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> The big tech companies give lots of stuff away for free. I'd like you to think about that for a bit and then tell me if you can say it again with a straight

> The big tech companies give lots of stuff away for free. I'd like you to think about that for a bit and then tell me if you can say it again with a straight face. Do you really think "for free" is what people are being sold? People are being sold to advertisers. That's definitely not free in my book.

skybrian 7y ago
The advertisers paid for advertising. No money changed hands with consumers. That's the normal definition of "free." You might not like it when someone records your behavior, and there might eventually be other bad consequences. I'm not saying it's a good thing. Free stuff can be bad for you. But you didn't pay for it.
- inetknght 7y ago
  > But you didn't pay for it. You're trying to argue that someone who made a simple trade (for example a chicken for some wool), didn't pay for what they received. I did pay for it. The payment was in in knowledge about how I would use the service and making my time available for an advertiser to take my attention. The payment was in the ability of Google to read my private correspondence. I think it's unethically misleadingly wrong to say people don't pay for a free service.
  - skybrian 7y ago
    If you walk into a shop and ask how much a newspaper costs, and they tell you it's free, they're not being misleading, even though it's paid for by advertising. It would be confusing if you asked if it was free and they said no. Pestering people who use the word "free" in the normal way has nothing to do with ethics, it's just being annoying.
    - inetknght 7y ago
      When you pick up a newspaper, the advertisement was already sold. When you look at a website with an online advertiser such as Google, the advertisement is _not_ already sold. Your information is put on a marketplace to set a price for your attention and device's resources. There's a very significant asymmetry to what is being sold when comparing the two scenarios.

skybrian 7y ago

The advertisers paid for advertising. No money changed hands with consumers. That's the normal definition of "free." You might not like it when someone records your behavior, and there might eventually be other bad consequences. I'm not saying it's a good thing. Free stuff can be bad for you. But you didn't pay for it.

inetknght 7y ago
> But you didn't pay for it. You're trying to argue that someone who made a simple trade (for example a chicken for some wool), didn't pay for what they received. I did pay for it. The payment was in in knowledge about how I would use the service and making my time available for an advertiser to take my attention. The payment was in the ability of Google to read my private correspondence. I think it's unethically misleadingly wrong to say people don't pay for a free service.
- skybrian 7y ago
  If you walk into a shop and ask how much a newspaper costs, and they tell you it's free, they're not being misleading, even though it's paid for by advertising. It would be confusing if you asked if it was free and they said no. Pestering people who use the word "free" in the normal way has nothing to do with ethics, it's just being annoying.
  - inetknght 7y ago
    When you pick up a newspaper, the advertisement was already sold. When you look at a website with an online advertiser such as Google, the advertisement is _not_ already sold. Your information is put on a marketplace to set a price for your attention and device's resources. There's a very significant asymmetry to what is being sold when comparing the two scenarios.