The original reason I left involved a "gut feel" regarding changes to Blogger/Google privacy policies. They were coupling their various applications more closely together and I thought that would make it harder to keep the various parts of my life compartmentalized.
My other concern was based unknowns in the Google business model. There is a huge asymmetry in the price a third party receives for the data I consider "private" and what it might cost me. A raccoon skin might command $5 in the open market, but it is worth far more than that to the raccoon.
Recently, the Blogger platform started inserting comments that look like ads. Undoubtedly, there are programmers honing their artificial intelligence models trying to figure out if certain readership bases are more likely to buy gold coins, fishnet stockings or dating services. Clearly, they will be watching the number of readers who click on specific ads to determine the value of various readerships.
My memory is shaky, but it seems like I remember a vignette in Asimov's Foundation where the moral was to never trust an entity when you do not know where its brain lives. More recently, that theme was repeated in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The "brains" are Tom Riddle's (aka, Voldemort) via his charmed diary.
It is a theme that I take to heart. When playing poker, if you do not know who is tagged to be the patsy....well, it is you.
I understand advertising. The patsy is the poor smuck who reads this blog and associates the Blogger inserted ad as an endorsement by ERJ. I don't endorse specific ads, but I do endorse Blogger trying to make an honest buck.
I will not object if you click on the various ads, just to keep life interesting.
When you left, I figured you'd be back. You can't help yourself. You're a writer and this is a genre.
ReplyDeleteGood to have you back, Merry Christmas to you and yours!
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