…You’re the product.
Sometimes this blog stagnates and the things that I write on a day-to-day basis must probably seem like I’m just trying to get something out there to keep my run of ‘every day’ going.
Sometimes it must seem like the blog’s like that because sometimes it is.
Sometimes I have to write because I’ve committed to writing and I guess that means that the quality of what comes out, is less than I might have hoped for when I started.
I always return back to the fact that this is just a diary to myself and maybe something that I can read when whatever ailment gets me, puts me in a chair and there’s nothing else to do but read about the things that I talked about before.
But other times I come out of a cocoon and then have so much I wanted to say here that it’s hard to decide exactly what to put down.
And so, coming up and coming next will be all the things I want to talk about, about distraction and the lack of attention and the damage that’s being caused to society by social media and everything that goes with that and the difference in the Colin who gave up social media in 2015 and the one in the parallel universe who didn’t.
I think the first thing though we all must remember is if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.
Did no one ever wonder why Facebook is free?
Does no one ever wonder why Netflix isn’t?
Didn’t you ever wonder why Netflix doesn’t have adverts?
Netflix charges you money and provides you with a product, that’s a fair situation and you can cancel if you don’t like it.
Facebook doesn’t (for Facebook read any social media channel).
Strava used to be free for athletes and now it isn’t. That was one of the bravest things that I’ve seen.
For a free media channel like Strava to go to subscription meant that they would lose about 75% of their members.
But the decision is to not flood their members with adverts, it’s to give them a product that can help to make them better, that they have to value and pay for.
Once you understand this concept it becomes easier to see through the madness that we find ourselves in, in society.
The only thing that Facebook wants is your complete and undivided attention at all times.
Whatever they say and whatever they do, that is their goal.
The more attention they have, the more of it they can sell, the more money they can make.
It doesn’t matter that the algorithm has designed itself to such a point that it understands that only sensationalising everything that it sends you will keep you on the site for longer, that’s an irrelevance in terms of making as much money as possible.
It doesn’t matter that it interferes with elections (Brazil is the most hideous example of this that you could possibly imagine). It doesn’t matter that it spreads fanaticism and radicalisation and racism and sexism and misogyny and hate, that doesn’t matter because it increases attention grab.
YouTube is exactly the same.
In an experiment carried out to prove this point. If you type holocaust into YouTube in most search engine areas the first 4 videos you get will describe the terrible things that happened in the middle of Europe, in the middle of the 20th century.
The 5th video will deny it, and it keeps you watching.
Because you’re not paying for it, you’re the product and because you’re the product you have to be sold for as many seconds of the day as possible.
It used to be that we had regulations against advertising to children.
Blog Post Number - 3098
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