For decades the most powerful mass medium has been television. The Internet has dramatically shifted our access to information. Nowadays, society reflects upon itself by using Internet search engines and social media.
Yet, both of these fundamental channels of communication, access, and synthesis are primarily supported by advertising. A pithy expression explicates the resultant skewed perspective: You’re not the customer; you’re the product. That has, over time, been changed to a widely used expression:
If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.
In 1973 the artists Richard Serra and Carlota Fay Schoolman broadcast a short video titled “Television Delivers People”. A soundtrack played while sentences in white text on a blue background slowly scrolled upward. The messages displayed thematically matched the saying under exploration:
Commercial television delivers 20 million people a minute.
In commercial broadcasting the viewer pays for the privilege of having himself sold.
It is the consumer who is consumed.
You are the product of TV.
You are delivered to the advertiser who is the customer.
He consumes you.
The viewer is not responsible for programming ——
You are the end product.
Of course this has changed a bit with more “on-demand” choices for TV and so forth but there is still plenty of advertising that comes your way, now presented to you at no cost with your paid subscription to your cable or satellite company!!
Perhaps I am missing something here with recent news of a breach of privacy for 50 million people through Facebook and a loss of trust by subscribers who have a free account on Facebook and shareholders responding recently with sell orders at a record rate.
Facebook claims it is “It’s free and always will be” right above where you are suppose to sign up. “…Free and always will be” yet the company has a market cap of over $460 billion (down some from over $500 billion beginning of this month).
If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.
Is anyone to believe, whether you are or are not “on” Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, etc…that you had a right to privacy?
Did anyone ever see the ads for socks or purses or shoes or MBA degrees or trips or hotels or rental cars or cruises or sweaters or laptop covers or restaurants or tools or college education or the lottery when keeping in touch with friends and family or checking to see what their favorite politician is “tweeting”?
Even toll roads have billboards.
Pathology meetings (among millions of other meetings and gatherings) often have soft drinks and coffee to drink while looking at the posters. Those are paid for by someone else. Perhaps a breakfast or a lunch or a dinner.
If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.
Is anyone to believe that your “likes”, “favorites”, “check ins”, pictures, posts, rants and raves, messages of birth and death and illness and health were not being used by someone else to direct you to goods or services?
It is just me or an incredible coincidence that when I was diagnosed with heart failure and arrhythmias six months ago, shared that story, images and joined discussions and “liked” similar stories that my Facebook and Twitter started to present ads for Kardia Mobile by AliveCor, a mobile app to get instant EKGs on your phone and cardiologists and hospitals in my area?
What do you think happens when you hashtag coca-cola or pepsi or sprite? Or check-in at an airport or restaurant or amusement park? No one uses that information?
Someone is providing a platform to do that while not being able to share that information with someone else to collect, aggregate, mine and refine to make a product to sell to others?
If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.
Excuse me while I search “Chicago Cubs”, like “Sprite” and look for used pathology textbooks @usedpathologytextbooks #liverpathology.
