Saw this today and now I’m reconsidering if Boost is right for me. I’m really hoping this is shitty boiler plate that was accidentally copied and over looked because that is some bullshit to say “unless we decide we want to use your personal data for whatever we want”.
I know “legitimate interest” is a phrase from the cookies law but there is no legitimate interest justification for this. My data is my data and I decide who has a legitimate interest in it so advertisers can fuck off, as can Boost if this the direction it’s going.
Edit to say this blew up. I didn’t realise I was kicking as big a hornet’s nest and haven’t read all the comments yet.
To be clear, what I don’t like about this and other provisions in the terms is the language and implications around data use. I’ve no problem with ads being shown - I want developers to get paid for the work they do and that makes it possible for users to have “free” access to software if they can’t afford to purchase.
I also want to add the response from Boost’s dev below to make sure it’s visible. You’ll see that it is boilerplate but required by Google and was present in Boost for reddit. I just hadn’t seen it because I purchased it immediately based on a recommendation. It doesn’t make me happy about it but does remove some doubts I was having about the direction Boost is heading.
I will be purchasing the app to support the dev because I do like Boost but I understand not everyone can afford everything so you’ll see some other suggestions in the comments below that don’t have any ads if you’re not happy with the free version and ads with their associated loss of data privacy.
Dev here.
The dialog and its content is not created by me, it is a standard solution from Google to comply with GDPR and other laws. More info here: https://support.google.com/admob/answer/10114014?hl=en
The consent dialog is also required by Google AdMob to show ads, and it is shown when the ad network is initialized.
When the app launches, first it checks for the remove ads purchase, and if it is not present, it will initialize the ads sdk. The ad network is not initialized if the remove ads purchase is detected.
Boost for Reddit was using the very same ad networks and consent dialog.
Knee jerk responses like this are why Lemmy seems doomed to stagnate and die. And this is coming from someone who used to be all in. Utterly tired of the mob of goofs that think everything should be developed for free and anyone that tries to make a legitimate living in this space is an evil bastard.
Same crap with people brigading Sync too. Like, I don’t get the mindset. I work for my money, I get to decide how to spend it. I’m happy to use some of that money to give to someone who is earning it by creating a product that I love using every single day. That’s not wrong, that is how things work. Everything can’t just be free, nothing would get made like that.
isn’t that the basis of open source tho?
I don’t honestly know. I use both paid and FOSS. They both have their place. What I do know as someone who exists in society is that everything has a cost to it, one way or another. For FOSS, that cost (in the form of time) is borne in theory by the entire community. In practice it’s usually borne by a few, and the majority benefit.
There is merit to code being totally open. It can foster security, creativity, and more. But I also feel strongly that there is merit to a dedicated, cohesive development team that is compensated for their work directly in a product in the form of a software being paid. I also understand when someone thinks they have something truly special and wants to prevent it from being diluted and so do not open source the code.
Again, I think both approaches have merit. What doesn’t (IMO) have merit in thinking that everything should just be free and no one pays for it. Someone is always paying for it in the end.
Nice strawman. You are not being intellectually honest. No one is arguing that (italicized part).
But how the money is made, how much of your privacy do you have to give up (remember when you used to be able to buy products and not have to give up any of your privacy?) for corporations to have profits, is what’s being discussed.
You can’t compare a Lemmy app to a product. It’s a service. Boost provides an alternate way to access Lemmy as a service that they’ve put into an app. You can pay them for an ad free service, but if they take down Boost, you’re not entitled to a working app because it’s not a product, it’s a discontinued service.
Some people on here will never realize that only paid devs putting in full days will make a platform like Lemmy grow to even a fourth of what Reddit is right now. Part time, unpaid devs will never grow this platform to that size and one way or another, those devs will want to be able to support themselves and that is either through donations or somekind of monetization, which may or may not include monetizing user data. It’s just honest facts that it costs money to run servers and that money has to come from somewhere. It takes time to develop an app and in the case of Sync (probably Boost as well) it’s just one dev and that takes a lot of his time. Nobody would do that amount of work for free.
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I agree as per the general idea (Lemmy needs donations and financial support) but that’s only for the server infrastructure which has non neglibible (and quite high indeed) storage and computational costs due to running a federated instance. A sheer client which does nothing except showing data from a backend and runs on the user’s battery and device (with no cost of ownership on the developer), on the other hand, does not require money and should be free. Free as in freedom and free as in beer.
Yeah it’s a bit much sometimes. I’m all about open source and I utilize linux for my home computer, but developers need to make money.
The question isn’t over whether or not developers should make money, but how they make that money.
It’s not a Lemmy problem, though. It’s an internet problem. People just like going off half-cocked and feeling superior to others, especially people who actually do things.
The same thing happened with Sync, then people got bored and moved onto the next thing.
Bro, anything positive about Mac, Windows, Android that isn’t GrapheneOS, cars, or even fucking eBikes (yes, there was a thread where Lemmy was downvoting and hating on everyone who uses an eBike because they have batteries…), is extremely downvoted.
Everyone expects everything to be 100% FOSS. They refuse to pay, and refuse to be the product. Lemmy is full of entitled ass people.
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Could it be that maybe there’s a way to monetize your work without being a sneaky fuck?
The devs are literally in this thread explaining why this contractually required language is in the app. There’s nothing “sneaky” going on, especially since the notification in OP’s post is so explicit. If you wanna share how you monetize an ad based experience without google or similar required language go right ahead.
The question is, why do they need to show personalized ads? I am okay with ads, but they don’t need to use my personal data for that.
They do not need to. You have an option to purchase the app.
To increase Click-through rate (CTR). If they don’t personalise, by showing ads blindly, the rate would be significantly lower. Not that I agree personalised ads, but that’s the standard approach in the industry nowadays.
I think a lot of us are saying, “fuck what you deem as standard nowadays”
But why ask for consent if you don’t care if you have it? It’s a charade. People can be upset about this and not care if their data gets used.
They do care, unlike the US the EU (which is the reason for this pop-up in the first place) is not stingy with fines that hurt. If you decline they will disable personalized ads but they reserve the right to still extract key information that is not technically needed but in reality needed such as your device language. They could theoretically display ads in any language without checking but in reality that is idiotic.
Obviously it’s still Google taking the data here, not the Boost dev so they’ll try to squeeze in as much data as possible but I don’t see a good reason to bash on the dev like a lot of idiots in this thread. This, to me, seems pretty bog standard in terms of consent banners, even more on the good side since there is a single decline option rather than a dark pattern nightmare of submenus.
Shit tier take. If you want to whore out your data, that’s on you.
If you wanna irrationally doom a burgeoning social media network with misguided ideals, that’s on you. Lemmy will never reach critical mass on part time unpaid devs. If you were really against your usage data being monetized you wouldn’t be using any social media as that’s a core part of how any major social network grows and thrives.
The difference is that, if you try to install a piece of software, you’re inevitably asked to agree to the terms of a EULA. If you click Yes, like everybody does, it’s assumed that you have read and agreed to the full text of the contract, like no one has ever done ever. If you click no, you don’t get to install that software generally speaking. This is not how contracts work. If you don’t agree to, or sign a contract, the other party is not allowed to execute the beneficial parts to them at your expense anyway. I like the app, and I’m okay with paying money for things, but this strikes me as just a little shifty.
Check out Lemmy’s github. These are all “part time unpaid devs”.
That isn’t how the Fediverse works.
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What if some of us are not trying to reach “critical mass”. I think it’s working great rn
What the literal fuck are you smoking? Are you a big tech shill by chance?
Do you ever step off the ivory towers of idealism to the earth where capitalism controls everything?
You want software engineers to suddenly spontaneously create a socialist society so they don’t need to be paid to survive?
If not then maybe try understanding the basic premise that either you can pay $3.50, tolerate ads/tracking, or use Jerboa which btw is getting what you pay for. Shit is janky af
Edit: Jerboa may be fine now. I retract my statement about it because a) it was brand new when I tried it and b) software doesn’t need to be perfect today, when it can be improved and also represents a future I hope we eventually reach
I am actually really enjoying Jerboa :)
Jerboa still crashes when I press more replies too many times :') I update every time hoping it’ll finally be the time it stops… definition of madness I guess lol
I’m going to edit my comment. It wasn’t fair or good to snipe at Jerboa
HOW they make their money is what’s being discussed, not IF they should be making money.
In the past companies have made a lot of money without having to sell your private information to do so.
Yes you’re right about the past. However also, the past 30 years have established that people like “free” and so offering an ad supported option reduces the high probability that the app will fail. Most people obviously are okay with ads, otherwise Google (among many others) would be an entirely different company today, if it still existed at all.
If Boost was only available as a paid app, it likely would need to cost more, also less people would use the app and quite possibly it would be a failure. I support his decision as much as I hate ads. $3.50 is a steal so I paid it immediately
Ah. You’ve just met the Don Quixote of the FOSS World.
Jerboa rules you don’t know what you’re talking about. These ideas are what’s going to doom Lemmy to enshittification, not FOSS.
I might be wrong now but it was not in a great state a few weeks ago when I tried it. I’m glad it exists.
Or you could not be a moron and use a browser. Which is what I do.
Lol to each their own. Us “morons” like a better UI
You also like whoring out your data, it seems.
Except I have taken many steps to make my device more private such as using the DDG tracker blocker, using Firefox, ad blocking extensions, disabling Google apps where possible, and more.
Not to mention I’m not such a cheap bastard I won’t pay $3.50 for something I’ll likely use for years.
You need to smoke some weed or something, you’re really riled up about something you don’t understand and you seem to hate anyone contradicting your factually wrong statements about it