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Comment by gravypod | Hacker News Reader

"When the item is free, you are the product" is the lesson of this past decade. I am at least repeatedly learning this over and over again.

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According to this page[0] the item is $119. That's not free.

[0]: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Windows-...

It was sold to the public as a "free" upgrade.

"Free" in that context is what I am referring to.

Yup, they are having their cake and eating it, too. Free for 10% of the PC users, the rest 90% will pay for it, but because of those 10% we're also going to serve everyone ads, too.

Yea, and what I suspect you will probably see over the next few days is people saying that "it was free so it was ok!"

> "When the item is free, you are the product" is the lesson of this past decade.

A more accurate lesson would be, "if the item is free, and often if it is not, you are paying for it in something other than money, or are receiving benefits incidentally to someone else paying for it."

Win 10 isn't free.

I'd agree that is a better way of putting it.

That doesn't necessarily hold true for FOSS, though.

FOSS isn't free. You are being "paid for" by other people donating their time to make many, many people happy.

That's at least my way of looking at it.

But the user is not the product in the case of FOSS. No-one is taking advantage of you as is the case when you, the user, are marketed to advertisers.

Oh man, it's absolutely true for FOSS, unless you develop FOSS purely because of idealogical reasons, Richard Stallman-style. FOSS development can be turned into reputation and popularity, which can be turned into cash. It's much easier to get your startup off the ground (or find a good job or decent clients as a contractor, etc.) if you have 10,000 Twitter followers, because you write popular FOSS.

Which is exactly how FOSS is supposed to work. You give away something free of charge and available to everyone and you're getting something back from your users.

That doesn't make the software's user "the product" though. In your case the developer is making himself the product he tries to sell, not the users. This is really not comparable to advertisement and data collection.

But the user is not really 'the product' in any meaningful way. The developer's reputation from having +1 user does not have a negative impact on the user like advertising does.

Telling people not to trust anything they don't have to pay for seems a really obvious footgun for FOSS.

Yes, this is a cliche now.

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