this particular coffee shop you're not going for the coffee so much as the entire network experience that shares information with you at the cost of giving you monetary value that you can then distribute out as you see fit. I'd argue this network is more like that water company that gives out free water for you viewing an ad on their machine.
So the point here is that it is a psychological deception. People don't hear "Social network platform" and think consciously "I volunteer to be a commodity for corporate meta data collection and sales."
If I ask literally anyone "What is Twitter/X? What is Facebook?" They will never say "A place for people to volunteer personal data and be advertised to." Their misapprehension is that they are social networks and they are users of the service.
The novelty of asking users if they consent to advertising has been tried and fails due to a lack of incentive or those who do not use the service in it's intended way and exploit the system which devalues the service for the apps REAL customer, the Advertiser.
I am not against creating value for money. But the platform is not the layer on which commerce should be enacted. It is the social layer. Companies can make an account, produce engagement, and promote their product through that. Success can be earned not bought, ethically.
-People don't hear "Social network platform" and think consciously "I volunteer to be a commodity for corporate meta data collection and sales."
I agree but most people don't yet hear of nostr yet at all either. They aren't aware of a choice yet. I think it will become a common choice for users to decide what kind of online community they want to be a part of where users will make all kinds of choices about their platform (does it have DVMs or does it use algo relays or none at all, does it have ads, does it have ads with rewards, does it have none at all, etc)
- If I ask literally anyone "What is Twitter/X? What is Facebook?" They will never say "A place for people to volunteer personal data and be advertised to."
I think if you ask them if they know those services are listening to them they'd very clearly say yes and tell a story to you about talking to cousin Jimmy about a new pair of shoes then seeing ads. They don't yet have vernacular for it but they understand its happening and they currently consider that social media. This is part of the change that will happen. I bet they will be happy to continue seeing advertisements if it means they earn some sats for looking at it while at the same time rewarding the creators they engage with.
- The novelty of asking users if they consent to advertising has been tried and fails due to a lack of incentive or those who do not use the service in it's intended way and exploit the system which devalues the service for the apps REAL customer, the Advertiser.
This hasn't been tried on nostr to my knowledge. Nostr changes the distribution network drastically where it redefines stakeholders to a totally different setup of interests and abilities. The user is now the real customer. Advertisers, algos and DVMs are there to cater to them through the service providers that the user chooses to engage with. They aren't locked slaves on nostr, they're the real customers now.
Points taken.
Choice is good. The market will certainly decide if it will be the aforementioned disaster or fairly lucrative. Altogether I don't think Facebook, or Instagram being lucrative was in question.
The instances of the consent driven adverts have been tried in traditional settings but also some fairly new ones too such as Brave's BAT economy and several game apps.
I still disagree as to the ethics not just on deception grounds but the privileged platform layer access to the user commodity. If I pay a dev to feature my ad it creates an incentive structure that is ultimately anti-meritocratic. You don't have to be meritocratic, I just have the opinion that it is deleterious to the goal of having a public discussion, proclamation, and information platform.
Again, you can do whatever you'd like, I'm not your dad. I just don't like the paradigm of advertising seeping into nostr on those outlined ethical grounds. But as most of how ethics goes, it amounts to "I think it will produce bad results and I don't like it."
Onward, My man.