Think of FB as an oil company, whose product is human attention, instead of oil. The social network is the oil extraction technology, that is used to mine peopl

Think of FB as an oil company, whose product is human attention, instead of oil. The social network is the oil extraction technology, that is used to mine people’s data and attention. However, the actual product is this data and attention, which is then sold to advertisers, who are the real customers. The social media extraction technology could be replaced by other tefhnologies used to mine data and attention, such as videos, music, or chat services. The competitors, however, are other companies selling the same product. That is FB’s perspective.