this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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With the number of people concerned about privacy, it is a wonder why chrome is even popular.

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[–] [email protected] 203 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Most people aren’t concerned about privacy outside of places like here and Reddit.

[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 year ago (7 children)

With Chrome killing ad blocking, they'll quickly care

[–] [email protected] 181 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Except most people don't use adblock. I don't even know how they live

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm conviced those people aren't real and everyone is in fact secretly using an ad blocker.

I mean, how do you not get annoyed with so much ads? People are probabaly lying in surveys to trick youtube to not blocking adblockers.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You are mostly right. Think about how many people use chrome on corporate office computers that they do not have permission to install anything on or modify. It's part of the reason Windows is so dominant. Businesses run windows and chrome a shit ton. I work for a Fortune 100 company. It's Windows and Chrome across the whole company.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I work for a large company and its the same. They even force-install Chrome despite Edge already being there! Yes, some people will make the privacy argument that Microsoft takes your data, but so will Google, and it's not as if the business cared either way, because if they did they'd install an adblocker or Firefox, which they don't.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Because It's baked into the network

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Permissions, you say? Lemme introduce you to Portable Apps.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yeah the second anything gets stuck into a USB port, IT is on WebEx like "Get what's that asshole in pod H-12 doing???"

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Hate to say it, but I think you're giving the average person way too much credit. Most people are just not that smart.

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin

Average and below internet users are not the kind of people you meet on Lemmy. They are people like the aging Gen-Xer who doesn't know the difference between "the internet" and a web browser, or the kid whose parents shoved a tablet in their face to get them to be quiet for an hour.

Most people want computers to be an appliance like a washing machine - the thought that they can shape their own experience on their phone or computer never even occurs to them.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I forget that these people exist sometimes. I can’t ever go back to the internet with no ad blockers.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I suspect they spend most of their time in apps and not surfing the internet. Just a guess really since I saw the mobile traffic exceeded desktop. A lot of people don't spend hours on the "internet" surfing. Tic Tok sure. Hell I'm getting more and more like that. Even when I use chrome I still only go the the same sites for the most part. lol

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It could be a good thing. Maybe they won't bother about people blocking ads because they become even less than before.

So maybe you need to pause the ad block a lot less.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Ah, you met my parents.

I had to install ublock origin on my mother's Chrome because she never would otherwise. Doesn't even know how.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Google’s doing a pretty shitty job on that front since uBlock is already prepared with a new version that will work largely the same after the changeover.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you have a post clarifying how uBlock got prepared? I can't seem to find anything

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly, it seems like people have basically created internal adblockers where they seem to not notice ads.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

They won't. The vast majority aren't using any kind of ad-blockers in the first place or Google would go out of business.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Hmmm, on the bright side, with lemmy going mainstream maybe some of this culture (including privacy and FOSS) becomes more and more openly discussed.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 year ago (6 children)

As much as I love Lemmy I don't see it going mainstream :/
It's too weird for the general user

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah I agree. Arguably reddit isn't even mainstream, and it is exponentially larger than Lemmy now and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

I'm really loving Lemmy, but it is not even remotely a factor if we are having a conversation about things that are mainstream enough to reflect popular opinion.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Arguably reddit isn’t even mainstream ...

... with just 0.91% of US social media visits ~~this year~~ in March this year, if this isn't wrong:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/265773/market-share-of-the-most-popular-social-media-websites-in-the-us/

FB 53.09%, Twit 16.25%, IG 13.85%, ..., Reddit 0.91% ...

[Edited to fix my error.]

[I have no affiliation with the linked site.]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That's US based. I don't have stats handy, but I remember seeing that huge amounts of Reddit traffic are outside the US, and from anecdotal experience, limiting the study further to younger demographics would drastically change these results.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Reddit was too weird for most people until they ended up being in their Google search results for most topics. It will take a while but the Fediverse will eventually reach a level of popularity and mainstream utility.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

We could have it both, where big instances like LemmyWorld or BeeHaw becomes the well known public interface, while they maintain federation with smaller instances.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I mean I love Lemmy but I don't see it going mainstream :/
It's too weird for the general user

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The irony of this comment duplicating 😅 but yeah you're right, there needs to be a lot of streamlining first

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I've seen this issue hundreds of times on red dot

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I dunno. Lemmy isn't all that weird outside the first little bit of choosing an instance and signing up for communities. Everything since that has felt extremely normal to me. Some more thought about that and a good instance onboarding workflow can be implemented, that seems like a solvable problem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I completely agree, I don't find it difficult at all. But I have already tried to recommend it to a couple of friends and just having to go through those first steps was enough for them not to want to use Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Not sure why it’s weird, it’s just reddit but open source?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Lemmy isn't weird at all. Now P2P platforms like secure scuttlebutt and aether, that's some weird stuff. I couldn't get them working at all (or maybe nobody is using these anymore). P2P is very confusing for me. I assume that a federated network is as confusing for many people as p2p social networks are confusing for me. I guess there will be someone out there who reads my comment and be like: "What? P2P networks are so simple, what don't you understand?" I guess people just have different amount of tolorance to being confused by complexity of something before they just give up. I couldn't figure out those P2P systems so I just give up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Keep Lemmy Weird

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I wish that was the case. Privacy is barely a thing in the general public's eye. FOSS is a spec in the wind in comparison.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

WHAAT? I CANT HEAR YOU OVER THE MEEEEEMEES!!. SPEAK LOUDEERRR!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I think lots of boomers and gen-x do care. (At least the ones I know). They just aren't tech literate enough to do anything about it.

I think we need more privacy oriented devices and software with simple ux, and advertising that isn't targetted at the tech community.

Run some TV ads for a privacy enabled smartphone, and play up how it works just the same as your current phone but doesn't spy on you. Shit like that.