Google made an egalitarian web, where money doesn't matter and attention does. A currency that everyone on Earth richest to poorest has a roughly equal amount of. I think almost everyone takes that for granted, and focuses purely on the negatives (you're not paying, therefore you are the product, kept in place by bait we call services)
On the flip side, and I'm all for it, we can go to everything paywalled. The downside of course will be a whole class of people who cannot afford to participate on the internet. But these service providers will be working for you, the customer.
There are many ways these services can take shape and that this isn’t simply about watching some ads or not. What Google and the big players engage in is a violent, gross violation of our privacy which they turn around and sell on the open market/hand to their friends/use against your psychology themselves. It’s not just a simple Coke ad during your favorite sport on cable tv anymore and every time you travel to a site you have no realistic way of knowing what is being vacuumed up. We can’t even make an informed decision.
It’s a worthwhile exercise sitting down and thinking about alternatives to this data vacuum/attention economy nonsense that is so harmful for us personally and to our society as a whole.
> Google made an egalitarian web, where money doesn't matter and attention does.
They did? Could have sworn their whole business model up until the other day was attention for whomever can pay the highest bid for their ad space.. I guess I've been doing it wrong
Any person on earth with internet can use google's standard suite of products with no money necessary. I'm not aware of any other company that did it before them, on the scale that they did it. That is straight out of the progressive book of a utopian future. No money, equal access.
It's not egalitarian for advertisers, they need to pay money and compete. So Google is structered where megacorps pay the money to cover costs of the services you use, rather than you needing to come up with the money. This system made google available to every person on earth with an internet connection, billionaire rich or $2/day poor, you were using the same Maps, same Sheets, same Youtube, same Search, etc.
This isn't a defense of the system, frankly now I wish it was paid, even if that means 6 billions people who had accounts can no longer afford them. It's a recognition of the system for what it is, not what people who never really thought about it or understood it think it is.
Also, a side note, Facebook followed right behind Google with this model.
On the flip side, and I'm all for it, we can go to everything paywalled. The downside of course will be a whole class of people who cannot afford to participate on the internet. But these service providers will be working for you, the customer.
Pick your poison.