An interesting deep dive history of the phrase “if you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer, you’re the product,” which today is used of Facebook, but far predates it. I was surprised to learn that I played a role in popularizing the phrase slate.me/2Kkmrw5
There’s a lot more than the history of the phrase in this piece, though. Here’s one tidbit: "If anything, Facebook’s mistake in the Cambridge Analytica case was that it failed to treat users’ data as a valuable product."
Another gem: "'You are the product' paints us as powerless pawns in Facebook’s game but gives us no leverage with which to improve our predicament."
And "there are plenty of companies making paid products that don’t have their customers’ best interests in mind, either. Think of cigarette companies intentionally making their products more addictive, or Volkswagen cheating on emissions tests."
And the analysis of how a paid Facebook that allowed well-heeled users to opt out of ads would result in a downward spiral for free users is brutal and incisive.
The article also channels something I wrote to the author: we should view ourselves as “paying with our time, attention, and data instead of with money. This implies greater responsibility on both sides.” Here’s my note to him: bit.ly/2FpIFZU
