Why can't we just have a frank discussion about advertising and privacy without this kind of manipulative language?
This sounds like fluff: appreciating the art, style, aesthetic of the work/entity we are talking to should be #1 goal.
Engaging in the appreciation of art is to jettison our judgement of the subject to focus on the choices “why” and “how.”
I don’t know if this groks with anyone else....that’s kinda part of it too.
The prospect of work being judged by peers negatively is the pain amplifier on all our hands.
There are some of us out there - good people that are just broken.
Their path has made them feel it as if it’s on all the time, and they are as unstable and judgemental as they arw talented.
I have no idea how to fix the broken - I am just trying to paint myself whole again, one human interaction at a time.
The key difference between network TV in the 80s and social media now is the former had content to offer. As such, you could call the ads supplemental. TV also has dual income streams: subscriptions and advertising.
A social media platform has no content to offer, except the content provided by its users. If you provide content for free and the company benefits through increased eyeballs and therefore ad revenue, in a sense you're an unpaid employee. That makes you the product as shorthand for you providing the product.
Based on main revenue streams, network TV is either in the entertainment or advertising sector (I haven't looked up the numbers), but social media are squarely in the advertising sector. That makes the user's data the product, and "you are the product" a totum pro parte.
I'm not sure why saying to people that their attention and subsequent changes in behaviours were the fundamental parts of entire markets would be conspiratorial, but I might be misunderstanding you.
1. Nielsen boxes were and are opt-in.
2. You were and are compensated for keeping one.
2. You are compensated by accessing an incredibly complex system and network for free where otherwise you would have to maintain or pay for some kind of infrastructure.
(I am playing the devil's advocate here because it is interesting to me to understand in what way other than granularity this would be any different from the way the media has been communicated to us for a long time)