
Are you really Facebook’s product? The history of a dangerous idea - lisper
https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/are-you-really-facebooks-product-the-history-of-a-dangerous-idea.html
======
Sideloader
Convoluted piece that uses a lot of words to say very little and ends up being
(yet another) defense of “social” media and its billionaire owners.

It matters little if Facebook users, their attention-span or their data trail
and the content they churn out are the “product”....Facebook’s business model
(data, data and more data) requires the company to maximize the time users
spend browsing, reading and clicking through its network.

As we have seen, the company has no problem with using people’s psychology
against them to achieve this. And the company’s devious and underhanded tricks
(like its data mining “security app”) designed to Hoover up as much
information as possible are legendary.

Multiple studies show “social” media use is detrimental to people’s
psychological wellbeing and these companies not only own the channels billions
use to communicate daily, they own the CONTENT of those communications. With
FB and Google/Alphabet cozying up to the DoS, DoD and intelligence
services...and deploying algorithms to limit “fake news” (i.e. any and all
information that challenges the status quo) these companies have way too much
power.

They are a menace to our societies and need to be busted up and regulated.

~~~
ThomPete
This is just not correct and at best a very simplistic view of reality.

Instagram which uses no smart algorithms to speak of is the social network
that is responsible for most depressions not FB.

You need to be able to answer why that is before you can start making FB
responsible for things that they aren't really.

The real danger is our own vanity not clever algorithms from FB.

[https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.for...](https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2017/05/31/instagram-
depression/)

~~~
9935c101ab17a66
.... what? This is patently false. The instagram feed is no longer sorted
chronologically, and hasn't been for some time. The ads they show you also
definitely depend on "smart algorithms". The follow suggestions they give you,
the content that populates the explore feed... all definitely derived by
"smart algorithms".

~~~
ThomPete
Compared to FB the algorithms are not even close to being smart and thats the
point. Even when it was sorted chronologically Instagram was known for being a
kind of depression factory and if you look at all the studies done about
social media and it's effect it's not which item the algorithms show but the
fact that everyone is posting "perfect lives" and have been known for some
time now.

------
vinceguidry
I can't think of a more illustrative example than the fact that some magazine
companies will keep on sending you magazines even after you cancel and stop
paying them, on purpose, so they can still list you as a subscriber.

You're worth more as an advertising target than you are as a customer. I'd be
willing to bet that their own advertising departments are more interested in
increasing the advertising value of the subscribers that do respond than it is
in actually selling subscriptions.

~~~
EADGBE
There’s truth in this when many publications will offer an entire year’s worth
of print for $5-$10.

------
sid-kap
I'm surprised the article doesn't mention Richard Stallman's essays on
Facebook. That's the first place I saw this idea expressed. (He calls users of
Facebook "useds".)

~~~
na85
Stallman's juvenile demeanor detracts from the perception of his message.

Calling rap music "c...rap", calling them useds instead of users, the gravmass
stuff, writing diatribes about not wearing ties, not to mention eating his toe
jam on camera that one time... He's a kook and will never be taken seriously.

Like it or not we are superficial beings and culture carries with it certain
norms that must be adhered to if we wish to maintain broad spectrum appeal or
credibility.

It's not enough to have good ideas.

~~~
vinceguidry
I think RMS would disagree with you. He considers his cause to have been
successful beyond his wildest dreams. Reading his biography paints a stark
picture of a tech landscape being increasingly dominated by corporate
interests.

His organization offered another way. He never thought it would get off the
ground, but it turned out that corporations are desperate to save a buck and
are more than willing to work with free software in order to do it. The GPL
was the first keystone, his advocacy helped to popularize it.

His choice of appealing to nerds like him was perfect, and his kook persona
where he doesn't bother trying to button up his rougher edges is far more
convincing than any amount of sanitizing ever would be.

More to the point, Stallman is insanely smart, and is more accomplished than
probably anybody posting on HN, including even pg. He didn't stop being smart
just because he became notable.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
Spot on. Often being unconventional is more effective than being likable.

------
cocoa19
"You know, Facebook's free. If something’s free, that means you’re the
product."

Even when a product is not free, you are still the product. I'm pretty sure
Walmart is selling my purchase information to advertisers.

~~~
ThomPete
Only if you is part of their loyalty program.

~~~
jessaustin
...or if you shop with a credit or debit card, or if you typically carry the
same mobile phone with you most times you shop, or if you often purchase
prescription medicine there, or if they ever get that facial-recognition
cluster to work... this can be based on any somewhat durable identifier.

~~~
ThomPete
But they aren't selling it to the best of my knowledge.

~~~
jessaustin
Why not? It isn't because they don't like money. _If_ they aren't selling such
data (which is not clearly the case) it's because they judge that they can put
it to more valuable use themselves.

~~~
ThomPete
I don't think they are allowed to sell it. They are however allowed to use it.

~~~
jessaustin
But they are allowed to sell data based on loyalty programs? That would be a
weird regulation.

~~~
ThomPete
That actually make more sense since you consent to a bunch of things. But I
don't even think they do that. As I said they use it internally instead (for
what to order etc) they aren't allowed to send your data and your purchasing
patterns to 3rd party.

------
matchagaucho
The Television "Nielsen Family" model has evolved from _opt-in and we 'll pay
you_ to _Default opt-in. No compensation._

In all fairness, there is zero setup and overhead to use Internet services,
whereas Neilsen families had to fill out daily usage logs and install special
TV interfaces.

~~~
rogerbinns
Twice in the last decade Nielsen has paper mailed me wanting to collect TV
viewing information over a future week. They even included a $5 bill in the
mailing with promise of more at the end. I was rather excited since finally
Futurama and Stargate could have some support.

But when it became time to fill out the logbook I couldn't actually do it. I
finally figured out they couldn't care less what TV I watched, and were
actually trying to work out what ads I had watched that had aired at most in
the previous 24 hours. Kinda difficult information to provide when using DVDs,
Netflix, and having cut the cord many years before. There was nowhere to even
say that you watched stuff on Netflix. You could only supply channel names and
times!

(They also never bothered to check their help email worked, which it didn't.
They apologised several weeks later.)

~~~
tacon
Sometime in early 2000, I decided I was watching too much television, so I
just stopped, completely. I was actively avoiding watching any television. I
was a few months into that when I got my one and only invitation to be a
Nielsen person. I told them in advance that I gave up watching television a
few months before, and I didn't plan on watching anything in the near future.
They said sure, that was fine. So I got a log book and, of course, at the end
of each month or whatever, I wrote 0,0,0... everywhere. After six months, I
was not renewed as a Nielsen person. :-) I did watch election night 2000 and
the whole hanging chad period, and eventually I was watching some again.

------
squozzer
I have begun wondering aloud about whether the social media era is our closest
approach as a species to telepathy.

And while hardly a (modern) sci-fi maven, I never encountered any works that
tried to step through how a species would achieve telepathy.

The stories I read that had telepathic species glossed over their
transformation, usually with some variant on the phrase, "It wasn't pretty."

------
fullshark
A lot of words here to basically say “yeah it’s true but it’s not original and
is kind of mean.”

------
mclide
The concern of users becoming the product when using an ad-based business
model was discussed in a 1995 paper presented at the Third International
World-Wide Web conference:

"The design of a medium strongly affects the revenue model that is applied to
that medium. Entrepreneurs will seek an appropriate way of creating a revenue
constrained and encouraged by the media technology. One example of this
relationship can be discovered through examining the different variations of
the television medium. The traditional technology of broadcast made it
difficult for content creators to charge individual viewers for selecting a
program. This lead to revenue sought via advertising, based on making the
viewers the product rather than the customers, and resulted in bland
programming in an attempt to get as large an audience as possible to sell to
advertisers. The technology of cable television and scrambling made it easier
to charge for subscription or pay-per-view, causing more directed programming
towards smaller audiences. [...] The revenue model has implications for what
content will be made available on a medium as well as the quality of that
content. Web technology designers can strongly impact which revenue models
will be used on the web. Creating alternative revenue models is important to
avoid the application of potentially harmful revenue models due to a lack of
alternatives."

[https://doi.org/10.1016/0169-7552(95)00039-A](https://doi.org/10.1016/0169-7552\(95\)00039-A)

------
a-dub
It took a generation, but I think that a big chunk of society learned to be
wary of big media's outsized influence enabled by television. Most people I
knew as a young adult had basically completely eschewed television with decent
notions of its effects and annoyances.

The internet, on the other hand was something new. Fresh, unfiltered and
unmanipulated... Until recently, now it's just the same shit but exponentially
more insidious.

Where's Sidney Lumet when we need him?

"I want you to go to your keyboards, throw open your windows and get MAD. I
want you to scream goddamnit, I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS
ANYMORE!"

------
ianamartin
Does anyone know any investors I can pitch to? I'm actually serious about a
social media platform that pays users to use it.

It's a totally shameless clone of facebook. We'll collect user data, monetize
it, track people, everything. The whole 9 yards.

The only difference is that we'll take the profit and share it with users
after we take a fair share for ourselves. Users will love it because they get
paid for it. Advertisers will love it because the users will have _extra cash_
to buy shit with.

Everybody wins.

------
hprotagonist
_The most famous quote about Facebook isn’t actually about Facebook—it’s about
television._

Worth rereading David Foster Wallace's "E Unibas Pluram" (1993), which is
largely about our codependent relationship with TV and how it will inevitably
metamorphose into a similar relationship with other forms of media:
[https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf](https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf)

------
jasode
I suspect that if Will Oremus wrote a shorter version of that post on reddit
or HN, he'd get downvoted to oblivion. The meme of _" if you're not paying for
it, you're the customer not the product"_ has become a moral chorus.

I'm ok with repeating that meme as a _defensive_ mental checkpoint. Say it to
remind oneself to limit data as much as possible to prevent its monetization
for Facebook's advantage.

However, I also understand the author's point that it's a thought-stopping
soundbite that miseducates people on the economics of _multi-sided_ platforms.
The _" you're the product"_ labels us as sheeple. Unfortunately, we don't seem
to have another neutral word to describe audiences as quasi-non-paying-
customers. Another example other than Facebook might be jazz festivals in the
USA.

A lot of jazz festivals organized by cities have free attendance. If the
attendees don't pay, how do they pay the musicians? The cities rent space to
vendors in the park to sell food and drinks. It's so critical that they sell
enough food & drinks to break even (or make a small profit) that they make
rules preventing attendees from bringing in their own food.[1]

It's a multi-sided economy: (1) the attendees, (2) the musicians, (3) the
vendors, and (4) the city

The interesting point is that when I was growing up and attending these free
festivals every year, nobody said, _" you know at the Jazz Festival, you're
not the customer, you're the product."_ There was no derogatory meme like that
for those shows. (Even if there was, most of us would still go because we want
to go see Herbie Hancock play piano.)

There is a similarity between jazz festival attendees and Facebook users ...
_the consumers of free services in a multi-sided exchange_ ... but we don't
seem to have a non-derogatory label for it.

[1] [http://www.nejazzwinefest.org/festival-dos-and-
donts.html](http://www.nejazzwinefest.org/festival-dos-and-donts.html)

~~~
jcbrand
The organizers of a free jazz festival don't record your attendance, what you
bought, how often you went to the bathroom or who you went with.

~~~
jasode
That's correct but you're not playing along with the analogy. Analogies are
not meant to be exactly the same.

The analogy for the jazz festival is that the _hungry & thirsty attendees_ in
a "walled-garden" of the park are offered up as so-called "products" to the
vendors to be sold food & drink. Hence, _" You Are The Product"_.

If we want to dismantle the analogy in the direction of Facebook, we could
complain that _" Facebook doesn't sell food & drink to the web surfer so I
don't see how the jazz festival applies."_

Well, that's how analogies work. You have to look for the commonalities
instead of the differences.

~~~
adamconroy
Analogies are good at explaining difficult to understand concepts but
shouldn't be used to arrive at decisions or axioms. Each situation or argument
should be evaluated on its own. In other words, whilst the jazz festival and
facebook models are analogously similar, just because you accept one as
harmless doesn't mean the other isn't harmful.

~~~
jasode
_> , just because you accept one as harmless doesn't mean the other isn't
harmful._

I never said Facebook isn't harmful. My analogy was not an apologetic defense
of Facebook. It's unfortunate that I can't even discuss Facebook in an
_intellectual and detached manner_ without first prefacing it with the
"Facebook-is-my-enemy" street credentials first.[1][2] I've never had a
Facebook account and I never will.[3]

My analogy is specifically about "product" being a label that
(unintentionally) makes people dumber, not smarter, about the economics of
_multi-sided markets_. I found it fascinating that attendees to music
festivals were not hammered with the pejorative label _" you are the product"_
\-- even though that's what they were. The analogy points out that to "get
something for free" in a multi-sided market, an _indirect_ payment has to be
made to make that happen -- and it happens in other businesses besides
Facebook.

[1] Previously wrote that Facebook is a _" devolves into a worthless waste of
time"_:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16360609](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16360609)

[2] Previously wrote that Facebook drives people apart instead of bringing
them together:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15676544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15676544)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14397109](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14397109)

------
onewhonknocks
Access to users is the product, not the users themselves IMHO.

~~~
icebraining
What's the difference in practice?

~~~
themacguffinman
The difference in practice is mostly in security: neither advertisers or
publishers on Google or Facebook actually possess your data, so it can't be
leaked by breaching any of those companies. You'd have to breach Google or
Facebook themselves.

~~~
lotu
It also means advertisers can’t miss appropriate your data (this could be part
of the security thing). So I can’t say I want to know what themaguffinman’s
been searching and google will send me a list of his searches for $50. When
people say selling your data that’s the image I get even though it is
compleatlly in accurate.

------
intrasight
If I'm the product then I'm a lousy one for anyone buying it - since I have FB
filtered down to just show friends posts.

~~~
rogerbinns
I disagree. Facebook makes their money from advertisers. The advertisers go
where people are, but they are also careful about paying. For example if their
product is only applicable to one gender, but the ads would go to everyone
then they'd want to pay half as much. Sites that do not have demographic
information about their users consequently can't charge anywhere near as much
as Facebook which gets advertisers to pay more for the demographics they want.

Even if everything in your FB profile is a lie, your friends then provide the
demographic information about you. eg you are going to similar to them.

And because you are on Facebook, you are now available to the advertisers.

------
acd
By analyzing what you like Facebook knows almost everything about your taste,
all locations that you ever visit. Further Facebook profits on your most
valuable asset in life your family and friends. Personally I find Facebook
disgusting especially after Cambridge Analytics and that funded by a hedge
fund owner and white first on the board of directors and you can now buy an
election.

------
textmode
Will non-desperate FB employees continue to want to work for a company with a
poor reputation amongst the press?[1]

Will internet users outside of HN begin to reflect on what Facebook is doing
behind the scenes? Will they care?

An executive from a large data broker was recently quoted as saying users care
more about "relevance" than they do about "privacy". Is this true?

How would we ascertain what users care about? Would we ask them?

Is Facebook's internet.org the modern equivalent of "free AOL CDs" for the
underdeveloped world?[2]

Is it true that 91% of Facebook's revenue comes from mobile apps and only 9%
is from laptop/desktop?[3]

Does this explain why Brian Acton advised users to "delete" Facebook, i.e.
delete the _mobile app_?

For example, when users _non-interactively_ export data, e.g. photos, using
mbasic.facebook.com _via laptop /desktop_ each evening while they are
sleeping, then upload the data to their mobile device and view the data
outside of any Facebook-controlled app, free from any advertising or tracking,
including while offline. Does this contribute to Facebook revenue?

1\. See, e.g.,

The stupefying pointlessness of Facebook's political theatre
[http://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-cambridge-
analytica-...](http://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-cambridge-analytica-
dcms-evidence-parliament)

Breaking up with Facebook: Users confess they're spending less time
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2018/02/13/breaking...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2018/02/13/breaking-
up-facebook-users-confess-theyre-spending-less-time/319672002/)

They think it's over: Zuckerberg's former mentor says Facebook will get away
with everything [https://qz.com/1263785/they-think-its-over-zuckerbergs-
forme...](https://qz.com/1263785/they-think-its-over-zuckerbergs-former-
mentor-says-facebook-will-get-away-with-everything/)

Facebook Finds It Harder to Get More People to Log On
[https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-04-25/faceboo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-04-25/facebook-
earnings-growth-in-daily-users-slips-as-revenue-gains)

'Facebook is a morality-free zone': tech chief lambasted by MP
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/26/facebook-
mo...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/26/facebook-morality-
free-zone-executive-mps-cambridge-analytica)

Facebook warns investors that more Cambridge Analyticas are likely
[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/26/facebook-warns-investors-
tha...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/26/facebook-warns-investors-that-more-
cambridge-analyticas-are-likely.html)

Facebook's Zuckerberg faces formal summons from MPs
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43906956](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43906956)

Top programmers will leave Facebook and Google if they gain 'evil' reputations
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/27/top-
programmers-...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/27/top-programmers-
will-leave-facebook-google-gain-evil-reputations/)

Facebook Launches a New Ad Campaign With an Old Message
[https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-launches-a-new-ad-
campa...](https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-launches-a-new-ad-campaign-
with-an-old-message/)

Facebook: Crisis? What crisis? Look at our revenue, it's fantastic
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/26/facebook_results/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/26/facebook_results/)

Brit MPs brand Facebook a 'great vampire squid' out for cash
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/27/facebook_schroepfer...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/27/facebook_schroepfer_evidence_dcms_data/)

Facebook CTO says sorry journalists feel firm is trying to suppress the truth
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-privacy-
britain-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-privacy-britain-
sorry/facebook-cto-says-sorry-journalists-feel-firm-is-trying-to-suppress-the-
truth-idUSKBN1HX1N3)

2\. See, e.g.,

Facebook's Internet.org has connected almost 100M to the 'internet'
[https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/25/internet-
org-100-million/](https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/25/internet-org-100-million/)

100 Million People Are Connected to Facebook's Walled-Garden Internet
[https://gizmodo.com/100-million-people-are-connected-to-
face...](https://gizmodo.com/100-million-people-are-connected-to-facebooks-
walled-ga-1825553262)

3.

Mobile advertising represents 91% of Facebook's ad revenue
[http://www.marketing-interactive.com/mobile-advertising-
repr...](http://www.marketing-interactive.com/mobile-advertising-
represents-91-of-facebooks-mobile-ad-revenue/)

------
Lionsion
> “Television delivers people” was not about data privacy. It was about the
> medium’s impact on culture and politics. Serra and Schoolman’s critique was
> that TV placed the interests of advertisers over those of viewers in a
> subtle but deeply insidious way: by purveying content and ads that
> perpetuated the consumerist status quo, deadening free thinking and
> dampening activism. The big networks would never produce a show that
> threatened the interests of corporate America, they reckoned, because it was
> corporate America that they ultimately served.

That's true, but the "critique ... that TV placed the interests of advertisers
over those of viewers" easily extends to questions about data privacy.

> What people seem to mean when they say that you’re Facebook’s product is
> that Facebook treats you like a product—that it fails to respect your
> individualism, your humanity, or your long-term interests. And the
> implication is that this disrespect flows inevitably from the fact that you
> aren’t paying for Facebook’s service.

When I use it, I also mean that Facebook's incentives aren't to cater to me,
but rather to itself and to a lesser extent, its advertiser-customers from
which it gets its revenue. I, as a non-paying user, have little leverage to
demand consideration. It loses no revenue if I leave.

> That helps to explain why Google and Facebook really don’t think of their
> users as their products—at least, not their main products. Their leaders
> have always regarded advertising, and by extension users’ attention and
> data, as means to the end of building the products they really care about:
> Google search, Google Assistant, Facebook’s news feed.

I don't buy it. Google kills products that it has trouble monetizing. They
aren't labors of love, begrudgingly subsidized by advertising.

Scandals like Facebook's are finally exposing this excessively optimistic line
of thinking as the lie that it is. Tech companies aren't some special kind of
company, they're companies just like Ford, Goldman Sachs, Philip Morris,
Boeing, etc.

> But it’s 2018, and it’s time for Facebook’s critics to move past what has
> become a tired cliché. There’s something nihilistic about telling people
> they’re the product of a gigantic corporation and there’s nothing they can
> do about it. “You are the product” paints us as powerless pawns in
> Facebook’s game but gives us no leverage with which to improve our
> predicament.

This is BS. There's plenty they can do: they can disengage, they can find
alternative services better suited to them, etc. It's only nihilistic if you
think you have no choice except to use Facebook and play its game.

> There are at least two alternative ways of viewing our relationship to
> Facebook that hold more promise for making that relationship a healthier and
> less exploitive one. The first is to view ourselves as customers of
> Facebook, paying with our time, attention, and data instead of with
> money....The second is to view ourselves as part of Facebook’s labor force.
> Just as bees labor unwittingly on beekeepers’ behalf, our posts and status
> updates continually enrich Facebook. But we’re humans, not bees, and as such
> we have the capacity to collectively demand better treatment.

Aaaand it's confirmed: the author thinks we have no choice except to use
Facebook and play its game, so we should try recontextualize our situation to
motivate us to beg for better treatment.

~~~
the_af
In particular, I find these assertions troubling and controversial:

> _" Cynics might not believe it, but Google and Facebook didn’t adopt the
> free model in order to serve advertisers. On the contrary, they adopted the
> advertising model as a way to keep serving their users for free. Google did
> so only with great reluctance [...]"_

> _" That helps to explain why Google and Facebook really don’t think of their
> users as their products—at least, not their main products. Their leaders
> have always regarded advertising, and by extension users’ attention and
> data, as means to the end of building the products they really care about:
> Google search, Google Assistant, Facebook’s news feed."_

This runs contrary to all we know about these companies. For example, "common
sense" knowledge about Google has always been that it's primarily an
advertising company that happens to do search very well and is technologically
innovative. Now, common sense is wrong often enough that it's reasonable to
question it now and then, but what evidence has the author to support his
assertions? I'd be interested to know if there's any actual evidence that
Facebook and Google would ditch advertising if they could (instead of it being
their primary business).

I find the author makes several extraordinary and unsupported assertions which
contradict all we thought we knew about these companies. He may very well be
right, but he really should support these assertions.

~~~
renaudg
What if "all we know", "all we thought we knew" is the problem ?

There is a really telling and truthful scene in the Social Network movie about
that, when Saverin wants to introduce ads and sponsoring opportunities way too
early and Zuck refuses.

Former-employees-turned-critics like the author of the "Chaos Monkeys" book
also agree with that : I'm paraphrasing but he says 2 important things : 1)
that the ads sales organization within FB often felt neglected because Zuck
initially really, really didn't care or understand this industry. Sheryl
basically ran that, and still does to some extent 2) They were really serious
about "make the world more open and connected" mantra internally. It's a
genuinely mission driven company (and I'm sure recent controversies must have
made huge waves)

I'm a former Facebook engineer. For sure, and especially since the IPO, it's
definitely become an ads company, no point denying that. But it's also very
fair to say it wasn't built to be one.

Same goes for Google really : who believes Larry & Sergei were thinking "let's
build an advertising behemoth !" when they came up with PageRank in a Stanford
dorm ?

Most ideas that became big weren't built from the get go with money as the end
goal. That's just what follows after success.

~~~
the_af
> _What if "all we know", "all we thought we knew" is the problem_

This is entirely possible and I acknowledged it in my post! I was mostly
asking for evidence (and, I admit, expressing some skepticism).

> _Most ideas that became big weren 't built from the get go with money as the
> end goal_

Agreed! To be honest, I'm more interested in the viable business stage than in
the "two guys in a dorm" stage. I assume the people who built the first TV
weren't all that interested in making tons of money either. But you have a
point.

------
sharemywin
I thought that saying was pre-facebook

~~~
the_af
I first heard it about TV, which is what TFA mentions :)

------
sharemywin
ummmm....HN is free. I'm just saying...

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diasp
Ads? 3rd-party tracking?

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icebraining
There are ads (links to job postings of YC companies). They appear like
regular submissions, but you can't vote or comment on them.

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adultSwim
Yes.

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matte_black
Facebook’s product has always been highly targeted ad placement.

Users are in no way the product, and for people to keep saying that is grossly
misrepresenting the business model and puts all sorts of weird ideas into
people’s heads.

Unless you are being bought and sold you are not a product. There are people
in this world who ARE products, and we should be doing everything we can to
liberate them.

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badrabbit
If someone sold my body in part or whole then they are selling me. For most
people,their intimate private lives and the essence of who they are is just as
important as their body.

So, if facebook collectes such intimate detail about a person and not only
made it known to third parties but used that information to manipulate the
person,then I would it is that person who is being traded.

Who can I claim to be without my private life,secret thoughts,desires and my
identity itself? Even 19th century american slaves had some private life and
kept information about themselves secret from the slave masters (of course I
am not comparing their hardship,but the small privacy they had) and they were
literally sold at markets.

The grand trick of the modern economy is that they have consumer behavioral
psychology figured out: convince them they made the choice all on their own
and take away as much of their intangible freedoms and possesions as you can
-- "if you can't touch it, it isn't real"

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matte_black
The information Facebook collects on you isn’t for sale.

And even if was, that stuff is basically data exhaust that is collected from
usage of a platform they own. By using the platform you _have_ made the choice
to give up some of this data all on your own. But that’s not what they do.
Their product is selling ad space.

You yourself are still not being sold.

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badrabbit
The ad space is worth exactly $0 without targeting. It wouldn't pay for day to
day ops let along make a profit.

The advertisers are the consumers and the ability to target the consumer is
the product.

Look at it this way, an actor or a singer sells himself when he works,the
entertainment industry sells actors to consumers. In the same way facebook and
google sell their users to advertisers.

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sharemywin
The news is a little hypercritical with it being free and all.

