Big Data

The stores have designed it so that you basically have to have a card (so they can track you) or you're going to be paying much more. The most ridiculous example I've encountered is Ralph's on the West Coast. The final bill would usually be about half of what the price would be without a card. One way around it is to not get a card and ask the cashier to swipe their card for you, but they'll try to get you to sign for a card first.

Also, every time someone brings up the ads they get on this site, or any other, I'm reminded that there are people who don't use Ad Blocker, which confuses me. It's free, easy to set up, and it makes being online so much smoother.

 

Ad Blocker eliminates all the ads on these pages?

 

Yep. I haven't seen an ad on this site in years.

 

But is it unethical like deleting cookies to bypass paywalls, which is considered unethical by some posters here?

 

Same here. Had to re-download Firefox recently and first thing I did was go find my Ad Blocker Plus plug-in. Can't even imagine browsing the Internet without it.

 

I download TV shows, movies and video games without a second thought, but ad blocker software just feels wrong to me.

*Shrug* Moral cognitive dissonance is weird.

 

What loss of privacy and civil liberties? If you elect to use the card ... at a store ... with other shoppers around? Nothing private about shopping, it's just retailers now can compile information about what you buy. Forty years ago, the cashier simply punched in the cost from the price sticker and handed the item to the bag boy.
As for online shopping, if you believe there's any privacy here, you are as naive as most newspaper readers.

 

Big Data are plural. Aren't he?

 

Apples and tinfoil, but you already knew that.

 

Everyone justifies getting around restrictions. Human nature to do so. Deleting cookies, using ad blockers, or giving a fake name for a discount.

 

Ad blocker is avoiding the seeing of something. Getting around a paywall is the active taking of something. Apples and tinfoil. Then again, you already knew that.

 

Maybe it should be Big Datum.