Turns out uBlock Origin is the best anti-malware software there is. For some reason friends and family just don't seem to get malware anymore after I installed it on their browsers.
As soon as you realize how much of Google's bottom line is scam and malware distribution, it becomes really hard to view the company as anything but crooks.
Google's other big line of business is shaking down businesses for cash by selling the top result for someone's own brand name unless they're paid for protection.
Even if ads were 100% legit verified links, they would still be scams. Advertising is inherently untrustworthy. Why do people trust anything a corporation says about their own products? In the best case scenario, they're highlighting the pros and omitting the cons. Usually they're just straight up lying.
I want real opinions written by real people with no conflict of interest. People who are't getting paid by the corporation.
Advertising is not meant to be educational, it's meant to make you aware the product exists. Of course you're don't have to trust what the company is saying, but now you know their product exists and what it does. If it was something you were looking for, you can now research it and ask for opinion.
Advertising is manipulative by it's very nature. Being made aware that it exists is manipulative in a somewhat forgivable way, but often the words and message are intended to motivate people with various forms of emotional manipulation.
Advertising is pretty gross.
And maybe that wasn't always the case, and maybe it's also using advertising in place of another word, but that's where it's ended up in my understanding of the world.
It's become lifestyle sales, of you buy this, you'll be this. They use that technique just about everywhere now. Used to be just cars and fashion. Like someone else said, emotional manipulation, narcissistic [my add].
Most people don't think with logic, but with emotions, so they're easy targets. Which makes me sad, because frankly no one deserves to get scammed and lied to.
I'm the type of person to appreciate direct and frank discussion. Many don't like this, especially people having power ambitions.
I agree, but the fact that even if you hold the view that ads are beneficial to society, Google is still a bad actor and a net negative to all of us, is particularly noteworthy. We all pay for Google via folks paying ransoms and other scams, having to indirectly pay for high ad budgets every company has to pay off Google to avoid their own search result being squatted by a competitor, etc. There is no company on the planet that the world would benefit more from being shut down.
But the incentives for advertising remain the same, so another similar competitor with similar evilness would emerge to replace them.
I don’t believe the problem is “Google is evil”.
I think the problem is that the incentives create evil, and there is little effective effort (that I have seen) to fix Google’s incentives through legislation or other means.
I worry that many other major companies we interact with are heading down the same path.
TVs are one canary warning us.
Another example: Apple seems to be getting keener on advertising revenue, and I’m not sure that opposing incentives (within Apple or by their customers) are strong enough to overcome the financial temptation. That temptation leads to eventual sin (to use a religious metaphor!) Apple already commits egregious harm through many kinds of “free” apps.
A large chunk of this websites user-base is working for ad companies like Google or Facebook. Another large chunk earns money from putting those ads on their apps.
> Linking to company websites so people looking to buy stuff that company makes can find it is a scam, because company websites are biased in favour of that company
This isn't a faithful interpretation of the argument. Most people don't use Google to look for things to buy. They use it to find accurate information.
Most people clicking on a link to a company website - ads or otherwise - do so because they want to hear what that company has to say about themselves and their products, not because their childlike grasp of the world makes them expect every result to provide utterly impartial information.
I wasn't even talking about paid links specifically. It's advertising in general that's the problem. Call me a child all you want, I don't care. The simple fact remains that they have an inherent conflict of interest. It's not an absurd argument at all. People who want to sell you something have every incentive to distort the truth and only fools believe them.
It's actually just my opinion. I'll even say it again: advertising is inherently untrustworthy, a nuisance and of negative value to society. I think it should be illegal.
If you think I'm trolling, report me. If dang tells me to stop, I will respect his decision. Don't accuse me of "baiting" otherwise. This isn't 4chan.
Oh it gets worse: Google has the gall position themselves on the authority on malware on the web [0], which they of course do with the same dedication to quality and support that they are known for in their other offerings. So they distribute malware themselves while defaming others with accusations of distributing malware.
I put PiHole on a Raspberry Pi as the home's DNS and every time it blocks these links. I still click on them thinking they're taking me to the correct site, but then I realized PiHole "saved me". I configured my wife's computers to use the Pi too and she loves it.
