The free-web data mining model depends on users not recognizing they are the product

Evidence

Cook proceeded to lay into the very foundation of the attention merchant’s model, which, since the early 2000s, had become dominant on the web. “You might like these so-called free services, but we don’t think they’re worth having your email, your search history and now even your family photos data mined and sold off for god knows what advertising purpose. And we think someday, customers will see this for what it is.” There was reason to suppose so, since “[a] few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1116

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to earlier accounts of how audience attention became the real commodity sold to advertisers in broadcast media. — connects to: Facebook users’ personality traits can be predicted from public data without consent. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 854; Selling predictions of human behavior superseded serving genuine needs in web economics — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 293; Framing technology as autonomous disguises who profits from data extraction — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 511

Broader Connections

• Framing technology as autonomous disguises who profits from data extraction #expands (0.82) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 511
• Selling predictions of human behavior superseded serving genuine needs in web economics #qualifies (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 293