The free things are the most expensive!

[Rabata]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

Although these things are seems to be free, I don't think they are free. Even though we don't pay directly for each of the sites, we are using the internet by spending money. Moreover, we are buying those products by seeing various advertisements on social media. By doing this, those platforms are benefiting, which is why I think these online services are never free. I think nothing is available for free in the world. Nothing is free except oxygen. Natural resources are also not free. Because to get all those resources, ordinary people have to use their money. Except oxygen, people have to buy almost everything.

[Antotena]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

Data is one of the most expensive thing on the internet and Google with other financial fintech has monopolize it in a way that they have the biggest data scrap in the world. I mean who doesn't use Google search for other their search engine, even the countries that has restricted Google has their own search engines they use and what they don't want Google to do is what they are doing to their own people, they eventually sell this data because it will be useless holding it when there is demands for it for marketing purposes.

Facebook might be free but you can also give and take from goole, not the privacy aspect of it but you can make use of it and he generates revenue, instead of allowing Facebook to take all the revenue, you can do some content and get paid for your work instead of using it to post your images and videos that might not have any meaning but just regular attraction to people especially your friends or your cycle or mutual friends.

[sana54210]

Every single person who uses these "free" software are aware of the fact that you are just a number to them for marketing and they sell marketing by using you as their user.

So, there isn't really anything secret, you think that a person who shares literally every single part of their life on instagram, would mind getting ads based on their own shares and likes and so forth? Of course not, people are aware of the situation and fine with it. Being a product is a lot better for people than paying for it, they are fine with it, if any of the ads makes sense to them enough to buy it, then they will, if not then they won't.

You have the option to use it forever, without paying a penny, and never clicking on any of the ads if you do not want to. Selling your data is not something that marginal, because they are not selling it to kidnappers or murderers, they are selling your data to marketing agencies, and that's fine, any agency can have any information about me they want.

[Mikky02]

People who knows what they learn and gain from the internet don't even mind how expensive it is because of what they get from the net everyday and you don't expect such service to be completely free a price most be paid like it is said there's nothing free anymore even if it is free something most be done literally speaking since I was born I've never seen anything benefiting that's completely free

[Alone055]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

There's nothing new about that. If someone has sense, they would know that as soon as they started using the internet and accessing these platforms, their privacy was thrown out of the window, and they give them consent to do whatever they want with the data. Talking about the companies selling our data, I don't think you understand how it actually works. These companies, such as Meta or TikTok, don't need to sell your data to a third party to get paid for it; they use your data to attract advertisers on their platform so that advertisers can utilize it to promote their products.

Have you ever wondered why you start getting ads about something that you search for on these platforms? It's because they track your activities, and they allow advertisers to target you for similar products, it's called targeted advertising and it's a very famous way of promoting your products these days through social media platforms and other advertising sources such as Google.

[RockBell]

Although these things are seems to be free, I don't think they are free. Even though we don't pay directly for each of the sites, we are using the internet by spending money. Moreover, we are buying those products by seeing various advertisements on social media. By doing this, those platforms are benefiting, which is why I think these online services are never free. I think nothing is available for free in the world. Nothing is free except oxygen. Natural resources are also not free. Because to get all those resources, ordinary people have to use their money. Except oxygen, people have to buy almost everything.

I agree with you that nothing is actually free. You will need to know that anything that is free. It's actually not free. There is a price that is supposed to be paid for it even when you talk about nature, the prize will pay for our nature. Is to take proper care of it the moment you don't take care of it well the consequences will be severe and that is why we are actually battling some things currently because of our negligence we never chat for so many things just because they are free. We miss the

And there are people that they love free things too much and it has actually affected them just because of the independency on what is free about they don't want to do anything else and wait for by the moment they understand that nothing is free. You will definitely pay back someday makes everything more interesting accuracy. So. When it comes to free stuff like you said it is not a bad thing, but it should be actually minimize because they are a lot of consequences except holding time to time.

[Jating]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

But this is not something new in this generation, specially with the boom of the internet and other social media apps that become spy ware itself. So if you really don't want to be the next victim then don't used it simply as that.

However, we are already glued and stitched already with this giant social media platforms and it's hard to get out now because you are going to be left in the closet. So are still paying for the product though, I mean if you're not going to buy anything from ads, then they are not going to make money out of you. So I'm not sure about the title of your post about free things, they are still not that expensive and everyone can enjoy it in their lives.

[Zoomic]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

You are right, but this doesn't apply to everybody. People can actually utilise these free platforms to their own advantage only if they will stop being just consumers/products and try to be creative. Everything will just be 50/50 for both the owners of free platforms and the users of the free platforms. While the owners make money from users' data, the users who are smart would in turn make even more than they spend just by creating a market/ brand for themselves on those platforms.

There are lots of things to gain from these free social media platforms, ranging from educational materials to advertising of businesses, skills or products. In this this era where everything is advancing technologically, I would really be surprised to see anyone who just sleeps on the internet without gaining anything from it.

[Churchillvv]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

If you're not a producer on the social media then you're likely a product sold to others and that's totally true however some of the guys who understood the algorithm by virtue of intelligency has been advising users of every social media to try as much as possible to make some kind of products to be consumed in the internet hence making themselves useful and getting paid too for using the social medias.

This platforms are best used for marketing and you should always be the producer and not the consumer in every case.

[shinratensei_]

People who knows what they learn and gain from the internet don't even mind how expensive it is because of what they get from the net everyday and you don't expect such service to be completely free a price most be paid like it is said there's nothing free anymore even if it is free something most be done literally speaking since I was born I've never seen anything benefiting that's completely free

completely agree, internet and server need money too to buy and mantain, there's no way these companies are running it for free, consider the data as the money to pay for the bill.

honestly, i'm even surprised that some of these big apps are still surviving to these days, like how these company just keep giving what actually is free cloud storage and server to host people's content for free and still making millions. because everytime some youtuber or any other content creators are pumping their content, the content need to be stored somewhere and it needs money that's not measly either since it will be streamed by millions.

[UNTO Chain]

I agree with this statement because I have heard of people who use these apps and websites as well. They don't realize how much they are being tracked by them.

[UNTO Chain]

I think this is true. I have seen many advertisements on my social media accounts based off of what I like or search for online.

[moneystery]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

do you think that they created the platform just for charity to the people, so they don't care about profit? just think logically, their purpose in creating it is not only to create an online platform that can be known to the people and is useful for the people, they also need money to cover operational costs and as a source of their wealth and for many other things. so it is very natural when they do business with the platform by including advertising or data collection.

if you object that you are used as a product by them, you can stop using their platform. no one forces you to use their platform.

[eightdots]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

If you're not a producer on the social media then you're likely a product sold to others and that's totally true however some of the guys who understood the algorithm by virtue of intelligency has been advising users of every social media to try as much as possible to make some kind of products to be consumed in the internet hence making themselves useful and getting paid too for using the social medias.

This platforms are best used for marketing and you should always be the producer and not the consumer in every case.

Knowing how to access the right resources and benefiting from these resources is one of the favors a person can do for themselves. Of course, being on the producer side is more beneficial in many ways, but it is also possible for those on the consumer side to benefit depending on their purposes of using the internet. Since social media is generally based on the concept of consumption, people have become robots and started to watch the same things every day. If the user knows the things that will benefit them on social media and watches them, it will be beneficial for them even if they are on the consumer side.

In some cases, each user can be considered as a product. This is how data is collected and advertisements are prepared according to this data.

[|MINER|]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

We must should remind in our mind that nothing is free in this world, somthing you are getting for free that is mean they were giving you just the purpose of marketing. Google, Facebook, Tiktok they were the giant who were generating huge revenues by only free content.

Here they were also selling our data to the business companies as ads sense and then we show the promtion of companies and buy their products that's mean ultimately we were spending our money buy purchasing internet and as well also buying product so nothing is free here in the world.

[AmaGold70]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

As long as we have our Data on every scroll or click is being monetized, we use Google and tiktok for information and entertainment, for every information or entertainment we get from the net we are being exploit for it no matter how free it made sound, nothing is free, We give our Data in exchange for the information and entertainment we consume and if you ask me it's a win win for both parties.

[Faisal2202]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

That's well said because these are non orofit organizations which are non profit because they don't have to pay huge taxes like the GPT and many other platforms have declared themselves as non profit so they would save themselves from huge taxes while their yearly reveunes is already in millions or in  billions.

We are the product and I doubt they are just making 50$ per person a year they must be making more than that.

[STT]

Its free to me because I dont give them personal information, I never understood why you are filling out a free survey for them and giving them such personal information free.    Generally I dont mind advertising vs up front payment, I think its fairer on the consumer as not all people are going to use a product the same amount.

This free dynamic has moved into gaming also where it involves voluntary DLC and appearance options.  On mobile it can mean a form of gambling or pay to play so Im not so keen on the free mobile gaming dynamic, that can be dangerous to kids who arent aware they are being asked to pay to win.

[topbitcoin]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

They offer services and pleasure that we certainly get but on the other hand they get benefits in terms of traffic and of course the privacy that we have for now is actually very difficult so in this case we cannot deny that there is a price that is appropriate or that must be paid when we really want something.

It is a business that is sometimes not realized for them, especially lay people who sometimes say that everything in the form of free services like this without conditions but in the end we realize that apart from our privacy, we also end up becoming an object because after all for now we as internet users and users of several applications like the ones you mentioned have become an object for their benefit in the business that is done so even though we consider some search engines or social media free but in the end we ourselves are the ones who provide benefits for the business they are developing.

[Sticky Bomb]

Google and TikTok may seem free, but every click and scroll you make gets packaged into a "user profile" and sold to advertisers. Take Facebook, for example—it makes about $50 per user per year just from their data. In the internet age, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

yeah it’s “free” but really you are paying with it with your data and your continuous use of these platforms is what pays their bills you just don’t notice it because you are using it to your benefits so it seems free but in reality almost nothing is free anymore these days

so many things that we don’t notice for example ads that are shown to us may seem nothing to you but may actually affect you a lot heavier than you think

Yes, they make money in their own way from their users, for example, in Facebook you run ads which we pay money for, watch reels, upload images and videos, even streaming on tiktok uses a while lot of data. They have signed agreement with these service provider companies and everywhere themselves with the data that users burns to keep up with the platforms.

I cannot agree it's free especially with the increase in tariffs in my country and we now get less data for more money and we still use these data to engage with social media. So in the end we spend good money to use it.