How much does a creator's worldview influence whether you use their tech or consume their media?

Watching the drama around kagi unfold and it has me wondering how much you take into consideration a creator’s view on things like homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. when deciding to use a product. I think most of us have a bar somewhere (I would imagine very few on this website would ever consider registering on an altright platform), so where is that bar for you? What about art? Have you boycotted JKR or dropped your opinion about Picasso because they’re transphobic and misogynistic respectively? Is it about the general vibe of a product or piece of media, or are you more discerning? What goes into this decision and why?

bonegakrejg,

Its tricky, because how much do I really know about people’s views who I’ve never met? Especially more famous people who might just be crafting a public image. They might be hiding aspects of thier views that are bad publicity, or just being controversial to drum up attention.

FlashMobOfOne, (edited )
@FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org avatar

I think it’s a little silly for anyone to grandstand on self-important moralistic consumption, because you can’t be a consumer of most things in the US without contributing to evil labor practices on some level.

Nearly everyone owns a computer or cell phone, and those are all produced with parts sourced unethically on some level or labor that is impoverished in a more remote or regressive part of the world.

And some artists are so incredibly good it’s impossible to ignore the quality even with their questionable morals, like Michael Jackson or Salvador Dali for example.

Everyone should make an effort to be mindful of their consumption, in my opinion, but I will always roll my eyes at people who are preachy about it. As some have mentioned, the secondary market is a great thing for trying to manage the problematic side of things, and even better, you’re upcycling when you by used.

drdiddlybadger,
@drdiddlybadger@pawb.social avatar

My.limit is where the utility provided is less than the annoyance I get from the creator. JKR is immensely annoying, far more than I enjoy their work so they will never see a dime out of me. Melon husk is a shit head and not entertaining so they don’t get my money or content and so on. But Google gets some data out of me since they don’t literally shitpost in my general direction about their opinions on people different from them.

If I know who the CEO is there is already a problem at the company level. If I care about who the CEO is, there is a MASSIVE issue for the company as I am many times more likely to make a decision based on who they hired rather than the quality of any product. The same goes for arts.

MangoKangaroo,

A lot. Also, thanks for the heads-up on Kagi. Anybody have recommendations for a privacy-respecting search engine that isn’t run by chuds? Paid is fine as long as it doesn’t suck.

off_brand_,

Certainly. There’s a big difference between me giving cash and uplifting someone who is actively harming people today, and supporting a dead man’s art.

Of course remember there’s nuance as well. It doesn’t cost me much to stop interacting with JKR’s output, but buying quality shoes that don’t in some way support sweatshop owners or fast fashion represents a significant time/money investment on my part.

And if there’s something important for my health than it goes right out. idk, maybe Dr. Scholl was there on Jan 6 and I was prescribed those Dr. Scholl’s foot goobers by a podiatrist, I’m not going to quibble too much.

Which ties in to the privilege of being socially conscious. It costs me nonzero money and energy that some might not have to do all of these things. I cannot blame or fault the person who works at Chick-fil-A paying rent, even if their work supports CFA.

Bitrot,
@Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Strongly, generally, although I also try to see who they are today versus who they might have been. It also depends on what they are saying and less on what somebody tells me they believe. For example, if someone doesn’t understand or is uncomfortable with a trans person but at the same time believes everybody should have the rights and ability to live life as they choose (basic tolerance, essentially), I don’t consider that transphobic specifically. Some people would though.

I avoid altogether, look for alternatives, or do my best not to support them financially at least. So I avoid anything written by Lunduke, I don’t avoid all of JKR because I like the franchise, but I get anything secondhand.

luciole,
@luciole@beehaw.org avatar

A creator’s worldview influences me a whole lot on whether I’ll use their stuff or not. I don’t think we can afford the luxury of supporting jerks anymore. There’s just too much shit going on. Consuming is voting. That’s the rational part. The affective part is that when I learn that the creator’s a jerk, I just don’t feel like engaging with their stuff anymore. It’s basically a turn off for me.

The kagi controversy is unfortunate. I’ve been considering biting the bullet, but there’s no way I’m paying for a search engine I don’t feel good about. Also I very naively didn’t realize until now kagi was just aggregating Google, Yandex or whatever, stripping the advertisement rot and applying some extra magic. Won’t they get the rug pulled right from under them the second they reach any sort of relevance?

jarfil, (edited )

How much does a creator’s worldview influence whether you use their tech or consume their media?

Depending on what we call “worldview”… either 0%, or 100%.

In this particular case:

SearXNG

SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services. Users are neither tracked nor profiled.

  • OpenSource
  • Free
  • Self-hostable
  • User configurable

Kagi

Kagi Inc. is a company […]

  • Closed
  • For profit
  • Not verifiable, not controllable
  • You pay for the privilege

Google, Bing, etc.

  • Closed
  • For profit
  • Not verifiable, not controllable
  • You don’t pay, you’re the product

How much does their respective owner’s worldview matter to me?

  • Being open and verifiable: 100%
  • Giving full control to the user: 100%
  • Wanting to sell my tracking data: 0%
  • Misrepresenting their intentions: 100%
  • Having an unrelated opinion about politics, religion, human rights, or other: 0%

As for art, my opinion of the art doesn’t change whether I think the artist is a great or a horrible person; doing otherwise would be either dishonest… or imply the art can’t stand on by itself (I call that kind of art “trash”, no matter the author).

raccoona_nongrata,
@raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org avatar

I definitely think people like Roman Polanski need their work to be eclipsed by their crimes. I won’t watch anything by Polanski, he deserves to be remembered primarily as a brutal rapist, his work should not be celebrated.

But Polanski is an extreme example. I’ll still watch and enjoy something like Firefly, for example. Although, learning that Whedon had been kind of a verbally abusive creep, and that Baldwin is kind of a right-wing shithead does kind dampen my enthusiasm for the show in a way I can’t help.

When I watch it I tend to get distracted sometimes by some of the elements that now come off as more obviously sexist than when I first watched it.

Nemo,

I am a very “death of the artist” kind of guy, but I won’t give my money to people will will use it for evil. So while I’m perfectly happy to, say, buy a Roman Polanski movie secondhand, I’m not going to purchase a new copy.

natecox,
@natecox@programming.dev avatar

Kagi is hard because it is so very much better than any alternative I have tried. I don’t like the guy’s views but it would substantially impact something I do for work and pleasure dozens of times every day to give it up, so I’m really struggling with that.

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