Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

Off my corner, ho.

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

Obama smells blood. GOP is reeling.

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

It's got to be pretty depressing for them. Since the election, the NRA has gone from a jaugernaut to a joke and their biggest win has been getting John Kerry as Secretary of State. The Hastert rule is dead and Pelosi votes with Boehner more than Cantor or Ryan.

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

nope. it is in its first steps back up to sanity.

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

What's the nope? The thoughts seem consistent.

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

Am I incorrectly guessing this sarcasm? If that's "free," what does paying for the service look like? Do I have to submit a blood sample to someone?

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

Marketers don't seek to provide "value" to anyone. They seek to sell as much of a thing they're hired to sell as possible. If that involves something which provides value to the purchaser, great. But they don't care either way. And seventy percent of the time, they're selling someone something he doesn't need.

Online marketers using personal data necessarily seek to exploit a person's interests to increase the number of products the person buys. If the mark likes Ferragamo ties, send him some ads about Ferragamo loafers. And Tod's. And if he bites on that, move the price point up some more. Send him stuff about Santonis, and maybe throw some Gucci shoes into the mix. And if he's buying that, when his smart phone's geographic tracker next shows he's in NYC, send him some ads about Barney's, encouraging him to pick up a suit.

When marketing gets into hardcore manipulation, it goes from necessary annoyance to societal problem. Ponder why we've this absurd consumption based economy. Some would say it's easy credit. That's true. But more than it, it's saturation of a gullible population with marketing messages telling them they need things they absolutely do not.* The last thing we need is to arm marketers with more private data about already too easily goaded sorts.
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* The hardest discussion with any client is telling him, "You don't need me to do anything for you right now." In your head, you're thinking, I could sell this guy services he doesn't really need, but I have a perfectly plausible justification for providing. But you don't. You tell the guy the truth. That's the difference between you and 99.9% of marketers.

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

Damn, you've been out of big firms for a long time with that footnote. Back when I was in one, the sale of services to clients who didn't need them was probably 75% of their revenue stream.

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

Seventy five might be a bit high. I always figured about forty to fifty percent.

That percentage does, however, speak to our economy. Seventy five percent of people are Pavlovian reaction machines cloaked in the appearance of a rational, thinking person. They want what they want when they want it, think it will bring them happiness (as if that can be deliberately created, or worse, bought, or is even a goal in itself), and have their eyes on every set of Joneses in the neighborhood wearing badges of success a little shinier than theirs. Driven by these neuroses, and impatience, they spend about fifty percent more than they ought to.

I guess there's an argument, Why not live now? Why not consume tomorrow's wealth today because, well, tomorrow's not promised to anyone? Those statements are persuasive to me, and I can justify traveling abroad to see the world, cost be damned. Hell, I think the idea of people traveling with money they don't have, seeing other cultures, and enjoying this mentally self-expanding activity, then coming home and defaulting on all the loans they owe to banks would be delightful.

But that never happens. We spend all that money we ought to keep in our wallets on Stuff. Stuff, stuff, stuff. Not even on good food. Just junk. Flashy cars, big ugly homes, awful handbags covered with designer logos.

Caption, please.
 

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

Data mining is data mining, whether it's under the guise of marketing or tracking everyone's computer usage and phone calls to see if they're really an Al Qaeda sleeper cell. That's why I pay cash for everything. I buy my clothes at Goodwill and all my groceries from the dented can box at a bodega hidden in an alley in Pilsen.

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

My point is not that it's costless, but that it's not a zero-sum game.

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

It is from my side. I see no ads, am not tracked, and consume the content.

If someone can build a delivery model that compels consumers to submit to annoyance and invasion of privacy, good for him. Voluntarily, consumers have no obligation to do so.

This seems obvious, but some Internet marketers are arguing, seriously, that there's an unspoken contract between reader and website in which the reader is obligated, in exchange for content, to allow the website producer to pepper him with ads, and track his surfing. Adder, I think, might even have hinted that he recognizes this implied "trade."

Re: Loathing the Texas state legislature
 

What you say is well and good but has nothing to do with my point. Thanks for playing.

Yes, that's silly.

Re: Caption, please.
 

"Violet jacket, have I spilled my seed on a violet jacket before? I don't recall doing that. There are new horizons for me yet!"