If you are not paying for the product, you are the product

Let's start with a definition. What is a product? A physical object created by humans for the purpose of trade or consumption, which can be made in one country and sold to another. Products are also information; any piece of data stored on a computer, whether it was written by hand or generated automatically via code.

A product is made in one country and sold to another. But who is it really being sold to? Usually, the end user of that product. But what if the end user does not pay for it?

Where does the revenue go then? To a corporation, usually. And what does that company do with it?

It's easy to extend the chain of reasoning here. A product is made in one country and sold to another, but it does not end there. The money generated by that sale goes to a company, which uses it on multiple things.

The owner of that company may or may not be the person who runs it. It can be a shareholder, an investment fund manager, a pension fund manager for private employees, etc.

The point here is that there are a lot of people who have invested money in your company. How do you pay them back? By generating revenue from the product.

Humanity is a social species, which means that we are mostly interested in the welfare of our immediate group. In order to get along well with others, we need to be able to play into their expectations and feel accepted by them. This results in several problems:

First, we are bad at judging whether a behavior is rational or not. This means that we may be frequently doing things that appear to be irrational. For example, paying taxes (or even voting) when the cost of persecution for tax evasion or vote rigging is much lower than the benefit you get from living in society. To avoid this problem, individuals may make agreements with others about what should and shouldn't be done.

The second problem is that we are bad at judging whether a person's behavior is rational or not. This means that even if people agree to some rules, they may still break them. This can be because the other party doesn't hold up their end of the bargain, but it could also just because we are bad at predicting human behavior.

The third problem is that, even if we manage to get everyone in the world to agree on some set of rules and a way for enforcing them, there will still be problems.

The main problem is that people aren't fully rational. It's not just that we are bad at judging whether someone else is behaving rationally or not, our own behavior may be irrational. This means that even if we have the best of intentions and try to obey all the rules, we will still do things in a way that appears to be less than optimal from the outside.

Second, there is a communication problem. Even if you are determined to follow the rules and make use of rational arguments for your own benefit, it's not easy to do so. There will always be disagreements about what is fair or efficient.

Humans have been able to use the wonderful tool of language for a long time and are very good at it. However, they started using social media relatively recently. I suppose that the community aspect of social media is some kind of an attempt to fill in for what has been lost with this great development in human communication. Some people feel a need to communicate with others but may not find other humans interesting or worthy enough company.

This is the age of loneliness. The best thinkers are lonely people. They live in a house full of books and ideas, but they have no one to talk to.

There are exceptions, of course. Some people do find human companionship and love interesting enough to be worth a commitment.

But, I imagine that the kind of love and companionship that has to be valued is highly contingent on human flaws. The people you choose to spend time with or are chosen by have to be 'good enough', because there aren't many other options. If they're not good enough as a friend or companion then it's easy to withdraw from them.

But, of course, it is not the same as the loss of human speech itself. The loss of human speech has had a very different social effect.

If you were to ask me 'what is the best thing about being human' I would say that it's the ability to communicate verbally, because we can hope to understand one another.

I have pondered this topic for a while, and I believe that non-verbal communication , and thus social media can be linked to a poor mental health. However, the exact relationship between these two things is very complex. It is important to remember that correlation does not imply causation - just because there are correlations or even causal relationships between phenomena does not imply that one phenomenon causes another.

I think that the biggest causal link between social media and mental health is an indirect one. Social media can lead to poor sleep, which leads to depression. Depression has been linked with a poor mental health.

However, there is also evidence that social media can be linked to positive mental health. For example, some people use social media as a form of support when they are feeling down or depressed

I think that social media can have negative impacts on mental health, especially in young people. Social media is filled with algorithms and advertisements designed to hook users

I think the main worry about social media is that it can become addictive, especially among young people. If you are spending hours each day looking at your phone or computer screen, then this can affect your mental health.

If you are not paying for the product, you are the product. It is a common phrase with many meanings and interpretations. I do have an opinion on this subject but it comes from my own observations of human behavior. No one can be truly objective when looking at themselves because they see only what they want or expect to see.

You don't have to pay for products, you just have to provide your attention. In fact, the product is mainly created from attention rather than money.

It's not that the content creators are not being paid, they just don't make enough. People want to get more for free than what it is worth.

Advertising contains many messages which tell people what they want, not only what suppliers want to sell. Perhaps the system is self-regulated to some extent.

In fact, the system is quite stable. The top 1% in terms of wealth control 50% of total wealth and yet they are still competing for more.

There are also many other product services such as the products of art, friendship, or wisdom. The latter is mainly for humans to sell each other.

The price of such products does not scale linearly with quality. In fact, the more you have to pay for something, the higher chance it is crap.

When we think of products, we often think about what they can do for us. We are captivated by the benefits that a product promises to offer us; otherwise, why would someone buy it?

But what if the product is us? What if we are the products being bought and sold?

Think about it, we are not paying for Facebook or Twitter. We don't pay for Google services; those companies sell us to advertisers instead.

We are the products that they sell to advertisers. We are their product because we generate value for them by using their services.

Facebook is free to everyone, but its value comes from the data of every user. The company sells our attention to advertisers who want our behavior and attitudes for their products.

Google's business model is similar to Facebook. Both companies can sell our data to advertisers, and we are the product that they are selling.

The idea that if you are not paying for the product, you are the product is very interesting. It seems on its surface to be in conflict with an individual's right of personal ownership over their own body and anything they create or produce while using it, as well as any byproducts of such actions. But then again, what if this usage would lead to profit? For example, some companies may choose not to sell a person their products at all unless they agree to let them use that person's data for advertising purposes; perhaps even refusing service until a contract containing terms like these has been signed. Now clearly I am no lawyer but I think it could be argued under current law that this is indeed illegal and needs to be changed immediately so as not to allow companies who wish harm society in general from profiting off the backs of people who don't have wealthy corporations behind them.

I am not a legal expert, but I think one could easily make the argument that this practice is unethical and should be illegal. The idea of profiting off the back of people who cannot afford to fight huge corporations seems downright predatory. If someone wants to buy an autodoc from you for $1000, then they have every right to do so without having to agree with you on how you will use their data.

The idea of profiting off the back of people who cannot afford to fight huge corporations seems downright predatory. If someone wants to buy an autodoc from you for $1000, then they have every right to do so without having to agree with you on how you will use their data.

Similarly, people who are not willing to sell their data for ads should be allowed to do so while still receiving services they wish. For example, if someone wants a free ride on the subway and doesn't agree with your terms of including advertising in that trip then you simply give them the service and ask them to pay you at the end of it. If they won't pay then you don't force them.

Furthermore, if someone is not willing to sign a contract that includes the aforementioned terms then you are free to compete with them in some manner. You can offer services at a lower price or better quality than your competitor and hope they take notice; you can buy advertising space on their property should you wish to do so; or any number of other things.

The basic point is that the product is not free. A person must pay for it in some way or another. The users of a service are paying for it by providing their personal data, and if they do not want to give up this information then they have no choice but to purchase the product.

The users are not paying for the product. They are selling themselves in exchange for it, and if they do not want to do that then they must purchase the product.

The users of a service are paying for it by providing their personal data, and if they do not want to give up this information then they have no choice but to purchase the product.

I think the main problem with this is that people do not realize what they are giving up. They see 'free service' and immediately jump to a conclusion that it must be free in every sense of the word, without realizing that when you use their service for free then you are also using them for free.

That, is the social dilemma.