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Why, you might ask, do I refuse to participate on blogs that make you log in? The big excuse for this, of course, was for the ability to better manage trolls and spammers and hackers. This is bullshit, on crack, on its face. It hardly slows any of those things. It has been about demographics, and especially about squeezing more ad revenue out of those who keep their cookie folders resolutely shut.
It gives an edge to "search engine optimization". You know what buzz words to put in your post titles. You know what labels or tags get you the most traffic. You allow your advertisers to know all about your visitors' online activities. You provide the controllers with ever-improving mechanisms to control us and you. All this on top of just giving the individuals who use this feature a vastly better idea of what subjects to stay off and which subjects to hype more heavily in their quests for popularity.
You might forgive them for wanting to be popular. Some of them have important things to say. Well, their importance diminishes when they start tailoring what they say to what you like the most, and when they finally start getting into the really successful zone, they learn very quickly to make sure what they say can give less offense and preserves their popularity. It just flows into packing another once-outside-the-box site into the box we must escape to save ourselves, to save the world.
This also relates to the sites that encourage you to have your own blog on their site, that let you hold forth at any length and attract commentary from the greater community at that site.
And, the social media sites? They don't even bother to be subtle about it.
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I forgot to mention that this includes sites that use the various free commenting platforms available out there. Some sites that use this cookie and flash cookie and other means of identifying your online behavior do allow you to participate without logging in, and content themselves with the basic information about their commenters they can glean from their admin pages for these systems... and, I'm sure, with paid arrangements with those providers.
The same thing is true, not to a personal advancement extent, with Blogger. Google gets yer demographics and shares them with you if you are so crass as to put their ads on your blog, but otherwise, it all really just goes into Google's ocean. So, I also took Google Analytics off my blog. It won't keep them from putting cookies on your machines, but it keeps them somewhat aback from hassling ME to put their ads here and obviates any occasional urge I have to look and see how I'm doing now as compared with then, any trends. I can't care about that and it slows things here and ONLY helps THEM.
Be assured I will get my own page with its own commenting system with all speed the very moment enough manna drops into my lap.
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You might forgive them for wanting to be popular. Some of them have important things to say. Well, their importance diminishes when they start tailoring what they say to what you like the most, and when they finally start getting into the really successful zone, they learn very quickly to make sure what they say can give less offense and preserves their popularity.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm...
Sounds familiar... (BBlog)
The Rain in Splain stays Mainly on the Pain...
ReplyDelete(Sorry)
ReplyDeleteYes, figuring out the true motives of that dangerous fascist-in-denial did help crystalize my ideas about this stuff. That was one of the only benefits of trying so hard for so long to keep my word. It took me four years to realize that it had quickly turned into me just being determined to be a solid resource, a reliable person, a paragon of sorts—pure bullshit—when the imperative was to discern when I was wasting time on bad associations. I'm slow, but, fuck, I can't fall into the trap of flogging myself for it. I just have to do the best I can by you and drop the ego festivals of self-flagellation for so nobly blowing it.
ReplyDeleteLOL on yer play on words dude. Good one.
Hey, your motives were honest and noble, no need to chastise yourself for that. I wouldn't say it was a waste of your time, not by a long shot, too bad it wasn't appreciated more and too bad his ego took him on the trip it did.
ReplyDeleteThe Rain in Splain stays Mainly on the Pain...
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 6 or 7 years old and my parents would play the sound track, I envisioned these airplanes flying around in Spain being chased by thunderstorms.
And South Pacific's "I'm going to wash that man right out of my hair..." gave me nightmare's of little men crawling out of my hair and running around my pillow.
Well, thank you, and on one level that's perfectly true, especially since I shifted my focus to trying to help visitors see that stuff through a better lens, but from the standpoint of Zen mastery, the urge to flog yourself for exercising the "good person" stuff when it should be clear that IS a waste of time in a given situation, further compounds the mistake.
ReplyDeleteSo on the walking around level, I have nothing whatever to be ashamed of about my participation there, but on the enlightening being level, it really was a vicious waste of time.
You REALLY gotta watch what you say to kids that age!
ReplyDeleteMy mother explaining capitalism to me at that age shocked me to my core, scarred me for life, horrified me beyond description. I never got over it.
I had to admit it was a better explanation for the weekly trips to the drive-up window at the bank, AND for thieves, but that was part of what made it extra-obscene to me.
But it IS extra-obscene!
ReplyDeleteHow well I know it! But just THINK of the aggravation of being a GIRL, and then a BABE spending ALL her time hiding from hounding, trying to make this truth manifest to her friends, family, lovers, acquaintances... the world. WHAT an ordeal! OMG
ReplyDelete