It's an absolute fallacy that Google provides services for free. In fact, it is more much more expensive:
1. The advertisers who pay google get their money from us, added to the prices of the things we buy. There is no free lunch.
2. The overhead cost of advertising is huge and we pay for that too.
3. We pay the opportunity cost of a product that cannot put users first because they live or die by giving advertisers what they want (and what we want indirectly and secondarily). This includes both the cost of lost privacy as well as well as design that optimizes advertising revenue. As has been said, we are more Google's products than we are their customers.
4. We pay the social costs. Democracy and the free market assume people make voting and purchasing decisions based on facts and reason. Advertising as predominantly about manipulation and deceit. I believe this is the most expensive cost of services that rely on advertising revenue.
Added together, we are paying a lot more for "free" web searches and email than if we could just straight up pay Google for straight-up ad-free versions.
1. The advertisers who pay google get their money from us, added to the prices of the things we buy. There is no free lunch.
2. The overhead cost of advertising is huge and we pay for that too.
3. We pay the opportunity cost of a product that cannot put users first because they live or die by giving advertisers what they want (and what we want indirectly and secondarily). This includes both the cost of lost privacy as well as well as design that optimizes advertising revenue. As has been said, we are more Google's products than we are their customers.
4. We pay the social costs. Democracy and the free market assume people make voting and purchasing decisions based on facts and reason. Advertising as predominantly about manipulation and deceit. I believe this is the most expensive cost of services that rely on advertising revenue.
Added together, we are paying a lot more for "free" web searches and email than if we could just straight up pay Google for straight-up ad-free versions.
[This is a condensed version of a more detailed case with reference links that I made here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773]