[tor-talk] Tor as ecommerce platform

Mike Perry mikeperry at torproject.org
Fri Aug 10 21:46:20 UTC 2012


Thus spake Juan Garofalo (juan.g71 at gmail.com):

> At 12:01 PM 8/10/2012 -0700, you wrote:
> 
> >The early Internet (even as late as the mid-90s) was also dominated by
> >these same classes of people. Eventually it became usable by the
> >normals and the demographics shifted quite dramatically.
> >
> >We all work on Tor every day so that it sucks a little less each day, so
> >that those demographics *can* shift. However, right now, it's only the
> >extremes and certain niche elements of society who will suffer through
> >using it: Dissidents, journalists, law enforcement, militaries, and the
> >antisocial weirdos/crazies.
> 
>         I don't think I follow.
> 
>         Who do you think would be the 'mainstream' and 'normal' users of Tor?

The O(10M) "Do Not Track" Firefox users. Similar numbers of Chrome users
use Incognito mode (actually, probably more).

In general, my bet is that approximately 10% of the population has a
strong desire for personal communications privacy pretty much all the
time.

I'm also betting that way more would like real privacy at least
sometimes, even if they don't want it all the time.

> >The Tor users page is in my mind a reflection of what our demographics
> >will look like as we improve our technology enough to be useful for
> >everyone who wants Internet privacy. We leave out the antisocial
> >creeps/weirdos/crazies because they are not our target userbase, and
> >their relative dominance right now is merely a reflection of our
> >relatively early development status.
> 
> 
>         But you actually are working...for whom?

I work for me, man. I use Tor every day. In particular, I work on Tor
Browser because every time I am forced to use a browser that does not
defend against third party tracking, I cringe.

> >No offense to the weirdos, though. You guys are my people :).
> 
>         Really? You don't come across as very friendly to the 'weirdos'.

That's a shame. I kid because I love.

(What did I say about "Antisocial tendencies" being one of the main
demographics of Tor users? :)



-- 
Mike Perry
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