An author does get to choose which platform they publish on. I'm really surprised by all the apologists here, the article is clearly click bait trying to cram ads down your throat. The real irony is that while the post is bearable to look at in chrome it's near enough unreadable in Firefox.
> An author does get to choose which platform they publish on.
A climate scientist traveling to a conference to meet with policy makers with a goal to increase awareness about a particular issue might be forced to use a mode of transportation that itself contributes to the problem of climate change.
Should the scientist adopt an absolutist/idealist position and refrain from anything that contributes to the problem, up to and including not traveling at all, because of the harm that the plane will cause in transit? Should they discard the potential longer term impact of convincing policy makers to change policy?
This is a classic case of missing the forest for the trees.
> I'm really surprised by all the apologists
It think you are misinterpreting the sentiment. An apologist would defend the tracking and ads themselves. People are not defending tracking, they are defending the utility of using the available medium to raise awareness about tracking and tools that can help mitigate it.
> the article is clearly click bait trying to cram ads down your throat
I would reframe this to something like: the majority of the content publishing business has adopted a model that embraces click bait and cramming ads down readers' throats.
This is the reality we're in.
As an author, if you want to bring awareness to this problem, or offer solutions to this problem, it only makes sense to publish that content where the readers are.
At no point does the article try to reframe the problem of tracking itself as a good thing. If it did, this would be a very different conversation.
People don’t usually automatically get to write at a specific outlet just because. In this case, the writer spent nearly a year freelancing at this outlet before they became a full-time staff writer just last month, which means they had to put a lot of work in to even get their spot.
Publishing is a very competitive field, especially in the last decade as newspaper jobs have gone dry. Don’t trash on the writer because of where they work.
