> Everything Google does is done for our users. Your happiness is always the first priority, even above Ads ... You are not product; you are our customers! Im

> Everything Google does is done for our users. Your happiness is always the first priority, even above Ads ... You are not product; you are our customers! Imagine a farmer who cares very much about his animals, so much so that he is willing to accept a lower profit margin for the sake of his animals' well-being. The animals' happiness is always his first priority. I'd probably buy milk and meat from such a farmer. It's not necessarily a bad experience to be a product. When winter comes, being a product of an ethical company is probably much more convenient than being a free, wild animal. But that doesn't change the fact that you're a product. You're just a happy, well-fed product. Sooner or later, it's off to the butcher with you. The only sense in which users of Google's free services might be construed as "customers" is that we're purchasing those services with our fingers, eyeballs and personal information. Maybe that's true. But even if it is, that doesn't change the fact that Google takes our payment (fingers and eyeballs) and uses it in turn to pay advertisers. As long as Ads are in the picture, we can never be 100% customers. We'll always be both product and customer, as @seizethecheese said in a different comment. "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product" has been repeated so much on the internet that it has become a sort of cliche. But just because it's a cliche doesn't mean that it doesn't contain any grains of truth.