I don't have a problem with advertising per se, nor with Google's business strategy. Its actually very innovative and has brought great benefit to many, including myself when I was in college (gmail was the best!)
However, Google embodies the worst in advertising these days. Same with Facebook. I know all companies collect my info (credit cards companies were the first). But not all sell it, nor produce visual pollution.
My current email provider is less than 4 dollars a month. It works the same as gmail for my needs. In fact better because I can use a custom domain. If used gmail, what would I get for saving a few dollars? Lets see....
I am no longer the customer. I get visual clutter on my email interface. There is no help line. My email is archived forever and I can not be sure it will be deleted from the server if I want it to. And I support a system where people are no longer customers, but products.
And thats really my biggest beef. Its ok to do what Google does on a small scale. But so many things have become ad supported now, and everything is so integrated, it is just ridiculous and abused for money. These companies no longer exist to serve customers, they exist to serve ads. I don't like that. Others may rejoice at saving...um...100 dollars a year? To get free email and online storage or texting or whatever. I don't. Not when my company doesn't care if I have problems, has no customer service line, and invades my privacy. (Please note I don't think 100 dollars is a trivial amount...but its trivial considering how important those services are. I don't think 10 dollars a month to ensure you have digital presence is too much to ask. Its the cost of 2 burritos.)
How do ads invade my privacy? On my screen. On my phone. In my email. In search results. They pop up and click through. Telling me about things I don't want or need to buy. Trying to get me to clutter up my home, spend my money, etc etc. Its very annoying. And one of the things I don't like is annoyance. Its all a matter of degree I suppose.
I didn't mind gmail. I didn't mind a few second ad every few youtube videos. I didn't mind a click through or pop up now and then.
But these days thats all the internet is. Ads on Facebook, in the news feeds, on my photos. Notifications. Instagram inserts ads. Youtube video ads every few minutes. Click throughs. Enter your information to do anything. Google plus. And so on. I am just sick of people wanting customers info, using customer info, and basically using customers instead of serving customers. And thats all kids are going to grow up knowing. Instead of having a relationship with a company they trust, they are just data points that can be drilled down to be sold to some group so they can sell some mundane product.
So no, there has been no "harm" to me, and I have nothing to hide. I just have a moral disagreement with where business models are heading. They serve themselves now, not customers. Once, many companies would never sell you out or bother you beyond a catalog. Not these days.
And how is Apple different? I know they have my info and I know they will send me direct advertising. Everyone does. But there are no ads in iTunes. No ads in Mail. No ads in iCloud. Apple rarely asks me to join any of their things; I was asked once to join Ping and thats it. Once to join iTunes match. I get an email once every 2 months from them, I unsubscribed and I don't get them anymore. Thats appropriate and fair. Its amazingly peaceful and logical.
It also shows a measure of respect I think, to have a relationship with the end user and assume they are smart enough to know what they want. Maybe its just me, but I almost feel disrespected when I use something where they want "nothing from me" or its "free"..but in reality, they want my name, address, location, browsing habits and then will show me things they think I need. Oh, and google plus will relentlessly ask me to join. I pretty much stopped watching anything on youtube, I just use vimeo. If I see a youtube ad, I just close the window. I am not going to waste my time with commercials so I can see a surfing cat or a movie trailer.
Check
this out as the future of messaging is appearing in Asia. It just looks so...annoying.
Wouldn't it feel better to pay 50 bucks a year for ad-free, track free, private (real private, no bosses checking you out) Facebook? I think it would have. And I think Facebook would have felt better too and been more important longer. It losts is lustre to its target market when it lost its privacy.
