App Tracking Transparency on iOS devices is an interesting test case for this argument. When an app wants to track you, you’re asked in plain language whether you want to be tracked. You can say no. You don’t have to be a savvy user to say no, and the consent is explicit rather than being buried in a EULA that you don’t read. If you say no, the app will likely still work fine. Specific numbers vary, but somewhere between a majority and a vast majority of iOS users opt out when given that choice. How much that costs advertisers is harder to reason about (a lot of the data comes from advertisers themselves, who are hardly unbiased), but the data are at least consistent in arguing that ATT opt outs produce a quantifiable drop in ad engagement (clicks, etc) and ad spend.

I’m personally a big fan of ATT. You shouldn’t have to be a savvy user to opt out of surveillance capitalism. I also don’t personally care that much about how effective online advertising networks are. But I think LG and similar companies are probably not off base to worry about making it possible to cleanly opt out of everything. From their perspective, that wouldn’t be a great outcome.

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Oh fuck off with this.

I guess it isn’t that surprising. I bet the developers who write the software included in this distribution would love some of those millions, but being a guy with a brand and opinions is apparently more valuable to the investor class. Consistent with how they think about the workforce at their own companies, anyway.

(I normally read things like this as people paying tribute to the guy running the company getting the money, or wanting to be perceived as in favor of that company’s viewpoints. I don’t understand why anyone would want to pay tribute to DHH. Ignoring the ick, he’s not that important or powerful. There are a lot of SWEs who don’t know who he is, let alone the general public)

I don’t have a problem believing it. They have an infinite money supply (to date), the negative consequences of this are borne by other people, and they probably have plenty of leadership from other tech firms who are used to making narrow ROI arguments based on what benefits the company. Easy enough to imagine “hey, let’s unfuck our crawler!” getting dismissed at not a priority.