All these things have value . . . and not because Mrs Bucket wants all the gossip from around the world.
It might say "free" but you might not realise the value of what you're paying with until somebody uses it for profit
• Imagine seeing an advertisement in a magazine with a photograph taken by you.
• The same amount of time you spent scrolling mindlessly may have been spent by somebody else to learn to develop the app that engrosses you.
• Your smoking habits are obviously valuable to somebody who would provide you with life assurance. But that also makes that information valuable to you to keep private!
Before you pay for that "free" service, consider the worth of the "private" video call you're about to make.
Google keeps asking you for tips and reviews ?
Imagine some alternate universe where the value provided by a network actually got returned to the network providing it . . .
If attention is what they want . . .
Then the service you get for free needs to be able to retain your attention by keeping you numbly engrossed or satisfied. If you're not you can withdraw your attention and stop paying it.
