According to this reasoning, almost no 'journalists' are journalists, because almost all media is ad supported, therefore, they're all just advertisers. This r

According to this reasoning, almost no 'journalists' are journalists, because almost all media is ad supported, therefore, they're all just advertisers. This reasoning would also say that an organization that doesn't sell any thing, but gives away its product, is essentially, 'nothing'. So most open source organizatons are not technology orgs, but charity orgs. So for example, Wikipedia isn't really an encyclopedia, it's really just a charity. A tech company is a company that employs engineers to create technology. How that is funded, be it directly, indirectly, charitable contributions, or even government grants, doesn't really change the fact that these institutions are creating technology. You could argue that how they obtain their funding influences their behavior, but you could also argue that public companies are not just beholden to their customers, but even more beholden to their shareholders, and so for example, whether or not Apple behaves in a way that protects privacy will in fact, come up against the need to show EPS growth to wall street, which means that no amount of piety on privacy will get them to give up their domestic Chinese revenues by directly opposing the Chinese government. Microsoft's direct monetization of Windows licenses did not prevent them from getting into ad tracking, so clearly, being a paying a direct paying consumer doesn't insulate you from corporations trying to diversify revenue streams. This 'meme' has been repeated over and over again on HN, but it's a radically simplified view of the motivations of the boards of these trillion $ cap companies, one that appeals to idealists.