I never understood this thing:

"If something is given to you for FREE then the product is YOU."

You can be the product either way. They could be selling value to both sides. Why stop monetizing someone just because they paid you?

Also you could be a user without being a product if they get their value elsewhere. Yes, user numbers are an input to their bottom line but that's it.

Basically a MARKETPLACE has two sides. As long as one side is paying you can call the other side a "product"!

You are not wrong, but I think you are missing the point: It's a rule of thumb.

Its a reminder to be aware of of probable commercialization of their personal data by 'free' apps. Not a logicians proof.

> It's a rule of thumb.

It's a very flawed rule of thumb for information products, as the MS debate clearly shows.

Not at all. The rule doesn't state that paying for software guarantees that you're not still the product, just that if you're not paying for it, it's significantly more likely that the difference will be made up for somewhere else.

But in a free marketplace, the difference is usually made up by charging commissions on a volunary transaction by both sides, which both sides enter into because they believe benefits them. In this case, who is the product exactly? Both sides are equally "the product" and often would welcome their positions / profiles being indexed and matched together with a corresponding offer to facilitate a deal. The rest is details.

> 1. There is no such thing as a FREE meal (OS)

Windows is not free.

The perception to end users is that it is. When was the last time you heard a /normal/ end user even considering that Windows had a price as part of their computer build?

And neither is macOS - it's cost is baked into the hardware.

You can install it and run it without a license, this causes a watermark to appear but it's still fully functional.

Windows is hundreds of dollars. And what part of Linux makes me the product?

> And what part of Linux makes me the product?

As long as there's no provider whose product you could be, perhaps, but be careful even with Linux- awhile back, Canonical added a feature to Ubuntu where the user's use of the dashboard search function was reported back to the company [1]. That got taken out after a mass uproar, but we now know that Canonical wants to be just as creepy as MS.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.en.html

That was a big one. Luckily free software pretty much guarantees no one is going to get away with trying such a thing (unless just about everyone in the world looses sight of the main goal), it's too easy to switch. During that fiasco, I was on Arch and/or Trisquel so it didn't phase me much, currently on Xubuntu though.

Like much communication, there is something unstated but clearly implied in the expression "There is no such thing as a free meal" This is that it refers to products of commercial enterprises. Charities, for instance, do give meals away for free. Linux is produced by a volunteer, non-profit organization, and so it is free.

By the way, I have noticed that it is rather common for HN commenters to fail to pick up the assumed meanings, and jump on the words alone as being mistaken.

I don't pay for Linux.... So I'm the product? How is that working?

with Linux the 'cost' is largely the effort you need to put in to get things up and running properly. admittedly this has got a lot better over the years and the need to be a self-reliant woodsman is considerably diminished (I'm an ex-Solaris admin, so I know pain!) but like someone who chooses a classic Pontiac that they know how to maintain every aspect of it's a valuable skill and 99% of the time it'll run better and you'll have more control than someone who rents a Google self-driving car by the trip...