this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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Meta: The company whose products you use when you absolutely, positively, don't give a shit that they are the worst example of the worst nightmare of a consumer-hostile, privacy-invading, you-are-the-product, tech company. Yes, even worse than Microsoft.
If it's free, you are the product.
Well now even when you pay you're the product.
This just doesn't hold up in 2024. BMW charge you 60k for a vehicle and chuck a subscription on top. Apple, Google and Samsung charge between hundreds and thousands for their phones and advertise with their own agencies. Amazon forces paying customers to wade through bullshit products to finally buy the one they want, customers who bought prime and who didn't.
Everyone is the product even if you pay. Stop saying this please.
Sorry, but that's irrelevant to "if it's free..." implication. Those are just unrelated ways companies made suckers out of their customers.
Hey mate, so this comment is just not productive. I'm going to be a little hyperbolic here: if everyone alive is being advertised to then your "unrelated ways companies making suckers out of their customers" comment isn't correct or honest. It's the norm, everyones going through it is totally related.
I talked about companies that lock you into their ecosystems and force you to have a stake in their business model. They do this for two reasons: you make money and they want it, and if you spend your money elsewhere they don't get it. Name one phone manufacturer that isn't stealing your data. Name one social media app that isn't spyware. Name one online store, review site or fucking cooking blog that isn't loaded with ad trackers and cursor monitoring shit that tells you to subscribe as soon as you go to close the tab.
Sure some smaller examples exist (I love lemmy, this place is awesome), sure I can download a free open source os, or just install an:
Adblocker User agent spoofer Anti track-sender Set my browser to stop allowing targeted ads or download a privacy browser
but everyone is still stuck using the other products in some capacity just the same. I'm happy for you if you fall outside this, seriously. However, most people do not. We are stuck and it's because we got prayed upon. So yeah, everyone is the product. Always. No exceptions.
It’s not an either or. It’s _if it’s free, you’re the product _. That’s it. It’s not saying anything about if you pay for it.
So it's misdirection. It should be "You're the product". Free or not doesn't matter.
Mate. Everyone is the product. Everyone's attention is being paid for. Every service is collecting your data. Everyone wants your screen time and is happy to pay for it.
"If it's free you are the product" has been drilled into us to accept the bullshit of Facebook, Google and the rest. Get it in your head now: you are the product, always. Unconditionally. No exceptions.
You’re literally using a service there that isn’t the case for.
I haven't paid for Lemmy yet. Well, other than volunteer time.
I guess if we want something where we're not the product, we have to build it ourselves.
Even without any potential monetization by anyone... you kind of are? You are part of the community here, and that's what people come here for. Lemmy's community is the product it offers, and you are a piece of it.
I wish more people on Reddit and Twitter would recognize that and use more discretion with who they're creating a product for.
What makes you so sure that the person hosting your instance isn't monetizing it or trying to find a way to monetize it in the background?
Maybe they're selling all these posts and DMs to OpenAI?
Lemmy.world is a registered non-profit organization. https://fedihosting.foundation/about-us/
It's easy enough to use the API to scrape the site and use all the posts and DMs for free. It'd be odd for OpenAI to pay for it.
Please do recognize that anything you post publicly IS public, whether that's Facebook or here. The lack of an API isn't going to stop places from scraping your data off of Facebook or Reddit either.
Your DMs here are explicitly public. That's part of the federation between servers. If you want truly private DMs, there are options for that.
I suppose I should mention for full disclosure that I'm part of the (unpaid) staff here representing the Lemmy.World Community Team.
Not that I DMd people, but I don't think I knew that, so that's good to know.
But also don't mistake a not for profit as not being able to do something to aquire money to help pay for itself or the salaries of it's people. They could absolutely be looking for ways to monetize this to a certain extent. A not for profit is not a charity.
I'd recommend Signal for truly private messaging. I've heard things about Matrix, and the warning mentions Element.io, nether of which I'm personally familiar with.
Oh, well that's a great warning. Glad they put that there.
And ya I already use signal.
They don't need to sell access... It's free. Assume anything you post here is getting sniffed up by everyone.