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One huge divide between people in the tech community and those outside of it is the meaning of free. Facebook's a walled garden to people who want APIs and gen
by alexgartrell 16y ago
One huge divide between people in the tech community and those outside of it is the meaning of free. Facebook's a walled garden to people who want APIs and generously licensed (or public domain) data, but, to most of everyone else, the only cost with Facebook is creating an account -- something many people want to do anyway for the other features of the site. This is in sharp contrast to AOL, which was very expensive and only offered its data to paid subscribers.
- hrunting 16y agoAOL's cost was money. Facebook's cost is your personal privacy. Yes, you don't have to shell out a dollar, but you lose all control over the information you associate with Facebook. In some ways, I'd rather pay real money.
- alexgartrell 16y agoRight, I'm not trying to make a claim either way about what the superior thing is; I'm just saying that your average person would rather get the service for free at the cost of their own privacy, which is one plausible explanation for the difference.