> they are not monetizing the service which probably means they are collecting data from it to use in some way
You're not wrong. I feel it's worth pointing out, however, that the opposite (paid/monetised -> not collecting data) is frequently assumed when it really doesn't hold.
> This is wrong. Paying for a service does not automatically mean the service doesn't take your personal information.
No, but it does mean the developer has a lot of incentive to write software for you as opposed to catering to the advertising companies who are paying their bills.
Software engineers on HN or anywhere else certainly do not tend to agree that stripping ads from freely-available content is equivalent to using a paid service without paying.
I’m not convinced this is true. Surveillance/Market insight/whatever is just too lucrative.
There’s plenty of examples of company’s that make a living by charging for a service but for a company like facebook, for example, excluding users runs counter to their whole business model.
“Charging” customers is hassle. If you can find a way to monetise without all that icky hassle, you will.
No. These companies are not offering a free service. You not paying them directly does not mean it’s free. This is a comment that shouldn’t have to be made here, we all know how they make money and the price you pay to use the service.
You know what business scoundrels like more than profiting off your data and attention? Getting direct revenue from you, especially recurring one via subscription, and profiting off your data and attention on top of that. More than that, your choice to pay for a good or service demonstrates you have disposable income and are willing to spend it - i.e. a high-value target for advertisers.
> They pay me a subscription, I don't even want their data. It's a liability if anything.
This is (a big part of) the solution - but personal data isn't enough of a liability yet to deter the scoundrels.
"""This article operates under the very incorrect assumption that paid services never shut down and free services are never carried on by their purchasers."""
No, it operates under the very correct assumption that paid services are MUCH LESS common to shut down.
(I shudder every f&%&^n time someone doesn't understand a generalization, and thinks that a few counter arguments disprove a statistical rule).
"""See Flickr or YouTube or PayPal or Skype or Picnik or Grand Central or Picasa or Siri or mySpace or FriendFeed or FeedBurner or even pinboard's biggest competitor Delicious for examples of the latter."""
He is not saying that "free services are never carried on by their purchasers", he is saying that free services with no monetization model are in most cases not carried on by their purchasers.
Not familiar with all of them, but Flickr, Paypal and Skype, all have ways of making money and paid accounts. And Youtube has ads too (don't know about Picassa).
On a long enough timeline, all free and libre services done out of the good will and charitable efforts of contributors and maintainers, will eventually succumb to some sort of monetization strategy. I know in my case, and last time I checked, I don't work for free.
You're not wrong. I feel it's worth pointing out, however, that the opposite (paid/monetised -> not collecting data) is frequently assumed when it really doesn't hold.
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