This is basically a rephrasing of the meme "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product".
That meme is grossly outdated.
It's entirely possible (and happens) that you can be both paying for a product and be the product that is sold on (by having your data aggregated, analysed, fed into other systems etc).
Isn't this part of what Big Data actually means? It's essentially a way for a company to get paid at both ends (which I don't have a problem with), but it can create competing incentives between users and companies (which I do have a problem with).
This debate is far more complex than just 'free vs paid'.
That meme is grossly outdated.
It's entirely possible (and happens) that you can be both paying for a product and be the product that is sold on (by having your data aggregated, analysed, fed into other systems etc).
Isn't this part of what Big Data actually means? It's essentially a way for a company to get paid at both ends (which I don't have a problem with), but it can create competing incentives between users and companies (which I do have a problem with).
This debate is far more complex than just 'free vs paid'.