I think positioning this as an ethics issue will not have the impact that I think it should.
We should really be making the argument on a capitalistic basis. (stay with me here.)
I was at the FT when we were re-designing the site. The page was lighter than the dailymail (but then most things are) but not as fast as skynews. (it loaded within a second with pictures on a slow desktop)
The marketing team really wanted more tracking, and the advertisers also were insisting on inserting _another_ three tracking systems.
There was a clear correlation between load time and dwell time.
Which lead to the undeniable conclusion that tracking stuff cost the business more money than the extra info brought in.
The take away from this is when ever you are making a case for business change, you have to argue that _your_ change will make the business better, using the metrics that the business understands.
The skill is making your moral choice look and smell like a money making/target hitting opportunity.
We should really be making the argument on a capitalistic basis. (stay with me here.)
I was at the FT when we were re-designing the site. The page was lighter than the dailymail (but then most things are) but not as fast as skynews. (it loaded within a second with pictures on a slow desktop)
The marketing team really wanted more tracking, and the advertisers also were insisting on inserting _another_ three tracking systems.
So the developers (and product owners) pushed back. The writeup is here: https://medium.com/ft-product-technology/a-faster-ft-com-10e...
There was a clear correlation between load time and dwell time.
Which lead to the undeniable conclusion that tracking stuff cost the business more money than the extra info brought in.
The take away from this is when ever you are making a case for business change, you have to argue that _your_ change will make the business better, using the metrics that the business understands.
The skill is making your moral choice look and smell like a money making/target hitting opportunity.