Yet you pay for Netflix and your internet and phone bill. But these could be given away by surveillance advertising firms to snoop your watching, surfing, and calling habits.
As the saying goes, if the product is free, YOU are the product.
> Yet you pay for Netflix and your internet and phone bill. But these could be given away by surveillance advertising firms to snoop your watching, surfing, and calling habits.
You do know most of those companies do both charge you and sell your data? Almost the only companies that don't sell your data are big tech advertising companies.
"When you don't pay you are the product" doesn't mean "If you pay you aren't the product", you still are the product the company is just double dipping.
I think the saying is oversimplified (or else, chrome isn’t a product but a byproduct). It makes a company to make the complement of their product cheap or free so that people can use their product more effectively. Google Search and Ads rely on people having a browser. Similarly, Apple’s Phones and laptops are benefited by including a good first party browser. Imo, a lot of technologies are better as free byproducts of monetized technology than as being some company’s products: there are endless lists of great technologies that never found a market or disappeared post-acquisition.
The majority of Netflix users over the next few years will be advertising based users. That just doesn't bring in enough profit because people are not willing to pay enough subscription to cover what those things actually cost.
Your hypothesis has a bit of a gaping hole where "real world user behaviour" sits.
My ISP is selling my data as well. Netflix is snooping on what i watch for their ads. Chrome is free. Bigger fish to fry than my web browser snooping on me like your bank selling all credit card transactions your car snooping on your driving and your mobile carrier selling your location.
As the saying goes, if the product is free, YOU are the product.