ATTENTION PLEASE: You Are Being Sold
Tech companies are making money without selling you anything. If they aren't selling you anything and they are making money, they must be selling someone something. How else are they earning cash? They are selling you. More specifically, they are selling your attention. You've probably heard the phrase time is money. Your time and attention are a valuable commodity. You go to work and get paid, sometimes hourly or by salary. Mainly, money is closely related to time. If you are using a free online service, consider that your actions and attention may be sold for profit. Recently, this has become more widely known. People don't really care that much. I frequently hear "they already have all my data." To be fair, it's true. They already have a profile on you. Time as a commodity is not as easy to quantify as a physical product like toilet paper or a car. What makes it quantifiable is the massive amounts of data collected from your usage of these platforms. Th...