2011: The Year the Free Ride Died
Joe Brockmeier,
ReadWriteCloud,
Dec 30, 2011
There has been a lot of talk over the last year about the idea that "you are the product" of the free social networking sites such as Facebook. This is quite accurate; in exchange for offering you these services for free, the companies aggregate your personal data and sell it to corporate marketers and intelligence agencies. But it is a mistake to suggest, following, that this means "the end of free". For one thing, even if you pay for these services, and any online service, they will still collect personal information and sell it. This comes about, not because the site is free, but because the company offering it is a commercial for-profit entity. And that suggests the flip-side of free: online services where, instead of being the product, you are the owner. My own website is like that, my cooperative newspaper will be like that, public services (like some online courses, Wikipedia, etc), are like that, and more models will emerge. This is not the year free died. It's the year we saw the commercial web for what it really is. And didn't like it.
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