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Stop Saying 'If You're Not Paying, You're The Product'
from the there-are-more-options dept
Derek Powazek (random trivia: whose work inspired me to learn how to create a web page back around 1995 or 1996 or so) has an excellent take on the pithy and dismissive phrase that many often use to argue that free services treat users worse:
"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."It's pithy and clever... and wrong. Powazek dismantles the claim eloquently. He attacks the underlying assumptions in that statement. He highlights that "free with advertising" has been a pretty big business for a long long time, in which there's no indication that users were treated as "the product" or somehow treated poorly. And then there's the key one: this is not an either/or situation:
He also points out, as I have many times, that there are plenty of companies whose services you pay for who treat their users atrociously. And then points out what many of us have been arguing all along: there are all sorts of business models online. Some work in some cases, others work in other cases. But to argue that "free" services mean you're "the product" and thus not treated as well, simply isn't an accurate or realistic statement. So can we please agree to kill it?I’ve worked for, and even run, many companies in the last 20 years with various business models. Some provided something free in an attempt to build an audience large enough to sell advertising, some charged customers directly, and some did a combination of both. All treated their users with varying levels of respect. There was no correlation between how much money users paid and how well they were treated.
For example, at JPG Magazine we sold something to our audience (magazines, subscriptions, and ultimately other digital services) and we also sold ads and sponsorships (online and in print). We made it 100% clear to our members that their photos always belonged to them, and we had strict rules for what advertisers could do in the magazine. We also paid our members for the privilege of including their photos in the printed magazine (as opposed to Instagram’s new policy that they can use your photos however they want, even in ads, without paying you a dime).
This example is much more complicated than the black and white “you’re the product” logic allows. In some cases, users got the service for free. In others, they paid us to get the magazine. In still others, we paid them! So who/what is the product?
And just because you pay doesn’t mean you’re not the product. Cable TV companies take our money and sell us to the channels, magazines take our money and still sell ads, banks and credit cards charge us money for the service of having our money. Any store that has a “loyalty card” takes our money for products but gives us a discount in exchange for the ability to monitor what we buy. In the real world, we routinely become “the product” even when we’re already paying.
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Product = Disrespect?
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Re: Product = Disrespect?
In the case of social networking, yes, we are the product.
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Re: Re: Product = Disrespect?
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The Product
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Have you ever tried contacting them ?
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Businesses make their money somewhere. If you are using a service you don't pay for, it's because they're selling the information they collect about you and feel they make enough from that that it's worth it for them not to charge you. It is true quite literally.
But then, I've never thought it meant free means bad treatment. Apparently someone does think that's what it means.
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Re:
Not always. Look at Dropbox. 95% of their users get it for free, and they get great support and (as far as I know) none of their information gets sold. The idea there is to get them hooked on the product and want to upgrade later, but if you're content using their free service (which tens of millions of people do), you aren't a product in any way.
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I think it is clear in Facebook's case that the users *are* the product. Facebook doesn't have anything else. All it has are the "social connections" and user demographics being leveraged to provide targeted advertising.
Dropbox has a product: Storage.
Instagram has a product: A useful app with photo processing (I'm not a user)
Facebook has... Nebulous social tools. And a history of nuking everyone's privacy settings, making access to their demographics easier.
Powazek is right of course, but I've only ever heard the phrase in relation to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Services where yes, the user base IS the product.
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Free with advertising has been big business for a long time, you are the product being sold to the advertisers to subsidise the content. The comment is correct in that context. The comment makes no claim that being the product is a negative thing in that situation. That's your baggage from social networks where it often is a negative thing.
Techdirt highlights others doing this same thing all the time.
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Re:
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Let's amend the statement...
Though honestly I don't get the outrage against being "the product" that some people have. Yeah, sure having your data used to better advertise to you has a high creep factor to it. But that isn't all of what being "the product" is in my view, for instead of just being marketed to you and your output, as "the product", are also being marketed to your peers. I originally thought of changing the saying to be: "If you're not paying for the product, you may be the product or the producer", but didn't for I see it as a redundant statement for being the product of value and being the producer of value are one and the same in this sense. In the end I have no problem being "the product" marketed by a platform to potential users so that they to become "the product" and so on spreading our collective value.
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If you're not paying, the money is coming from somewhere
TANSTAAFL still applies.
The money may come from me, from advertisers, from reselling my personal information, from charitable donations, from community effort, or any number of things. None of these are linked rigorously to QOS. All the permutations apply.
But when I get something for "free", and the service provider is reselling my personal information, then I am indeed the product. When they keep changing the rules and denying me access to what they are doing with my personal information (a double standard), then I am indeed the product, and I have a HUGE problem with that. Others don't. Good for them.
You picks your horses and you takes your chances. Me - I'm not a gambler.
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No, we can't.
No, we can't. It's a great issue for debate, and one that likely wont be defused.
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I'd like to sell you something
I'd like to sell you something. It's something you want. I know how to get it, and a lot of it. It's very much what you're looking for.
It's over here, playing this video game. There you go. Just put up your ad in front. There it is. You got attention.
First one's free. Now you can pay per click.
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Re: I'd like to sell you something
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Your argument completely fails
Every company which is for-profit, sells something. Whoever is paying, is the real customer. Nothing about level of service is going to change those facts.
That's not to say that a company which provides people a free product/service in exchange for them ingesting ads can't provide what you want in a product/service. But that doesn't change the fact that you're the product in that case.
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http://xkcd.com/1150/
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People should say that
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Wrong.
It doesn't mean you get treated better when you pay, it implies that no one does anything for free.
Facebook allows free use because it gets advertising from basically all aspects. This is what it means. Unless you're paying, you're basically just earning them money.
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Re: Wrong.
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TANSTAAFL
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Excellent strawman
But that's not the point. The point is you (your identity, your privacy, your income or your time) are being sold.
Full marks for misdirection, though.
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Umm...
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We are still the product regardless of whether you are treated well or not
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Agreed
https://plus.google.com/+BrianWhite1/posts/T56nDLcMHVk
Users are customers, not product.
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Dumb as hell
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i think this means
so they have highly focused propaganda shows like on fox .... to cater to a simple minded hate filled bigot rwnj... to get him to see the commercials they play.. to pay their bills... ergo... we are the product. thats why boycotting rush limbaugh's advertisers.. he's being dropped by several advertisers and even a few radio stations.
if you arent paying for it...you are the product.
its an apt assessment.
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Re: i think this means
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Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz
How about, there was zero claims by the original statement in terms of treatment. The phrase doesn't even remotely touch on the topic of treatment or value. You've essentially beat the crap out of a strawman that doesn't exist.
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the author of this is not logical.
Doenst mean:
If you're paying for the product, you are not the product.
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Re: the author of this is not logical.
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Free To Play MMO
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