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I hear this slogan a lot, because it implies that if you're paying for the product then you're NOT the product. Which is false and misleading. (That's "implies
by MikeTaylor 14y ago
I hear this slogan a lot, because it implies that if you're paying for the product then you're NOT the product. Which is false and misleading.
(That's "implies" in the English language sense, not the mathematical sense. Substitute "suggests" if you prefer.)
- piqufoh 14y agoPurely out of interest, when are you the product (when you pay for the product)? - newspapers / magazines with ads - subscription TV with ads others?
- betterunix 14y agoWhenever you shop at a store like Target or Walmart.
- betelnut 14y agoHow so?
- mediacrisis 14y agoThey mine purchase data. Any store with a "customer rewards" card does as well.
- philwelch 14y agoDon't get a discount card. Pay cash. Problem solved.
- betterunix 14y agoI doubt the problem is solved that easily. Stores have been known to instruct cashiers to enter information about customers during the checkout process -- age, gender, race, etc. -- and combined with what you buy, there is probably enough information to identify you or to distinguish you from the set of all shoppers. Some stores print coupons with your receipt; it is not all that unlikely that the profile they are building of you as a customer, even without the use of a customer loyalty card, is used in deciding which coupons to print. In the future, they might even use their security cameras to add some extra data points. Never mind facial recognition; I bet they would only need to track your walking pattern as you move through the store. Some people like to browse. Some people enter knowing exactly what they are looking for. Some people store by going left, others by going right. Maybe the first thing you do is go to the produce section. Chances are that this sort of data, combined with other data, can be used to identify you even if you never explicitly gave Walmart any identifying information. If Walmart can distinguish but not identify you, they might make more money just selling your profile to an advertiser, who can combine it with data gathered from other sources to figure out who you are (then annoy you). Maybe it's already happening, but I think it will be a few more years before the technology is really that advanced (I have no doubt that this will happen in the near future, assuming no laws to stop it).
- betelnut 14y agoThanks for answering, I appreciate it. I'm curious how this data is then used by the stores. The only example I can think of is optimizing store layout based on neighborhood demographics and what those demographics purchase. However, big box stores all seem so similar - it doesn't appear on the surface that they do a lot of demographic-based differentiation. Unless their demographics are so similar, which defeats the purpose of profiling?
- dhimes 14y agoThat's a good point. Somebody here the other day said that Google still mines your data on their paid services. I don't know if it's true or not but I would find that surprising and disturbing.
- DoubleMalt 14y agoWell of course the reverse is not necessarily true. !A => B does not imply A => !B . However I do not think there is any valid business model out there that gives something away for free, without making money off the people that get the freebies. Essentially even in a freemium model, free users are the product as they are marketing leads. Accepting that your users are the product does not necessarily mean you should be a jerk to them though.
- Joeri 14y agoWikipedia gives things away for free, and use the halo effect from that generosity to convince people to donate. You could argue they sell a product under a name-your-own-price model though.