Please don't say "you're the product". Not only is this line absurdly overused, it's also thoughtless, lazy, and wrong. You are not the product. You are a perso

Please don't say "you're the product". Not only is this line absurdly overused, it's also thoughtless, lazy, and wrong. You are not the product. You are a person. You are not being bought, you are not being sold. Nobody can exchange clear legal title to your very existence because slavery is illegal and has been for some time. "Okay, fine so what IS changing hands when money is being made?" Well, that depends. Generally it's one of two things. The first is information about you (e.g. Experian, TransUnion, etc.). The other is access to you (e.g. Google, Facebook, etc.) But neither of these things are you, any more than a story about you (which may or may not be true) is you, per se. This may seem persnickety, but failing to grasp this means failing to recognize some of the most fundamental points about the internet and information economies. And not really caring about the difference is a bit like saying that whether the Earth is flat or round doesn't really matter because from where you're standing it all looks the same. Like I said, it's just thoughtless, lazy, and wrong. And if there's one place where people really should know enough and care enough to get this right, it's HN. </rant>