21–30 of 42 posts
Free access to a company's services is not a fundamental right.
> In effect, users are expected to pay up to €228 a year to preserve their fundamental right to privacy No, they are expected to pay that to use services offered by Meta. I don't see the same people complaining that you need to pay Starbucks $5 for the "fundamental right to coffee". Pay money to use the services, or pay via watching ads, or delete the app. This expectation that everything on the internet needs to be…
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> In effect, users are expected to pay up to €228 a year to preserve their fundamental right to privacy No, they are expected to pay that to use services offered by Meta. I don't see the same people complaining that you need to pay Starbucks $5 for the "fundamental right to coffee". Pay money to use the services, or pay via watching ads, or delete the app. This expectation that everything on the internet needs to be…
Those are not equivalent and I wish people would quit pretending that they are equivalent. People "expect" things on the internet to be free because Meta and its ilk are saying they're free and then doing a myriad of shady things on the backend. Not because users are naive and entitled. Saying so does a disservice to the way the entire interaction takes place and the asymmetry that exists.
Money exchanged for goods is a very straightforward and honest thing. This is not.
Estimated users of Facebook: 3 billion. Meta annual revenue: $120 billion
3 billion × $200 is significantly more than Meta's annual revenue.
There's paying for a service and there's being ripped off.
Is this really true?
Or is the truth a "fee to stop seeing ads" and this article a big clickbait lie?
(Genuinely asking.)
Some quick googling: Estimated users of Facebook: 3 billion. Meta annual revenue: $120 billion 3 billion × $200 is significantly more than Meta's annual revenue. There's paying for a service and there's being ripped off.
> In effect, users are expected to pay up to €228 a year to preserve their fundamental right to privacy No, they are expected to pay that to use services offered by Meta. I don't see the same people complaining that you need to pay Starbucks $5 for the "fundamental right to coffee". Pay money to use the services, or pay via watching ads, or delete the app. This expectation that everything on the internet needs to be…