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Comment by AYBABTME | Hacker News Reader

Not sure why you're downvoted, it's a valid point. It feels icky to use a service that you pay for, and incidentally provide free labor to Google's AI which they resell in Google Cloud as a walled garden. The result of reCaptcha isn't public as far as I can tell, and humanity probably doesn't get a net benefit from Google's monopoly on AI anymore.

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People talk about "free labor" and forget all the times they were able to do Google searches or use Google Maps for free. It seems rather ungrateful? This isn't a one-sided relationship, both sides benefit.

The difference lies in whether you willingly subjected yourself to this transaction (give eyeballs, get Maps service) or whether it was imposed on you without anyone bothering to mention or question it beforehand.

Also the gratefulness part is strange. The corporation has no gratefulness for me, why should we show it any kind of loyalty. It's not a living entity with a consistent mind or consciousness. It will change its will based on Wall Street's demands. It will ban you silently with no recourse.

Perhaps "ungrateful" is the wrong word. But in a purely transactional society where we charge each other for every little thing we do on the Internet to avoid any "free labor", I suspect that we would be considerably worse off.

Logical error here.

Some people avoid Google Search, Chrome etc. They are still subject to this.

This is simple corporate sycophancy.

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