• gnufuu@lemmy.ca
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        5 hours ago

        No, they don’t. You give them data by using their service. They then earn money with that data.

        • village604@adultswim.fan
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          5 hours ago

          Which pays for the costs associated with providing you the service without you directly paying for it.

          This has been the tradeoff for a long time. If the terms aren’t acceptable, then don’t use the service.

          • gnufuu@lemmy.ca
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            5 hours ago

            So do they or do they not lose money if I use their service without paying for it?

            • village604@adultswim.fan
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              3 hours ago

              Without them having a different source of income, yes. Web hosting, IT staff, etc. cost money. Or if the free users outnumber the paid users to the point where the costs aren’t covered by paid users.

              If you run a gas station and the only people who visit just need to use the bathroom, the business loses money.

              I’m not a fan of sites funded by advertising and data collection, so I don’t use them. But let’s not pretend that users of such sites get nothing from the arrangement.

              • gnufuu@lemmy.ca
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                2 hours ago

                You’re implying that this is about small businesses. Big corporations don’t compare with a gas station. They make ridiculously large amounts of money off of ignorance, apathy, corruption, or us being too distracted by struggling to survive.

                • village604@adultswim.fan
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                  46 minutes ago

                  No, you’re inferring that I’m talking about small business by mistaking my analogy.

                  My point was that providing a service free of charge means the company pays the costs of the service. Some companies offset this by collecting data and providing ads.

                  You’re free to not use services that use this business model.

    • RQG@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      I guess privacy in the US could be considered a meme by some.

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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    9 hours ago

    When deleting you receive a list of all servers/companies your data existed on and you’ll get fifty dollars per list item so you can at least get some of your cut of the cash, as it was your name they were selling back and forth to each other. /s