I see a lot of value in advertising for both our product and the internet in general because it makes it accessible to people who cannot afford to explicitly pay for information or music. Especially since internet access can be so crucial for education and being informed on current events, and enriching in the form of art and music, I don’t think that it should only be available to those who can pay.
However, I do see where it is dangerous as pretty much the only efficient way of obtaining this sort of information is now through the internet, so there isn’t a super reasonable alternative when it comes to choosing your privacy while still obtaining information. I absolutely agree that advertising has made us expect that we have no privacy and that our information will be tracked. Personally I pretty much always choose the convenience of a new product feature even if it comes with added privacy risks (face/touch ID, apple pay, using apple pay for public transportation) because I am so used to the thought of my data being tracked that I don’t see any value in keeping it private anymore. I definitely feel that if it wasn’t so engrained in my I would likely think more critically about what sharing my data means, but I historically have not done so.
I think what I like about our current business model is that users can choose to pay for a non-ad supported version, or they can use our product for free with ads. I don’t think this mitigates the privacy risk as we will still be using their data to make recommendations, but I do think it is important to give users some sort of choice.
