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What's something that seems obvious within your profession, but the general public seems to misunderstand? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 95 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The more users you have, the more expensive it is to run.

Like, compute, storage, bandwidth, none of that is free. If you’re providing a free service, like Wikipedia, and you have many millions of users, like Wikipedia, your expenses will be enormous. You can either accept donations, like Wikipedia, require payment, or sell your users.

If there’s something you like that’s free online, support them. If they don’t accept donations, well, I hate to tell you, you’re the product.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 32 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Also when “you’re the product” that doesn’t just mean that your data is the product. A user is a person whom you can influence. “You’re the product” means this company can direct you, influence you, change your behavior. They can offer your behavioral changes, as a service to their other stakeholders.

[–] niktemadur@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago

Marketing can be such an immoral, insidious process.
And it takes thousands of people pushing this shit mindlessly, because hey... "It's just a job, right? Nine to five".

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 4 months ago

Shit. People think they collect all that data just for fun, don't they? Time to change how I talk about this...

[–] xilona@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

This ☝️✅

[–] 0_0j@lemmy.world 20 points 4 months ago

If they don’t accept donations, well, I hate to tell you, you’re the product.

A statement has never been truer than this