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No. Users are engaging in a barter transaction. It's not different currencies, it's the complete absence of currency. Barter transactions are symmetric. You
by lisper 3y ago
No. Users are engaging in a barter transaction. It's not different currencies, it's the complete absence of currency. Barter transactions are symmetric. You could as easily say that Google is the user's customer.
Users are Google customers in the same way that (say) fish are a fisherman's customer. Fisherman engage in barter transaction with fish, offering them bait (food, or at least the prospect of food) in exchange for allowing themselves to be sold as a product to a third party who gives the fisherman actual money. That is what makes the third party the fisherman's customer and not the fish. Likewise, Google engages in barter transactions with users, offering them bait (useful information, or at least the prospect of useful information) in exchange for allowing their attention to be sold to a third party for actual money. The money is what makes the advertiser Google's actual customer and not the user.
- brookst 3y agoApologies, thought we were talking economics, where barter is every bit as legitimate as cash. But you’re talking polemics where there’s moral failing in Google’s and user’s parts. Fair enough.
- lisper 3y agoI didn't say barter was illegitimate, I said it was symmetric. There are salient differences between barter transactions and currency transactions even from a purely economic perspective. It has nothing to do with morality or polemics. There is a reason money is a thing.