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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • That’s extra work, throwaway services are often blocked

    Never had any issues whatsoever, it is less work to me than logging into my mail account and confirming my account, but I also like to have a separate account for every service and never use the “login with facebook/whatever else” option.

    it also defeats the purpose of having a backup contact in case of loss passwords etc.

    That’s true, but if you actually want to be able to recover your password, there isn’t a way around providing your email.








  • First of all, just to be clear, I’m not at all an expert on this topic for those who haven’t noticed. My questions are mostly because I want to learn how it works, not because I want to tell you that you are wrong or anything like that. You seem to know a lot more than me anyway.

    Tracking of reads = when you read someone’s post, there is a permanent log record made

    When you read someone’s post, you first need to access that information from the server. In order to do that, your client tells the server which post you want to see and the server sends you that post. Those interactions are most likely logged on the server as well as which IP address has requested that information, etc. There is no absolute sure way to make sure that the admin does not use those logs to extract that information, at the end of the day, it comes down if you trust the admin.

    But there is also a “show read posts” option which seems to hide read posts overall, which does indeed suggest that read posts are saved and used and which seems to work independent of client.

    It’s not mostly an issue of selling data for marketing purposes. The data could also be extracted by cyber attackers, seized by law enforcement, subpoenad in a lawsuit, or whatever.

    Sure, I do get the issue to some extend, but I don’t see how it is quite as bad as you seem to imply. For example, I worry more about personal data, such as my e-mail address being leaked, which is why I generally use a throw away email. I don’t really see why I, or some attacker, should care about which posts I have “read”, but maybe I don’t understand the full implications getting this information means.

    “Marketing purposes” is a smoke screen anyway.

    Of course it is, but I don’t think there are any lemmy instances that use lemmy data for marketing purposes. Data seems to be used only to improve the user experience, at least that’s how it’s intended.

    It is not necessary to record voting data except to prevent you from voting twice on a particular topic.

    If it wasn’t logged or only logged client side you could upvote/downvote infinitely, no?

    There is also no need to remember HOW anyone voted. It’s enough to remember that you voted on a particular topic, and increment the relevant vote counter. That is also how real-world elections work. See also the topic of “receipt-free voting” in cryptography.

    That does seem to be a good point.


  • What do you mean with “tracking” exactly? The way I understand it, tracking is analysing and using user data, for example for marketing purposes.

    Posts and content need to be saved on the instance as far as I understand, I don’t see any other way. And posts and comments are essentially public information, anyone can see the posts that your username posts and comments, that’s kinda the entire point of posting and commenting.

    Up and down votes too, otherwise I don’t see how the concept of up and down votes could work. The server needs to know which comments or posts you upvote, otherwise it doesn’t register it. And theoretically, the server admin could track that information and make statistics based on it, although this is potentially where legal issues come in if it’s not properly explained what is done with your data.

    Same with metadata stuff and data such as which posts you access/read. The server has to know that information, when you click on a post you want to read, you are essentially asking the server to provide you with that post, so the server has to know which post you want to read and this is generally logged on the server for a certain time.

    The question is does the server keep and archive this information and/or is this information used and analysed by somebody.

    According to the admin, data is not sold or used for marketing purposes.


  • They’ve also made a lot of shitty decisions.

    That’s the thing with tech companies. They are fast to rise, but also fast to fall, so they are always on the lookout for the next big thing. Blockchain tech was supposed to be the next big thing. Crypto currency was at the time already kinda the big thing in the tech industry’s eyes. And of course when that happens, everyone wants to be early bird for the next big thing and caution is pushed to the side.

    VR and AR are the same. It was and still is supposed to be the next big thing. Another one would be language models and “A.I.”. But because all those “new things” tend to be massively over hyped by people who often don’t really understand it and just have dollar signs in their eyes, they inevitably support the wrong thing every once in a while.



  • Many tech companies were overvalued for a long time. Everyone was happy to invest and pump money into those companies because “those platforms are going to be the future and I want to be part of it when they are starting to make a ton of money”. It didn’t matter that many of those companies were not profitable because they always promised to make up for that in the future.

    This classic idea is starting to break down a bit. Many Tech companies have become profitable in the meantime, but many of them also have various troubles like moderation.

    So why are so many media companies making “shitty decisions”? Well, because from a business perspective, they aren’t necessarily “shitty decisions”, they are kinda smart decisions. Reddit makes money by gathering data and by showing ads. They cannot show ads on apps they don’t control. So they have to handle a lot of traffic for which they get nothing back. That’s why they are trying to push as many people to use their app as possible. They know that the hardcore oldschool community won’t like that, but they are probably pretty sure that enough will switch to the app to make it worthwhile for them.

    Meta is fighting to stay relevant as well. Facebook was the foundation of social media for a long time, but in the digital space, this can change very quickly, so they constantly have to try new things.

    And if we look at games like the Sims, the game who really escalated the whole DLC thing, it’s a similar story. From a consumer perspective, what they are doing is bad. From a business perspective, it’s smart. And that’s what it ultimately comes down to.

    Companies’ main goal isn’t to satisfy their customers, it’s making money. If fucking over customers makes them more money, they do it in a heartbeat.