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To no one's surprise. If you're not the customer you're the product.
by pier25 1y ago
To no one's surprise. If you're not the customer you're the product.
- emodendroket 1y agoI think that phrase ought to be retired simply because even if you are paying money you often still are “the product.”
- kube-system 1y agoIf you're paying money, you still might not be a company's real customer: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1093781/distribution-of-googles-revenues-by-segment/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1093781/distribution-of-...
- emodendroket 1y agoI don’t think it’s even right to think that there’s one “real” customer and one “fake” one really. It seems like an oversimplified model that doesn’t accurately describe how anybody operates besides a mom-and-pop.
- kube-system 1y agoThe "unsimple" answer is: 1. if you don't have leverage with your vendors, they will not bend over backwards for you 2. companies are not incentivized to respond to complaints with no revenue at risk (e.g. you're going to use youtube anyway)
- pier25 1y agoAbsolutely. See TVs for example. Price has gone down because they sell the data of what you're watching.
- techjamie 1y agoDrop tens of thousands on a new vehicle at a stealership and you'll get sketchy companies offering warranties on your exact vehicle within a week and then forever-more afterwards. The way I understand it, usually either the dealership, the software they take your information in, or both typically sell off your data after the sale. Also I get calls and letters from places asking to buy a vehicle I haven't owned since 2018 regularly.
- nuodag 1y agoYes, and a way out of that is open source, where you aren't a customer…
- josefritzishere 1y agoThis is the most important thread here. I don't think even Andrew Lewis saw this coming. Now we are always the product because we lack digital rights. It's all been legislated away.
- echelon 1y agoThis should have resulted in an antitrust dismantlement by now. Google has every structural advantage in the world. Years ago, Google would have been worth more if sold for parts. They were giving away far too much (and pissing on entire industries while doing so). Now they're activating all of those assets for strong, explosive incremental growth. It's hard to even call it incremental. More like checkmate world. They're going to off so many businesses this decade and collect all the money. They own the web, they own most of mobile, they control the other half of mobile, they own search, they own media, they own advertising. There's not a dollar that gets made that doesn't flow though Google somehow. You can't even build a brand anymore without getting extorted by Google. You'll have your competitors paying to trademark squat you, and the browser itself defaults to Google search. Google really needs to be split into about a half dozen companies. This is way bigger and way worse than Ma Bell.