> Surveillance capitalism’s real products, vaporous but immensely valuable, are predictions about our future behavior
Enough of the juvenile hyperbole. Facebook nor Google sells future predictions of users. Facebook’s customers are advertisers. They sell ad placement. Thats a fact, not an opinion or analysis. Why should anyone take criticisms of Facebook seriously from people who don’t understand how Facebook even makes money?
They sell ads. There is nothing wrong or illegal about showing ads on a website.
Maybe they do more than "sells future predictions" - but I think what you are quoting is still basically true.
Sure some ad sales are simply general feel good branding, some ads may be to get more data for use years later, however many of the ads I have run with both fbk and big G were in fact using their predictions of the future.
search term "dentist open saturday" - predicting a future dental visit.
realtor Portland - predicting future buying or selling of property.
yes their customers in which they can take money from are advertisers, and the product they are selling is the fbook user and google user, often predicting a future choice, and offering us a chance to influence for the right price.
The more they know about their product (the end user) like zip code, the more valuable sometimes.
There are sometimes issues when ads on a web site are illegal, and many more times when an advertisement is right or wrong is not so black and white but depends on many other factors.
On the surface the media is about keeping us informed.
But the incentive structure of media companies means that media’s real product is fear, write headlines and sell sensationalism in order to hook readers and sell subscriptions.
When co-opted by governments they sell control of the zeitgeist, sometimes we call that propaganda.
Enough of the juvenile hyperbole. Facebook nor Google sells future predictions of users. Facebook’s customers are advertisers. They sell ad placement. Thats a fact, not an opinion or analysis. Why should anyone take criticisms of Facebook seriously from people who don’t understand how Facebook even makes money?
They sell ads. There is nothing wrong or illegal about showing ads on a website.