We are paying for it in:

* personal data & attention

* opportunity cost (b/c their market domination deters investment interest in alternatives)

* advertising costs (each $ that businesses have to spend on advertising is a $ taken from R&D, profits which get reinvested in the economy, and/or consumers' pockets)

Just because you don't pay directly with money doesn't mean there isn't a cost.

Sorry, but this seems like nonsense to me. You are telling me that the curtailing of your attention by an app which you voluntarily install and voluntarily use is a ‘cost’ such that you are a stakeholder in the app?

Just gonna leave this here -- https://markmanson.net/attention

This is a great article. But it’s irrelevant to this discussion.

Oh I can complain just fine. Just because a corporation monetizes via a different means than selling software doesn't mean that I forfeit my ability to gripe about it (see Facebook).

They've also taken all the air out of the room such that there's very little ability for competitors to gain traction. So it's not like there's really many real options out there.

I don't really see a problem in complaining about a software product, especially when:

  - It was actually BETTER before
  - We're basically giving them a list of high-priority UX stories to make their product better

(edit: formatting)