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Discussion on: Are we Developers helping Google to build an unstoppable monopoly?

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nepeckman profile image
nepeckman

I think you're overestimating how much money these companies make off of user data. Facebook makes an average of $11 per user. I'd pay $1 a month for a social media site that respects my privacy. The problem is that the average user doesn't understand this transaction is taking place. This lack of understanding has allowed Facebook to gain critical mass and makes it difficult to convince people to pay the $1 a month. It's funny that you should bring up Google maps as a free service, because while it might be free to end users, businesses have recently been complaining that Google has hiked prices. The dig at Dropbox was also pretty off base. Dropbox makes its money off of people paying for better plans, not selling information to third parties or targeting you with ads. Their privacy policy is pretty easy to read, and it seems like they just collect information relevant to themselves (how often you use your profile), and don't sell it.