I read the article; it's actually one of the better pieces I've read in that domain (tech news for the general public) IMHO. People say those things (take-downs) about everything on HN. Don't trust the threads - why would you trust anonymous people writing one-sentence hot-take rants, some of whome probably also didn't read the article and are just repeating things.

The Internet tide isn't a reliable indicator of anything, any more than the tide at the beach.

  "Academic rigour, journalistic flair"

I think it passes for a press release disguised as a news article.

Google didn't write a press release that raises questions - insightful ones that I hardly ever see in other coverage - about their privacy practices and recommends competitors such as Firefox and Brave.

It was great. I'd give it to lay-people who were interested, and as a technical person I don't need to read more.

It can be better solved with a calendar notification. No privacy violated and you can add your own information to your notification: you liked this toothbrush, your dentist recommended that toothbrush, you didn't like this store, blah blah.

Is there value in that? Sure. Does that mean that value must be extracted by a business? No.

Regardless, that's a debate to have with Chrome devs. It's already in the browser and the article is reporting on the browser.

> Lastly, it’s good to remember nothing truly comes for free. Software costs money to develop. If you’re not paying towards that, then it’s likely you – or your data – are the product. We need to revolutionise how we think about our own data and what value it truly holds.

Ignoring the fact that this is not how it works - there are plenty of services where you pay and still are the product - the last sentence makes it clear that the author sees privacy as the problem, not tracking.

2. There are services that you pay for where you are not the product

3. All services that you don’t pay for you are the product.

So the first step is getting people to pay for the service

Even in the US, the median cost of an Android phone is less than $300 and then you expect them to pay $200 for a browser?

Besides, it’s never just a one time purchase. Is that one time purchase going to get you security updates and if so, for how long?

I can eat junk food cheaply every day, I pay the price later.

Let them eat cake?

Meanwhile over in "lets not cede all control to corporations" land, did we forget the the internet was actually funded by the government in the first place? Have we already tossed away ideas like the rural electrification project?

Who is going to pay for the browser?

Do you really want the government controlling how you access information?

You've already given that power to corporations, and corporations have far fewer regulations on actually performing said control (as in they are able to control you far more).

You are so deep into Reganomics "government is bad, corporations are good" that you don't realize these large (near) monopoly status corporations are effectively their own governments in amount of power and control they have.

I have a lot more power not to use Chrome or Android than not to be under the rule of a hostile government.

Whether it’s the religious right who are in control of one party or Tipper Gore going after rap music in the other party, do you really want the government controlling the web?

Reagonomics was about thinking the government is incompetent. I think the government is hostile.

Enriching these large companies will ensure you live under a hostile government too. Once they are big enough to rent seek, they become the primary lobbying power, and you're back in the exact same position of being under a hostile government.

Next I expect to hear something out of you about private water companies and roads as the solution to all of our problems.

> Once they are big enough to rent seek, they become the primary lobbying power, and you're back in the exact same position of being under a hostile government.

Can any of the corporations with power put people in jail or confiscate your property for disagreeing with them? Can they get you fired for teaching something that is “too woke”. Did you not see what the governor of Florida did with Disney because they had the nerve to disagree with him?

Are you really okay with giving government that power?

Show me the steps that would need to happen for Google to harass me for walking down the street because I don’t look like I belong in my own neighborhood.

You attempt to go to your local grocery store. They use 'Google Identity' which they are perfectly allowed to as a private business. You are accused of sending spam by Google (who the hells knows why, they never explain anything) and you are barred access.

Being the staunch libertarian you are, you leap over the public roadway afraid of catching communism if you touch it and go to the grocery store across the road. It turns out they are using 'Amazon Identity' and via an information sharing agreement with Google (private businesses can share information about you, right?), and you're also denied access to that store.

You'll go to another store, right.... Oops, turned out after we got rid of monopoly laws there are only two different stores in your community after consolidation of the industry. Luckily for you there is a toll road that you can take a 30 minute drive to another place that uses a different set of identifiers to let you in.

We busted monopolies and company stores years ago because businesses harassed and murdered people left and right!. Have you forgot the history of the Pinkertons, or are you just blindly ignorant of that part of US history?

This is what police will do today to people who disagree with them

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/08/23/us/marion-county-record-n...

> We busted monopolies and company stores years ago because businesses harassed and murdered people left and right!….

I’m sure I need to be more worried about Google murdering people than some yokels claiming they were doing a “citizens arrest” where the prosecutor covered up video taped evidence…

https://www.wtoc.com/2022/12/28/timeline-former-brunswick-da...

But I guess I should be more worried about Google putting a cookie on my computer…

Not that I would ever personally use Chrome

Even better, we had your magical word where the police didn't exist in the past... It was not a pleasant place unless you were the strongman. The police state was just as bad back then, or bully state.

Yeah, you can choose between Google or Apple. Hooray.

It's practically impossible to avoid Google if you value having a social life. Enough people have tried.

> Reagonomics was about thinking the government is incompetent. I think the government is hostile.

Oh yeah great, so it's even worse than Reaganomics.

At least a government csn be kept in check by a construction and can be changed by elections.

On the other hand, corporations have no obligations towards you at all. It's the entire point of private enterprise that they can do what they want and don't owe any responsibility.

That’s cute in theory. But the way that the electoral college is designed, the Senate with two votes, gerrymandering etc that doesn’t work out too well in practice.

Democracy works fine if you’re in the majority - well not actually see all of the caveats above - but that doesn’t work if you are in the minority - any type of minority.

> It's the entire point of private enterprise that they can do what they want and don't owe any responsibility.

I could argue the same about law enforcement, imminent domain, civil forfeiture, and getting harassed because I “look suspicious”

We already pay a price to have regulatory watchdogs intervene when companies cheat the market and or distort the rules and impact society as a whole, so it wouldn't be unprecedented either.

We could write PHD thesis about why, but we can take a meta look at it: there's reasons they became dominant in the first place, and those reasons need to disappear before it's easily replaceable (of course additional reasons will pile up the longer the browser stays dominant)

I certainly don't feel like I am the product when I use Wikipedia.

I wouldn't assume that; I would donate what you can. I've been to two pay-what-you-can theater performances recently. How can I not give those people - who value every dime, who many others stiff, and where you know 100% goes to a worthy cause - more than the corporate productions, who couldn't care less about me or community and where the money goes to some billionaires and shareholders who couldn't care less about art and look forward to AI and cost-cutting layoffs. The last thing I want is the local artists, who do it for the art, to not see people's love and appreciation or to stop.

Around 5-10 years ago, IIRC the maintainer of a relatively well-known Linux distro moved home to (Minnesota?) because they had no health insurance and couldn't afford the Bay Area (or something like that, my memory is sketchy).

Also don't forget the sh-t-ton of abuse open source maintainers take.

> Ignoring the fact that this is not how it works - there are plenty of services where you pay and still are the product

That refutation of their statement is not how logic works. They made a !A -> B statement ("not pay" -> "you are product"). Your statement, ! (A -> !B), which is equivalent to B -> !A is orthogonal to their statement.

The article seems pretty reasonable to me actually. It establishes what a cookie is, then contrasts that with what Chrome is doing, then explains the tradeoffs and Google’s claims, then gives the reader options to make their own choice.

Seems like good journalism to me.

reads like so much sleeper propaganda for The Selfish Ledger style abuses.

I don't think any discussion of the trade-offs between privacy and tracking is complete unless the horrifying abuses of tracking are also discussed, like government contractors spying on people without cause.

The last line of the article for me is different: “We need to revolutionise how we think about our own data and what value it truly holds.” (Emphasis mine)

Which in context:

> Lastly, it’s good to remember nothing truly comes for free. Software costs money to develop. If you’re not paying towards that, then it’s likely you – or your data – are the product. We need to revolutionise how we think about our own data and what value it truly holds.

Is a very clear pro-privacy statement to me. This is our data and is owned by us and we should revolutionize how we think about that.