> Now, it's true that the advertisers used to get a good deal from the platforms, and that it came at the expense of the users. Facebook lured in users by false

> Now, it's true that the advertisers used to get a good deal from the platforms, and that it came at the expense of the users. Facebook lured in users by falsely promising never to spy on them. It did? I joined in 2005 – back when the footer read, "a Mark Zuckerberg production" – and never saw any such promises. The only promise I remember seeing was that it was free and always will be. > But once those advertisers were locked in, Facebook turned on them, too. [...] This is the thing that "if you're not paying for the product, you're the product" fails to comprehend. "If you're not paying for the product" is grounded in a cartoonish vision of markets in which "the customer is king" and successful businesses are those who cater to their customers – even at the expense of their workers and suppliers – will succeed. But advertisers clearly wield the power, at least the direct power, over social media. How many "adpocalypses" have we had at this point? Social media companies have giant teams dubbed "trust and safety" whose job is to ensure the gross content doesn't end up next to ads or scare away the eyeballs. If socialists want to overturn the "you pay for it or else you are a product" conventional wisdom, they need to account for that.