that isn't capitalism

@ManAnimal No, but we're not the customers of gmail or discord. We're their product.

correct

but we are consumers

just not customers

hence the caveat

@ManAnimal Nope, we're not consumers of discord or gmail. Either, we're only product because discord and google makes money of our usage of gmail and discord through advertisement, selling our data, search history etc. etc.

Tim "sensationalist" Poole

The ship is burning my dudes...

@Redxl i've noticed that more than onces

Tbh Tim is no better than the dino media

Seven, we buy from the companies that pay discord and gmail

so we most certainly are

and data is not money

@Mikey That only makes the counter point even worse...

that's barter at best

Data is money though

social credit at worst

You can sell data

no different than in the USSR

you can sell sex too

doesn't mean you should

@ManAnimal Maybe you do. But I haven't bought anything from either of them. I'm just a user of free service.

But this brings me to the point about industry co-dependency. Discord and gmail depends on the revenue from advertisers who want to purchase our data and being allowed to expose us to advertisement.

I’m not saying you should I’m saying it’s still money

that's 'an argument of exceptions' Seven

irrelevant

point is that it is a closed-loop

@ManAnimal Okay then, if you think that gmail or discord makes most of their money from their users buying things from then then I guess you could make that argument. But we'd have to look at actual sales figures to be sure.

if no one has any money, if people don't use discord of gmail, then those companies also go broke

it's a problem with the concept of 'dollar voting'

@ManAnimal You're catching on, young padawan 😉

it doesn't work without compartmentalization due to interdependancy

If we, the users don't have money to spend, then there's no profit to be had for the advertisers who want to advertise to us to buy their shit.

"You’re not sure if you absorbed any of that as magicka, but it did heal your cuts and poison ivy. You ask if it cured your alcoholism as well, but she tells you no, they don’t really have a thing for that yet."

true; that is also further complicated because it is very hard to quanitfy how ad revenue translates to actual sales

most firms treat advertising as just 'a cost of doing buisness' and will spend on it whether it pays off or not

@ManAnimal Now you've got to ask yourself, do you think the majority of users on discord or gmail are wealthy captains of industry or heirs to millionaires with huge sums of money to spend?

Personally I don't think so. The vast majority are people with pretty regular jobs. Jobs that can and will eventually be automated.

If their incomes go, then so does the reason for advertisers to pay discord and gmail money for their data and the ad-spots.

That's always the conundrum to consider

same with FB, Seven

it's 'salt lick in the woods' meant to simply keep tabs on the animals that come by and take a bite

@ManAnimal I agree, it is hard to quantify. Personally I actually consider it sort of a "capitalist religion". Advertisers are basically the religious snake oil salesmen who promise an increase in sales with their recipe of marketing campaigns. But none of them can really prove that their work actually increase sales at all (or that a lack of a flashy, expensive marketing campaign would DECREASE sales)