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gordaco

"When you’re paying for your social network, it makes you a customer instead of a product".

Wrong, you're still a product. The "consumer vs. product" dilemma is a false one.

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I think you mean "dichotomy", not "dilemma."

He means that in the sense of the either-or fallacy[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Please explain. Are you saying that App.net is using your data anyway to sell ads or something else?

Well, not sure what the OP is suggesting but your content is definitely a product that is attract other users to also pay.

Maybe, if he turns it in this way. I was however referring to what Apps.net says on their about page: https://app.net/about/

"We are selling our product, NOT our users.

We will never sell your personal data, content, feed, interests, clicks, or anything else to advertisers. We promise."

Yet if there was no content, there would be no product... so they are selling your content.

Which means they are just lying in their about page.

"to advertisers" are the important words to note in their claim.

Yes.

Can you illustrate this in direct relation to App.net?

As already mentioned above: their are probably not selling directly your information (in the sense of these days revelations), but they are selling their product because of your content. Simple network effect: the more people there are, the more valuable their application is, the more traction it gains toward new users, the more new users there are.

Making money through you. (Like all user-generated content websites)

That parently isn't the same as selling advertisers information. Nor is it the same as tracking and selling that to advertisers. It's entirely disingenuous to suggest so.

No, it's disingenuous to suggest YOUR content is unrelated to the value of THEIR product.

A reasonable analogy would be conferences, are you paying for the venue, or the access to other people/speakers? does that mean the people/speakers are the product?

My contribution being of value to the site is one thing. Tracking that contribution and using it to target advertising is a completely different thing. Suggesting otherwise, as you and others appear to be doing, is deliberately disingenuous.

The maxim is 'if you're not the customer, you're the product' not 'If you're not the customer, you're the product we sell to advertisers.'

It's a pithy quote and nothing more, one I can disprove handily by pointing at any number of completely free, donation based services online.

You are not being "sold". That entire line of thinking is intellectually lazy and meant to provoke an emotional response. I wish people would stop it.

Absolutely agree, it's a terrible phrase.

If there is an transaction between the user and the company, i.e. data in exchange for service, I do find it a bit strange that the tax office has not started to extract sales tax on it.

Might be a bit evil/selfish, but I somewhat hope that services that user need to pay for with personal data gets taxed, just so that truly "free" services can get an competitive edge on the market.

Well, when you pay with money, the government takes a percentage of that money. And when you pay with data, the government takes a percentage of that.

Eventually (e.g. via targeted advertising) they convert that data to cash. If they weren't going to make cash from it, they would not be collecting it in the first place. And when they do convert it to cash, that cash will be taxed.

If you're paying for it, then there is an incentive for the company to give you the service other than profiteering on your data.

Obviously it's still not a guarantee.

Where should this incentive come from?

There are lots of companies that simply sell you the serive and at the same time profiteering on your data.

Unless, of course, privacy is part of that service, but even then the company isn't trustworth unless it actively encourages use of end-to-end encryption wherever feasible.

Case in point: duckduckgo

I think you missed the part where I said that it's not a guarantee.

Obviously, it's not a guarantee. They can still profit both ways. But if they have another means of profit, then there is the possibility that they're not dead set on profiteering on your data.

This is still not good enough for me though. Self-hosted or nothing as far as I'm concerned (Social Networks).

muyuu: Absolutely right (although, depending on the social network and how federation is handled they could possibly sell your data even if it's self hosted). If you know of any other good self-hosted social networks I'd love to hear about them. Feel free to email me; I may or may not see it in the deluge of comments here (see the about page on my blog).

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