by throwmeup123 on 1/8/23, 9:02 AM with 108 comments
by mdp2021 on 1/8/23, 10:22 AM
Such weakening encourages abuse and exploitation.
¹Note that said community culture was not restricted to small communities: it was present in metropolis of millions. And it is related to a vaster area of consequences of the "weakening of the "low-culture" (i.e. "the teacher and neighbour" as opposed to "the professor and professional") presence".
by xondono on 1/8/23, 11:05 AM
In fact I’m willing to bet you’re ~27-28 years old, because what you are seeing is your profile getting moved from the 18-25 market segment to the 26-35 segment.
The scams where always there, it’s just that people thought you were too poor to market them to you.
by LordHeini on 1/8/23, 10:16 AM
Look at old advertising and all the literal snake oil that used to be sold.
I think it is jus the internets effect to make everything more discoverable and new schemes enabled by new technology.
Navigation is easy:
If it is too good to be true it probably is a lie.
There is no money on the streets and nobody is giving it away for free.
If it is claimed that something works on "everything" (like all the newfangled health food) it probably works on nothing.
by BulgarianIdiot on 1/8/23, 10:33 AM
What's coming is frankly scary to me.
by powersnail on 1/8/23, 10:13 AM
Apart from robocalls and junk mails, I don’t think I’ve personally experienced a notable amount of scams. When I buy something, I almost always get what I buy, except a few incidents of lost delivery, where the orders was promptly refunded or reissued.
by pyb on 1/8/23, 10:37 AM
by user-extended on 1/8/23, 10:45 AM
Remove the problem of earning money to achieve independent housing, remove 75% of the hussle for most people to participate in scams.
by speedgoose on 1/8/23, 10:23 AM
But it can be difficult when a new owner buys a good media and transform it to make more profits. LesNumériques (French) was a good source and is not trustworthy anymore. Tek.no (Norwegian) may be alright on average, even though the owner is so-so.
I also stopped to use Google Search. It is a completely useless search engine for this usage. I prefer DuckDuckGo/Bing and I usually append "reddit" to my searches. It’s still a lot of astroturfing on Reddit though. Some is obvious but it’s not perfect.
I never trust online user reviews. For example for restaurants I prefer to look at the guide Michelin than fake reviews. Online reviews can still show when a restaurant is likely bad but it’s not a good indication of a restaurant worth a trip.
I also ask friends.
by throw_m239339 on 1/8/23, 11:00 AM
Since there is no scrutiny from the consumer anymore, these vendors don't care about accountability or their own reputation. I absolutely hate that marketplace paradigm where you don't even know who you are buying from anymore and everything is obfuscated.
by tjpnz on 1/8/23, 10:29 AM
I automatically assume any online influencer trying to sell me something is a grifter. I also don't use social media.
The best part is that there's zero downside and you don't have to do anything.
by kthejoker2 on 1/8/23, 3:43 PM
Your average YouTube creator doesn't want scam ads. If the FTC forced YouTube to say "this ad is endorsed by us and we'll pay any legal damages if this is found to be a scam in court", those ads would disappear.
The bigger issue is why this is just a thread on Hacker News and not a major talking point for politicians looking to dunk on Big Tech.
by nostromo123 on 1/8/23, 1:26 PM
Since I've been using adblockers forever, I went ten years or so before I even realized YouTube was showing ads...
by stuaxo on 1/8/23, 10:35 AM
by elias94 on 1/8/23, 10:55 AM
I came from an European country, a not heavy-populated area, where a lot of feedback are shared in the community. Before buying something, is helpful asking friend, relatives or colleagues about their previous experience and what model/brand they advise. I think is a great benefit that I missed when I went to live in other countries. There's less feedback sharing abroad and most of the people rely on: the same brand, the price of the product, the advice for shopping center staff (which are often biased). If I ask to some friend about a car mechanic or a restaurant advice, he would have no preference.
by ergonaught on 1/8/23, 11:37 PM
It's partly due to technology completely removing barriers to entry and providing global and powerful amplification, coupled with sociocultural "bonkers insanity" (a technical term) where almost everything has become an advertise or a performance or etc, which has its own effect of lowering barriers and amplification.
The feedback loops there just accelerate it.
It's not new (watch any set of TV infomercials, or most of what happens on QVC or Home Shopping Network or whatever the equivalents to these things are today) but there really is more of it, and they're getting better at it, as above.
Technology + Humans. IMO.
by unyttigfjelltol on 1/8/23, 10:33 AM
I have some guesses about underlying drivers, but they're just guesses. At the top, we have regulatory 'avoidance' masquerading as 'innovation', and enough regulators stood down for it to have consequences. We have the entire journalism industry brought to it's knees financially, and turning to low-quality opinion written predominantly by immature, inexperienced people. We have politics-- international actors leveraging social media to sow disinformation, and domestic actor(s) enthusiastically and successfully denying truths with impunity. And we have official sources of truth corrupted-- the trends above, and others led to ready availability of bad information in sources previously regarded as authoritative.
Unfortunately, the epicenter in many cases can be traced to changes in society and power brought about by the technology industry, which 'disrupted' society and replaced it with substitutes that empowered anti-factual narratives and personalities. The recipes for avoiding being scammed are nice, but this is a structural problem that shouldn't be laid at the feet of individual people unfortunate enough to be conned.
by catach on 1/8/23, 9:17 AM
by PicassoCTs on 1/8/23, 10:23 AM
Which results in a "rodeo" uprising against the parasitic scam culture by the lower tiers of society, against the useless elites which has taken over the institutions and societyorgans. In these purges usually violent antisemitism is involved and a "anti"-education stance expressed. Society eats itself. Democracy was a attempt to pacify these purges, but its in the nature of elites to hack the process, which would get rid of them or force them back into productivity.
After the "purge" usually a large war or famine starts and the state reconstitutes itself, promising to do better, and the whole cycle begins again.
The usual useful "progress" happen in the war/reconstitution phase, when the elites are still productive, instead of engaging in the gambling/hacking competition and the memory of the purges is still fresh.
by badpun on 1/8/23, 10:56 AM
by shapefrog on 1/8/23, 10:26 AM
by romusha on 1/8/23, 10:16 AM
by leroman on 1/8/23, 11:00 AM
When the economy is pushing you to compete for financial resources and the Neo-liberal narrative for market ethics is pushing the line of each person is responsible for his own actions, or in other words, if you found yourself in a scam that is your fault.. As a business, it's just a question of finding the most legal way to scam people to get more resources..
Cases in point - planned/perceived obsolescence..
by r9295 on 1/8/23, 10:13 AM
by f6v on 1/8/23, 10:48 AM
by bpanon on 1/9/23, 8:03 AM
by assidiou on 1/8/23, 10:35 AM
by timdaub on 1/8/23, 10:37 AM
by thefz on 1/8/23, 10:42 AM
You don't want to make things that people will buy anymore. You need to maximize engagament, please investors, sell your user's telemetry to the highest bidder.
I blame capitalism and especially America for this.