Sam Oliver
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg had harsh words for those — Â including Apple CEO Tim Cook — Â who have called the social network's ad-supported business model bad for consumers, saying that such comments are "ridiculous."
"A frustration I have is that a lot of people increasingly seem to equate an advertising business model with somehow being out of alignment with your customers," Zuckerberg told Time. "I think it's the most ridiculous concept. What, you think because you're paying Apple that you're somehow in alignment with them? If you were in alignment with them, then they'd make their products a lot cheaper!"
He was referring to comments made by Cook in an open letter penned by the Apple CEO in September, in which Cook spelled out Apple's approach to consumer privacy. Apple's is superior, Cook argued, because the company does not depend on user data to make money.
"A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you're not the customer," Cook wrote at the time. "You're the product."
Facebook has not come under the same powerful privacy microscope as Google, though the social network has had its share of public relations stumbles, particularly in relation to reports of its participation in the NSA's PRISM program. Zuckerberg told The Atlantic last year that the association had harmed public perception.
"The trust metrics for all of them went down when PRISM came out," he said at the time. "This is one of the reasons we are pushing so much for transparency."
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102 Comments
I think Tim is right, if you are not paying then you are the product. But that doesn't mean advertising based business models are evil. Most ads are harmless. Just choose to pay a few bucks or choose to get spammed, whatever you're comfortable with. But always remember, as Robert Heinlein said, TANSTAALF.
Give Zuckerberg credit for being so successful at a young age. That being said, if he honestly believes that the user is not the product, then he's either flat-out lying, or in denial. Ad-supported business I suppose are a necessary evil in the world of "free" services such as Google and Facebook. They certainly made information and connecting accessible to the masses, but not for one moment am I going to sit back and let some rich-punk tell me that I'm not being played like a violin. Just fess-up and admit it, but don't sugarcoat it. Selling my info is a bitter-pill to have to swallow.
The difference between Facebook and Apple is that I elect to go and buy Apple's products. Facebook is something I only use because I have to because some of my friends are there. I tolerate Facebook, that's all. Its an ugly, disjointed and frustrating user experience. So when Facebook inserts ads in my feed for internet marketers trying to sell me their snake oil, guess what, it really, really p*****s me off. In this way Facebook is not unlike a telephone network.
He's right about one thing, though. Facebook's interests are absolutely aligned with their customers'. What he neglects to mention is that the customers are the advertisers, not the users.
Zuckerberg is deceptive. While it's true that the interests of Apple customers and Apple Inc. are not perfectly aligned, they are much more closely aligned than the interests of Facebook users and Facebook Inc. Tim Cook's point about Apple not having a financial interest in selling Apple customer's privacy is well grounded. Facebook's business model is selling their users' privacy to advertisers. Selling privacy to advertisers is Facebook's only source of revenue.