4 ms·

You know what they always say, when something is free, you are the product.

vdaniuk 12y ago
This phrase should be put down with a shot in a back of its metaphorical head. Whisper Systems, TOR, tox are free. Should we apply the same principle to those products? (I am not defending this shady VPN service)
- dethstar 12y ago
  This phrase refers to stuff free as in free beer.
  - ceejayoz 12y ago
    And Whisper Systems, TOR, tox are free as in free beer. What's your point?
    - explorigin 12y ago
      Probably a better disambiguation would be "services" that are free. Open-source projects can always be validated to make sure that they are not monetizing their user-base. Tor is a service but by reading the source code, you can see (if you understand the code) that nothing monetizable leaves your computer. I don't have as much confidence in Tox just because it hasn't been around as long (and I haven't read the source).
      - icebraining 12y ago
        Wikipedia is a service.
        jdiez17 12y ago
        Wikipedia is a service puts up a huge banner every year asking you to please give them money if you don't want them to be forced to show advertisements, implicitly making you the product.
        icebraining 12y ago
        I say, the lengths people go to justify a trite thought-terminating cliché don't fail to astonish me. If the mere possibility than a service you use might in the future have ads is sufficient to justify the phrase "you are the product", then I don't see how anything can be an exception to that. After all, the next release of Tor might have ads! Who knows?
    - teamhappy 12y ago
      TOR isn't free. The support and development is paid for by donations and funding, the bandwidth (currently over 12000 MiB/s) is paid for by lot's of volunteers. I get your point though. The question isn't whether something is free to use, it's who's paying for incurring costs.
      - ceejayoz 12y ago
        Facebook isn't free by those criteria, either.
        teamhappy 12y ago
        You might be onto something there.
- exelius 12y ago
  You're talking open source software vs. free services. Free software is write once and release; it costs the author nothing to maintain it. Free services require maintenance and incur operating expenses that need to be covered somewhere. The original quote was always about SaaS anyway.

This phrase should be put down with a shot in a back of its metaphorical head. Whisper Systems, TOR, tox are free. Should we apply the same principle to those products? (I am not defending this shady VPN service)

dethstar 12y ago
This phrase refers to stuff free as in free beer.
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  And Whisper Systems, TOR, tox are free as in free beer. What's your point?
  - explorigin 12y ago
    Probably a better disambiguation would be "services" that are free. Open-source projects can always be validated to make sure that they are not monetizing their user-base. Tor is a service but by reading the source code, you can see (if you understand the code) that nothing monetizable leaves your computer. I don't have as much confidence in Tox just because it hasn't been around as long (and I haven't read the source).
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Wikipedia is a service.
      - jdiez17 12y ago
        Wikipedia is a service puts up a huge banner every year asking you to please give them money if you don't want them to be forced to show advertisements, implicitly making you the product.
        icebraining 12y ago
        I say, the lengths people go to justify a trite thought-terminating cliché don't fail to astonish me. If the mere possibility than a service you use might in the future have ads is sufficient to justify the phrase "you are the product", then I don't see how anything can be an exception to that. After all, the next release of Tor might have ads! Who knows?
  - teamhappy 12y ago
    TOR isn't free. The support and development is paid for by donations and funding, the bandwidth (currently over 12000 MiB/s) is paid for by lot's of volunteers. I get your point though. The question isn't whether something is free to use, it's who's paying for incurring costs.
    - ceejayoz 12y ago
      Facebook isn't free by those criteria, either.
      - teamhappy 12y ago
        You might be onto something there.
exelius 12y ago
You're talking open source software vs. free services. Free software is write once and release; it costs the author nothing to maintain it. Free services require maintenance and incur operating expenses that need to be covered somewhere. The original quote was always about SaaS anyway.