In another thread of mine asking for opinions about Google Photos, Doctor Jackson posted
I’ve seen this idea posted before and it seems to be a popular position here on the SDMB.
But is it really that valid? In these situations it’s treated as a Zero Sum Game. But isn’t it really a win-win? In the thread in question (for example) (https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=851991)
I get unlimited free photo storage (which is my goal) and presumably Google gets to add to whatever algorithm they are interested in. In a sense yes they maybe “using” me but so what. There is no harm to me. I’m not a celebrity nor will I be posting nude photos so I couldn’t care less if they use them for training purposes or for targeting my ads based on my gps location.
So, opinions wanted, is me not paying for something really resulting in me being the product?
Well, being the product doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative or zero-sum. The real point of that saying (and similar) is that such things aren’t actually free. There are strings attached and potential costs other than money.
Probably, although we’re just as easily being sold as products even when we are paying for something. It’s pretty hard to avoid these days. Whether, or how much, that bothers you is totally up to you.
Yes in some sense but the implication of the phrase can be unnecessarily negative. And it’s not exactly the point with Big Internet either. The new thing about that isn’t that ‘you are the product’. We’ve all been ‘the product’ to advertisers on ‘free’ broadcast radio and TV for decades, except for the at one time minuscule (not quite a minuscule now*) % of people who never listened to/watched those forms of media.
What’s new is the more specific and personal data that gets sold to advertisers now. The ‘it’s free so you must be the product’ model isn’t itself new.
*but it’s not as minuscule now mainly because people use the internet and social media instead for their news or entertainment.
Yeah, so? You being the “product” doesn’t imply any harm or downside to you.
Take for example anything that’s free to you as a reader/viewer/user and is paid for by advertising, from network TV to weekly alternative newspapers to the Straight Dope website. They have to get money from somewhere in order to operate. If they get it from ads, the people who are paying them to advertise are paying for your attention. The TV station/newspaper/website is taking in money in exchange for views by potential customers.
That’s not necessarily bad for you the reader/viewer. It could even be good for you, if the advertising informs you of some product or service or offer that it benefits you to know about. Just keep in mind that they’re not answerable to you for what they do or the way they do it in the same way they would be if you were a paying customer.
Sort of. Companies that generate revenue based on sponsors paying for ads - television and radio networks, social media, content-based web sites, magazines, newspapers and other publications - make a significant, if not all of their revenue from selling advertising. The “product” they are selling isn’t their content. It’s the ability to push advertiser’s content in front of a large audience. Your value as a customer is your continued engagement in their service.
It’s a system that largely works. People get free or inexpensive access to media. Companies get to make money.
I suppose one of the main downsides is that as you, the customer, are not really paying for anything, the content provider is not really acting in your interests. So long as you continue to watch, listen or click, the content provider can sell ad space. Where this can become a problem is when ethical considerations like accuracy or truth in reporting take a back seat to sensationalism, designed to keep people outraged and engaged in their content.
And as I mentioned in the OP, I couldn’t care less. I disregard all ads anyway. To me there is no difference between watching a Gieco ad on TV and scrolling past a banner ad on my computer screen.
In the context I provided and it’s usage on these boards, I disagree. Go to the other thread and read Doctor Jackson’s post and tell me it wasn’t meant to imply a downside to me.
*note that I’m not singling out DJ, his is just a recent example.
It’s not valid at all. There are two customers involved: the advertiser AND the user. The product in the example given is the unlimited photo storage. The users (as a group, not necessarily as individuals) pay for that product by purchasing the advertiser’s good or services. A company can sell a product or service without advertisers (by selling directly to the consumer) but it cannot get advertisers without providing something that is valuable to the consumer.
There may be a few freebies out there that are a labor of love but even then, they’re going to want to cover their expenses, however minimal. There are a number of free-to-play games out there and they always have a way you can also pay them money. With some of them the money unlocks cooler stuff, in others it lets you advance faster. Of course there combinations, cooler stuff that lets you advance faster.
For example, I have been playing World of Warships for about 16 months now. I have advanced to tier IX (of ten) in two “lines” (of 18) playing 10 to 20 hours per week. Most other lines I am anywhere from VI to VIII.* Almost all of that time I have paid for ‘premium time’ at a cost of about $10 per month which garners me a 50% bonus in XP. I doubt I’d be higher than VII in any line without it but I’m not blocked from anything I’d have with it.
*Needless to say, the steps are exponential. For example it costs 720 experience points to advance to a tier II destroyer, 39,500 for tier VI, and 236,000 for tier X
The fact that you mention Geico ads by name means that you’re aware of the company and it springs readily to your mind, so maybe those ads had more of an effect on you than you realize.
Exactly. You are the product because they are selling your information to a third party. Maybe that bothers you and maybe it doesn’t. That does not change the fact that you are the product.
Having said that, it’s more an internet thing than otherwise. Stores might give away shit as a loss leader in order to get you in to buy more stuff, but in the internet age, we are typically talking about online services or apps.
Giving/getting something for free with no strings attached or extra motive is called charity. Charity usually isn’t a winning long-term business model for corporations*.
That doesn’t make it shady or wrong for you to be “the product”; as others noted this was the way network television worked for decades. It does, however, mean that you should be aware and make intelligent choices about “That’s worth it to me” instead of “Yay, free stuff!” or, worse, be one of those people who thinks that a corporation is your buddy.
As an aside, even way back when it aired, I saw this as the problem with the famous Simpsons “Worst episode ever” bit and and Bart retorting that Itchy & Scratchy gave Comic Book Guy hours of free entertainment. No they haven’t – the show exists purely to entice people to watch through the commercials and the commercial time is sold on the promise that CBG (and others) will have their eyeballs present. It’s completely legitimate to say a TV episode or show sucks since having you watch it is the goal of its existence.
*(unless you’re just passing money through and keeping a percentage but that’s not Google or Facebook)
So you’ve paid $160 for a ‘free’ game. And where it really gets pricey is that you can grab a premium tank for about $50 a tank and immediately get to enjoy driving a big tank, and premium tanks get a bonus on how much money they make, so you get to enjoy that as well. Didn’t they also get “premium matchmaking”, which meant you were far more likely to be one of the most dangerous tanks in a given match?
This is why games that are “merely” $60 a copy, or $90 with the season pass, are cheaper. It’s also why printers used to be cheaper before they started giving the printer away if you bought a starter set of ink cartridges.
It’s a bit over simplified, and it might be a zero or acceptable cost for many of the customers. Definitely an overused argument.
Still, it’s worth bearing in mind that if Google has trouble selling “you”, the Google photos user, at a profit, their first steps aren’t going to be slight increases in the price you pay, it’s going to be changing the service to make it more marketable to advertisers or a “Google photos will cease to operate on day-month” announcement.
Although one feature of the internet age is a lot more useful information from ‘labor of love’ websites than there ever was from labor of love printed newsletters, public access TV, Sunday morning radio, etc. In all kinds of specialized areas of study. Often with zero advertising, and I think everyone agrees it’s making a mountain out of a molehill to complain about a general banner ad if you’ve ever watched commercial laden ‘free’ TV. The internet has Himalayan mountains of nonsense, obscenity and hate obviously, but learned amateur websites on all kinds of special topics are a bright spot.
Again I think the issue is not conventional one way ads shown based on who the advertisers think the audience is in general. It’s the specter of ‘ads’, including ‘news’ and political ideas aimed at who the senders know the particular person is based on personal data they give as user. As with conventional advertising though, most people worry about how this would affect other people. It would never affect them, since they are too well informed and independent minded for that to ever happen, of course.
I don’t use Google Photos or Google anything really, because I don’t like the terms of service. This is part of the terms of service:
When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps).
It seems like a fair trade to me, hosting and storage services in return for the right of other people to use your stuff. Fair trades are win-win but they cost something to both sides. For me the price is too high, and it is so low to you that you see it as free. But it isn’t really free.
So do i. And so does everyone i know. Who are these millions of people spending billions of dollars on products/services that are brought to their attention via intrusive online ads? I think im getting old and live in a bubble.