[afnog] Another Perspective - Kentik's View on the Facebook Outage

[Philip Paeps]

On 2021-10-09 15:43:36 (+0800), Bill Woodcock wrote:
> On Oct 9, 2021, at 8:50 AM, Philip Paeps <philip at trouble.is> wrote:
>> On 2021-10-09 13:48:41 (+0800), Mark Tinka wrote:
>>> On 10/9/21 02:29, Markus Akena Wipfler wrote:
>>>> No argument there. But FB is not for free. We are the product. We 
>>>> pay with our privacy.
>>>
>>> I know making this statement of "being the product if it's free" has 
>>> gained a lot of popularity in recent years, but for me, it doesn't 
>>> track. It sounds clever to say, but it's wrong.
>>>
>>> Yes, you are giving up some things by being a patron to a service 
>>> that you do not pay money for. But Facebook is not the first product 
>>> where we have done these things. "Free with advertising" has been a 
>>> model for a very long time, long before Facebook, and long before 
>>> the Internet, in which there is no indication that users are treated 
>>> like "the product".
>>
>> I agree that the users are not Facebook's products.  As far as I'm 
>> aware, Facebook does not engage in human trafficking after all.  The 
>> users' data are the product.
>
> Ah, so the users are the cows, which Facebook milks for the product?
>
> Or the users are the hosts, which Facebook bleeds for the product?
>
> Just trying to figure out where we’re taking the analogy, if we’re 
> developing it by community-editorial-process.
>
> :-)

I think milking would be the best analogy.  Though bleeding is certainly 
more accurate than human trafficking too.

However obtained, the raw materials are processed and packaged in a 
variety of ways to cater to the wishes of the different customers.  And 
Facebook has a vested interest in keeping the source of the material 
productive to maximise revenue.  I'm sure pastures and fodder fit in 
this analogy somewhere.  And manure.  And stud fees.

More "accurate" doesn't necessarily mean "better". :-)

Philip

-- 
Philip Paeps
Senior Reality Engineer
Alternative Enterprises