5 ms·

The distinction is very important: a customer is someone who pays you money. To Google and Facebook, users are just parameters to be optimized.

danilocampos 15y ago
Concur: To lose a customer is to lose some chunk of revenue. To lose a user is to lose some chunk of page views to be sold. A very important distinction. You can offset shed users by adjusting the product to generate more page views, as publishers well know. Lose too many customers, though, and that's a lot of money that's simply not hitting your pocket anymore. With that in mind, I'm pretty sure Netflix would not email me asking to know about the quality of a given streamed movie if I were merely a user. And the way I know that is that YouTube has never once checked in on me to see how my streaming experience went.
- magicalist 15y ago
  if you wrote out your first paragraph in an actual formula, you would realize what you're missing here. You can't always generate more page views, so gaining or retaining users would then become what you want to maximize (as publishers wish they could). Lose advertisers, get more users or make the ads more effective and earn more. Make a product that users and advertisers like, and you maybe get more of both. Finding the sweet spot remains hard. Ignoring these dynamics is not helpful. Your point about adwords customers getting someone on the phone is important, because not all adwords customers can. Preferential treatment for large customers is not at all unusual, and I don't think anyone would argue that it is bad. They just want a phone number they can call too. Netflix and Youtube have completely different streaming models (namely youtube's is not adaptive), but I do see a "report a bug" link on there. But this ignores my point, which was not that google customer service is awesome, just that there definitely is a feedback loop ("there is zero incentive machinery"), and that "product not a customer" still misses the point as much as it ever has.
- nmridul 15y ago
  I disagree with it. If I am conducting a free for all art exhibition (no selling of arts, just for people to see), then the visitors are not my customers. They are just viewers. I could have advertisers or sponsors for that program and someone could even be paying me based on the number of visitors. That does not make the visitors my customers. On a side note- even if I lose my staff, I lose some chunk or revenue, that does not make my staff my customer.
magicalist 15y ago
only at a completely shortsighted first approximation. Any policy they have regarding advertisers are parameters to optimize revenue as well. However, you write "to be optimized", so clearly you agree with my original comment. Catchphrase away, then.
nl 15y ago
"you're not the customer you're the product" It's such an attractive meme, isn't it? Short, straight to the point, and it seems to make sense. What could possibly be wrong? Like most things, the explanation why it is wrong is subtle, and much longer than the seven words it takes to express. But think about this: credit card machines are usually provided free to merchants. Merchants aren't the product, and the credit card companies certainly regard them as a customer... Multi-sided markets[1] are much more common in real life than you'd think, and the subject of significant study[2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-sided_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-sided_market [2] http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=multi+sided+market&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=multi+sided+market&#3...
- okoni 15y ago
  "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." is the correct sentence [1], also you are welcome to explain why it's wrong according to you, but imho you are mistaken. [1] http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven-discontent#3256046 http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven-discontent#325604...
  - nl 15y ago
    is the correct sentence I got the quote from [1]. You may well be correct about the original version - I was trying to make it as short and clear as possible. I'm not sure it matters too much, though. [1] http://techland.time.com/2010/10/15/facebook-youre-not-the-customer-youre-the-product/ http://techland.time.com/2010/10/15/facebook-youre-not-the-c...
- danssig 15y ago
  >Merchants aren't the product Of course they are! Have you ever actually seen a credit card commercial? What do they talk about? The color of their cards? How people feel when using them? No, the focus on what companies will accept them (e.g. "it's everywhere you want to be!"). This little rant you bring up every time someone points out the nature of for-free services is as off base as ever.

danilocampos 15y ago

Concur: To lose a customer is to lose some chunk of revenue. To lose a user is to lose some chunk of page views to be sold. A very important distinction. You can offset shed users by adjusting the product to generate more page views, as publishers well know. Lose too many customers, though, and that's a lot of money that's simply not hitting your pocket anymore. With that in mind, I'm pretty sure Netflix would not email me asking to know about the quality of a given streamed movie if I were merely a user. And the way I know that is that YouTube has never once checked in on me to see how my streaming experience went.

magicalist 15y ago
if you wrote out your first paragraph in an actual formula, you would realize what you're missing here. You can't always generate more page views, so gaining or retaining users would then become what you want to maximize (as publishers wish they could). Lose advertisers, get more users or make the ads more effective and earn more. Make a product that users and advertisers like, and you maybe get more of both. Finding the sweet spot remains hard. Ignoring these dynamics is not helpful. Your point about adwords customers getting someone on the phone is important, because not all adwords customers can. Preferential treatment for large customers is not at all unusual, and I don't think anyone would argue that it is bad. They just want a phone number they can call too. Netflix and Youtube have completely different streaming models (namely youtube's is not adaptive), but I do see a "report a bug" link on there. But this ignores my point, which was not that google customer service is awesome, just that there definitely is a feedback loop ("there is zero incentive machinery"), and that "product not a customer" still misses the point as much as it ever has.
nmridul 15y ago
I disagree with it. If I am conducting a free for all art exhibition (no selling of arts, just for people to see), then the visitors are not my customers. They are just viewers. I could have advertisers or sponsors for that program and someone could even be paying me based on the number of visitors. That does not make the visitors my customers. On a side note- even if I lose my staff, I lose some chunk or revenue, that does not make my staff my customer.

magicalist 15y ago

only at a completely shortsighted first approximation. Any policy they have regarding advertisers are parameters to optimize revenue as well. However, you write "to be optimized", so clearly you agree with my original comment. Catchphrase away, then.

nl 15y ago

"you're not the customer you're the product" It's such an attractive meme, isn't it? Short, straight to the point, and it seems to make sense. What could possibly be wrong? Like most things, the explanation why it is wrong is subtle, and much longer than the seven words it takes to express. But think about this: credit card machines are usually provided free to merchants. Merchants aren't the product, and the credit card companies certainly regard them as a customer... Multi-sided markets[1] are much more common in real life than you'd think, and the subject of significant study[2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-sided_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-sided_market [2] http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=multi+sided+market&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=multi+sided+market&#3...

okoni 15y ago
"If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." is the correct sentence [1], also you are welcome to explain why it's wrong according to you, but imho you are mistaken. [1] http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven-discontent#3256046 http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven-discontent#325604...
- nl 15y ago
  is the correct sentence I got the quote from [1]. You may well be correct about the original version - I was trying to make it as short and clear as possible. I'm not sure it matters too much, though. [1] http://techland.time.com/2010/10/15/facebook-youre-not-the-customer-youre-the-product/ http://techland.time.com/2010/10/15/facebook-youre-not-the-c...
danssig 15y ago
>Merchants aren't the product Of course they are! Have you ever actually seen a credit card commercial? What do they talk about? The color of their cards? How people feel when using them? No, the focus on what companies will accept them (e.g. "it's everywhere you want to be!"). This little rant you bring up every time someone points out the nature of for-free services is as off base as ever.