On balance I disagree with most of Ken's observations, though not always or in a...

randomsearch · on Sept 2, 2013

"If you're not paying for it, you're the product."

I have to say that I disagree with this meme in general. Google does not sell me (yet, at least) to its advertisers. It sells screen real estate and placed links. Sure, the links are very targeted, and more specific than much (probably not all) advertising that preceded it.

I know that this meme is trying to make a general point, i.e. "there's a hidden cost to using this service", but I think it's overly-general and unnecessarily negative. Many people enjoy newspapers and TV that rely primarily on advertising for their revenue. I actually find Google's sponsored links on their search results to be very helpful on occasion, and at other times I find advertising a problem. Why the tendency to be so dismissive and over-simplify?

I also think that this meme is part of a general trend of finding pithy ways to sound smart without acknowledging that most issues, such as the way web services should be funded, are actually quite complicated.

dredmorbius · on Sept 2, 2013

I have to say that I disagree with this meme in general.

In a broader sense, "if you're not paying for it" falls under the broader rhubric of "understand the philosophy driving the tools you use".

One of the key advantages of using Free Software is that, fundamentally, the development model aligns the interests of the developer with the user. Not perfectly and not always, but in general. Some projects make this explicit, and the Debian Project is among the best-known examples, having a Philosophy, a Constitution, and a Policy, all as explicitly stated documents, detailing what the goals, concerns, and specific actions and rules of the project are.

Contrast with the proprietary software world in which the goal generally is profit maximization, often with short-term interests, and often sacrificing user experience in the process. Some companies avoid the pitfalls of this focus to a greater extent -- Apple has long placed end-user experience above all else, and, though I'm not a particular fan of the result, I can see its appeal especially for less-technical users.

Microsoft, by contrast, has from its beginning a winner-takes-all dominance strategy and had as its key customers OEMs and large businesses. I as an individual user (or developer, or administrator) am well down the priority list. Oracle would be another company whose alignment is often at odds with mine -- and extends to its stewardship of its free software projects (the core of which has largely migrated elsewhere, somewhat predictably). And yes, other free software companies can get confounded missions -- I'd classify much of the issues I encounter with Red Hat and GNOME as being fundamental to the mission and goals of the projects.

In the Web space, there are a relative handful of successful models:

- Amateur hour: not in the sense of "unpolished and crude", but literally "a work of love". Something done by an individual (or sometimes small group) out of passion. Often surprisingly good, but intrinsically limited in both scope and technical capability absent some larger base of support or organization.

- Propaganda: Whether it's selling a specific good (as opposed to mass advertising) or a philosophy, this is _somebody with a message_. H/N falls somewhat under this category.

- Public service: Sites such as Wikipedia. Often donor or sponsor supported. One way of scaling amateur hour.

- Commerce: Directly selling some good or product. Can still lead to a significant informational / conversational role, e.g., Craigslist or Amazon forums.

- Advertising: An aggregator of eyeballs. In which case, the particulars of the user base are of interest to the site (and its advertisers). And there's also often a very conscious effort to water down content to appeal to the greatest number. Both of these can set up perverse incentives which tend to drive down the ultimate value and quality of the site. Google has historically balanced the interests of its users (e.g., the product) and its customers (the advertisers), though I'm seeing a bit of a drift lately. Among the challenges: advertising and marketing teams increase in prominence within the company, chasing out the technical and user-focused talent (e.g., Marissa Meyer). Though she's landed at a company which is much, much further down the "provide benefit to advertisers" scale.

Then there's the additional issue that state surveillance (and hacker communities) have a significant interest in such data troves.

One of the advantages to being pithy is that there's an implicitly referenced and much longer argument which takes too long to type.

So, include above by default in "If you're not paying for it, you're the product."

akjj · on Sept 2, 2013

> "the legal duty to maximize shareholder value" Agree. Companies have numerous stakeholders.

As is implicit in the link you give, there is no legal obligation for executives or other employees to maximize shareholder value (for the directors, there is a fiduciary responsibility). Milton Friedman asserted that there was a _moral_ duty to maximize shareholder value, which is quite different, but this also has become quite controversial recently.

jasonlotito · on Sept 2, 2013

> though not always or in all cases.

Nothing I read suggested that every case was a problem. Simply that over time, most of these types of comments aren't helping anyone.

> Correlation is not causation....

It's useless as a comment. Spouting that off, and then adding a sentence on how bad science reporting is is where I see this most often. Or, often, it's applies to the reporting, not to the actual study. Thus, the study is dismissed because of the report.

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

It's mostly useless in the way it's used. Your condition of justification is where it makes it mostly useless. I mostly don't see it used with justification. Just a mere comment mentioning this, followed by a general rant about the state of being the product.

> [citation needed] Appropriate when someone makes an extraordinary, unsubstantiated, and difficult-to-source claim.

This appears all the time as the only text to a comment. First, it's factually incorrect. A citation is not needed. Merely requested. Secondly, it's usually used as a passive-aggressive way to assert that you disagree with someone. Don't have a way to argue around something someone said? Just place [citation needed] in a comment. Thirdly, I see it often used when, in the course of simple discussion, someone presents a hyperbole. It's not meant to be taken literally. However, a reply will seek citation on that specific point. Finally, it's also often used in cases where someone used a subjective adjective to describe something. People get robbed, no one will argue with. However, say "Significant people get robbed", and people want a citation, despite the fact that significant does not mean majority. It's subjective to the discussion and the condition.

> Premature optimization

Again, in the context of HN, it's most often trotted out when people are explicitly exploring optimization.

People always forget that there is such a thing as mature optimization.

> Dunning-Kruger effect Sadly, far too often appropriate, IMO.

Citation requested. =)

> Logical fallacies As with "citation needed": the quality of discourse is served...

If the quality of the comment doesn't move the discussion forward, down vote it. You do nothing by replying with a statement of the logical fallacy. Unless I'm mistaken, up and down votes do not apply to comments you reply to, or to comments that reply to you. Regardless, if you comment on a worthless comment, you are doing nothing more than contributing to the slow degradation of the thread. If, however, the comment does contain redeeming qualities despite a wart or two (as we've all had happen to us), then work to bring the thread back in order.

And the end of the day, this "you deserve to be called on it" attitude is that of a passive aggressive vigilantly.

dredmorbius · on Sept 2, 2013

>> Dunning-Kruger effect Sadly, far too often appropriate, IMO. > Citation requested. =)

My opinion.

Informed by a few things: some 40-odd years living on this planet (and possibly others), much of it involved directly or indirectly with technology and complexity. A general observation that much of the H/N crowd is younger (20s), often with the heightened sense of self-confidence which comes from youth, (often) a privileged upbringing, and a lack of exposure to hard knocks, as well as an overdeveloped faith in technological solutions.

A recent exploration of complexity specifically (see Joseph Tainter) and its dynamics. People don't choose complexity where it's not necessary, where they do, it's because it solves problems, but in doing so it imposes a tax -- higher resource (and especially energy) requirements, as well as decreased resilience and increased brittleness.

You do nothing by replying with a statement of the logical fallacy.

I disagree. You point out to others that the writer is relying on invalid arguments and/or facts. This may be out of laziness, out of a warped worldview, or out of deliberate manipulation of data and/or opinion (something I've been noticing increasingly on H/N). I'm content to observe the fallacy and move on. Sometimes the author (or someone else) will respond, occasionally copping to the error (in which case: success, a conversation ensues and the conversation moves forward), fairly frequently not and digging themselves in deeper (success: you've uncovered someone who's generally not worth arguing with, at this point I may simply drop the thread, or reply noting that they're repeating their earlier error).

I've actually made some interesting progress in understanding a few areas I'd previously had challenges with, in particular Libertarianism and the whole von Mises school, largely by discovering through conversations (and ensuing research) that the whole concept is based on a rejection of empiricism or real-world relevance. That and a healthy dose of corporate / plutocratic psychopathy courtesy the Koch brothers and others. Which explains much. And I rarely enter into discussions with those types other than to point out their irrationality.

this "you deserve to be called on it" attitude is that of a passive aggressive vigilantly.

Again, I disagree, and on this particular point, rather strongly.

Mind, yes, people will be wrong on teh Intarnets: http://xkcd.com/386/

But: we, humans, as a species, are facing some immense challenges. Global warming, peak oil, population, food, other resource exhaustion ("peak everything"), and a whole host of others.

And our institutions are exceptionally unfit to the challenge. Politics, economics, religion, technology, philosophy, the press, educational systems, liberal democratic principles (civil and human rights, etc.), even our own physiology and psychology (risk management, dopamine response, short-term/long-term focus), and a host of other factors are utterly maladaptive to what we're going to face over the next years, decades, assuming we survive that long, few centuries.

I'm not even pretending to have a clear view of what we need to do, or even all of what we face, but calling it "tremendously disruptive" is a mass understatement -- what else would you call a 7 to 14-fold (and possibly more) reduction in human population over a few decades at best? If HBS survives, you can bet they'll be teaching this one in 500 years.

So, yeah, I kinda take this shit a little bit seriously. And calling people on bullshit is part of that.

Even if the future of civilization isn't at stake, I've seen tremendous harm and pain come from sloppy and wishful thinking. But odds are quite good the stakes are slightly higher than that.