Problems coming for online publishing
This is a rather asinine line of argumentation.(a) The New York Time's newsroom and editorial staff are rather well-separated from their business department which makes decision about ad tech on their website. If you don't believe me, see this paragraph from a recent article at The Atlantic, which operates by the same principle:As you read this article on The Atlantic, roughly three dozen ad trackers are watching you, adding your interest in this story to profiles they maintain on your online behavior. (If you want to know more about who’s watching you, download Ghostery, a browser extension that tracks and can block these “third-party” trackers.)[0]That's a reporter arguing against the financial interests of his employer. And they are not going to fire him.(b) There's one big difference between Facebook and generic advertising technology: the New York Times doesn't require you to sign up. Every time you change devices or delete cookies, the ad targeting starts from a blank slate. And while some websites try to get you to sign up, it's trivially easy to switch to a new account every once in a while.(c) Ad tracking knows which websites I visit. Facebook knows which nude parties I attended in 2005(d) The New York Times has actually turned to subscription revenue as its main source of income. While the split used to be 50/50, it is not much closer to 75/25 (subscriptions/ads). The "if you're not paying, you're the product..." cliché is getting tired anyway. But its premise simply doesn't apply to the New York Times.[0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/data-...