You Are the Product
“What this means is that even more than it is in the advertising business, Facebook is in the surveillance business. Facebook, in fact, is the biggest surveillance-based enterprise in the history of mankind. It knows far, far more about you than the most intrusive government has ever known about its citizens. It’s amazing that people haven’t really understood this about the company. I’ve spent time thinking about Facebook, and the thing I keep coming back to is that its users don’t realise what it is the company does. What Facebook does is watch you, and then use what it knows about you and your behaviour to sell ads.”
This is a long read, but well worth your time. I saw it linked in three different places before I finally read it and all those who praised are correct. I'm not a Facebook user and just yesterday had a conversation with friends about how I've come to realize that is my choice and because of it I miss things. I need to see people either in real life or email with them to know what's going on in their lives and to be honest, I'm OK with that. Reading this piece made me even more glad that I'm not on it.