Column – What is perhaps most surprising is the fact that there is such a fuss. Facebook. Even on a random Sunday (last week), all current affairs programs are talking with indignation about the criminal practices of Facebook and the companies surrounding it. The generational misunderstanding is dripping off it. Paul Witteman asks Prince Constantijn if he is still a member of Facebook after the Lubach appeal. “A member is of Facebook.” Nobody says it like that, except for grandpa Witteman.
“ How can you make money if your users don’t pay for your services?
84-year-old senator Hatch asked Zuckerberg. The question has been asked hundreds of times – also on Facebook whatsapp number list in recent days. You can see Zuckerberg’s incomprehension about this question. He is silent for a moment and then answers “ Senator, we run ads .” Would the senator have understood this answer? We run ads. The senator should have understood, certainly a US senator. In America, there was resistance to viewing and listening fees like nowhere else in the world. Or cable subscriptions. Free radio and television was the motto. We take the advertising messages for granted. It is the Facebook model avant la lettre .
Collectively naive
We are collectively naive. On average, billions of users spend an hour a day on the Facebook platform and apparently no one apparently 270 billion emails are sent per day wonders how keeping the service up and running is paid for. Isn’t it time we realize that when a platform is offered for free, we ourselves have become the product? Every word we give away, every click we click, that is the catch of the platform. And so we get very sophisticated advertisements coming our way. And not only advertisements (influence on purchasing behavior) but also messages, fake or not (influence on opinion, voting behavior).
Why don’t we make BlockBook, It should be possible. In fact, Socialx is already doing it. Financing shouldn’t be a problem. Facebook raised $40 billion in china numbers advertising money in 2017. If every user spoons in €15 per year, you have the same financial space as Facebook, without advertisers.A Facebook based .