www.mark-reed.net

PAY TO PLAY

For a long period of time I've felt very uneasy about registering to use content websites. Or get loyalty cards, or anything. I have the right to do what I want, where I want, how I want and with who I want, without such information being tracked, analysed, monitored, and manipulated to see if someone can sell me something I don't want, or collate information on me for their own purposes.

Information nazi's want to control and sell information. We just want the information. Why do we need to register to use websites? Well... someone somewhere wants to make a bit of money by using the information we provide - and that we are not paid for, even though we do the data entry - and sell it.

OK. It's our information. You pay us for it. If you want it, you pay. Because then if you pay us, in the way that people pay you, we will consent to you filling our inbox with crap spam. If you don't pay us, we won't. We are the customers. You want our business. The best way to lose our business is to insult us. To fill our inboxes with unwanted spam.

Oh, and here's another thing, I don't know anyone who has ever bought anything off a company they've never heard of that's sent them an unsolicited email. Not one person. And I doubt there will ever be one.

I'm happy to use a website that has ads on it, in the bottom, unobtrusive. Not a website that gives you pop ups, irritating spam graphics trying to sell you ringtones, or asks for your email address and inside leg measurement before you can read it. It's like going to a newsagent and someone asking you to give them your Credit Card number before you can buy anything.

Sure, capitalists can say that in a free market, we have the choice to go elsewhere. The point is that capitalism is not, and has never been about choice. Not our choice anyway. Capitalism has always been about reducing choices to Pepsi Vs. Coke and not realising some of us would quite like a bottle of water (and not Dasani, either). And we may not have a choice to go elsewhere. There may not be anywhere else to go.

As I said, I don't mind unobtrusive ads. Ads that don't bug you. If they do bug you, it's tempting to swat them like the shit-eating fly that buzzes around the bed. Because unobtrusive ads are like newspaper Ads. You can skip them in an instant.

Apparently someone in America says that those who watch Television and do not watch the Adverts are stealing content. What he neglects to say is that firstly a) he probably doesn't watch the Ads himself, b) works in advertising and c) WE, the people, are the product, being sold to the Advertisers. Advertisers don't sell themselves to us. We are sold to them. And the content - what you actually want -is merely the fish-hook bait that attracts us to the adverts.

You are a commodity. You are being bought and sold every day, and we don't know it. When are companies going to ask for our permission first? They never are. We are slaves, and we have are bought and sold in data packets and harvested email files without our even knowing. Everything is for sale.

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