Search Stefan's Blog for Stuff

Monday, January 11, 2021

I will eat my free lunch AND have it!

I see a massive debate about the new WhatsApp Terms & Conditions and how Signal and Telegram are supposedly better as they do not harvest data to be sold. Ok, so far so good.

The way I see it is that WhatsApp (WA) provides me with a service. One that works day and night, highly reliable and so far never had any glitches. And so far they charged me USD 1.99 per year or so.

Again, it is a service. And therefore, they need to make money. If anything, the servers need to be maintained, salaries paid etc. That can be done via:

- In-app advertising (Shudder!!!! That is the reason why I hate Line and WeChat)

- Subscription fees

- Data gathering and sales of it

When I see people on Facebook / Instagram: they post EVERY move they make. They do that voluntarily. And they have a problem when their data is harvested? Uhm... dunno...

Go ahead, make my data. What is the worst that can happen? That I am being shown an ad for tampons on FB? Which I can simply ignore? This is a  small price to pay for a service that I depend on, that I like.

No comments: