On 02/10/2011 09:53 PM, gregjohn wrote:
> As a maxim, this is perfectly appropriate cynicism for something like Facebook.
> It's probably even appropriate for things like Windows, where you might pay cash
> and your frustrations with the product merely demonstrate that you yourself are
> the product, not the customer.
>
> Even on the worst day, with your most cynical hat on, this doesn't apply to
> povray,  which is very cool.

A better explanation might be "if it costs somebody money but you didn't 
pay for it, you're being sold".

If a bunch of programmers want to write stuff in their free time, that 
doesn't cost anybody any money. So if you get the results for free, 
you're not necessarily being sold.

If you want to run Facebook, that costs a crapload of money. Hosting a 
seriously high-traffic site like that isn't cheap. All that money has to 
come from somewhere.

My blog, on the other hand, costs me almost nothing to run. So the money 
doesn't really have to "come from" somewhere - i.e., I'm not selling my 
users.



Incidentally, people talk about how FB has all this valuable user data 
and how they're using it to do ultra-targeted advertising. ARE YOU 
KIDDING ME? Have you *seen* their adverts? What are they aiming with? A 
blunderbuss?! Because the targeting is just laughably poor. For example, 
constantly spamming me with ads for dating websites, even after I 
changed my profile to indicate that I'm no longer single.

Sometimes, you do something like change your status to mention 
Marmite(tm), and an advert for Marmite(tm) appears. Sometimes you say 
something like "man, I'm really looking forward to the weekend", and get 
an advert for Hellman's mayonnaise. And sometimes, you say something 
like "hey Helen, that was some great dancing yesterday" and get adverts 
for Black & Decker power tools. I mean, seriously, WTF? This is not 
"targeted advertising", this is "randomly generated spam".

Good thing it's so easy to ignore...

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