Hacker News Reader

Are you familiar with the following phrase?

> If you're not paying for it, then you're not the customer; you're the product.

Facebook's product is it's database of user information. If the actual customers, which currently consist mostly of ad companies, aren't interested, then they have a serious problem indeed.

View on HN

While there is a nugget of truth in that quote, it is also a vast simplification. There is a (somewhat) symbiotic relationship between FB, you, and FB's advertisers. If any one of them are abused too badly, the combined organism will die.

That means FB has to create a product people are interested in using and has to protect their privacy just enough while giving their advertisers what they need to successfully market products.

This god-awful meme assumes 'payment' is made only in cash, fails to grasp the nuances of marketing, sweeps aside the subtleties of non-cash transactions, and is such a silly oversimplification that it is almost entirely meaningless.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com