notdanariely
First, however, MetaMan will need to end the Hollywood accounting practice so better superhero movies can be made... about him!
I thought your initial comment was a little off-topic, personally. But the defensive / insistent tone in this reply makes me think that you actually were pushing an agenda, and that the criticisms were valid. (Essentially, to me, you proved their point: you weren't interested in discussing the focus of the article, but wanted to hijack the thread to talk about an issue important to you.)
I do not support private corporations (or even public good -- yes, I think the chain gang days of old are similarly awful) making money off of prisoners. However, from the articles you linked, some data:
* 2 million (2,000,000) inmates in federal/state/local prisons.
* 100 private prisons, 62,000 inmates in them (6.2%)
* 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states (unsure how this relates to previous point, the article isn't very well written and doesn't connect these numbers)
* Forbes.com article says there are 6,000 prisoners in the US serving time while working for a private enterprise.
So on the one extreme, we're looking at 6% of the prison population being affected by this. At the other extreme, there are only 6k prisoners affected.
I believe there are a huge number of ethical and moral violations surrounding the prison side of the US criminal justice system. Private prisons are one of them, but hyperbole and extreme language do not serve any of the population.
Are you only discussing VOD sites? That's the only way I can make any sense of your arguments. (Also, what do you mean by netflix being a "consumer of the internet"?)
After considering your comment, I still think my original point stands. Instead of thinking about the product being sold, think of it like qualifying a lead based on their receptiveness to your advertising.
It would need to be tested whether that would be more highly correlated with conversions / profits, but I'd probably consider someone who is receptive to my advertising as a higher priority lead than someone who is interested primarily in my content.
A better metric is some sort of pageviews / site visitors / uniques / etc.
The software analogy is invalid, because those people are already your users or customers. In the case of reading the article, think of a popup as a criterion filter in much the same way as 419 scammers use poor english.
If they produce content for the sake of conversions, does it really matter to them if you hit back as soon as you see the popup? You've self-selected to indicate you aren't interested in doing business with them based on their popup practices.
From their perspective, this could be a bonus. Not that server resources are that scarce, but sales resources can be. Now they don't have to have someone call you, don't have you in their denominator lowering their conversion-to-sales rate, etc.
Perhaps it's just a way for both reader and publisher to see if they're a match.
If I were to consider renting my place on AirBnB, I would consider the people staying here to be my guests, not ABnB's. While I believe there is some concern with how the company represents themselves, the fact remains that it's his apartment he chose to rent out. Illegally, I might add.
If you rented a room to someone referred by a friend, and that guest trashed your place... would you expect your friend to make restitution? (Personally, I would downgrade my trust in that friend's opinion, but I don't think I would hold them liable...)
Just to offer a different perspective: to me, the valuable part of sharing life events is the engagement with another person. IE, the extreme convenience (broadcasting 1-to-30 people) undercuts the reason for sharing: connection.
(I also have recently identified concerns I have with group mechanics, and this no doubt influences my perspective.)
In this interpretation, the legal system is a reasonably objective proxy to inform people how far they are across the line. This suggests that even unenforced laws can help establish an acceptable norm, so people have an external comparison.