This is great! I’ve been wanting to make a storage rack for ink pads, but have been too lazy to create the SVG. Thanks for creating and sharing this.
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My rule is a little different: If Cory Doctorow comes up with yet another witty aphorism that spreads like a virus through people endlessly parroting it without ever thinking through how hollow and useless it actually is, and this is the best I can do, that’s why he sells books and I don’t.
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Now now don’t confuse me for a Doctorow guy. He was right on this one in general.
Very few things are truly free on the modern internet. Best to keep your eyes open.
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I may be misunderstanding what you are saying, but I think that phrase (or some fairly obvious variant of it) predates Cory Doctorow. These days, he would say: even if you are paying, you are probably still the product. Detailed explanations of that have featured regularly in his posts for at least several years now.
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Yeah looks like Cory Doctorow didn’t coin that one at all.
https://www.reddit.com/r/arttheory/s/Ma38gwR34U
(in which I just learned the origin of that phrase. Also don’t trust reddit so who knows)
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Fair enough, it just sounded foolish enough that I assumed it was CD.
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Sounds foolish? I’d disagree and think it’s both dead on and the right tone for the people who most need its core message. Be circumspect of free online offerings. If you’re not paying then they’re getting value out of you somehow — and often that’s in the form of personal info and privacy sacrifices.
But that doesn’t roll off the tongue or resonate with people who are less aware of these issues so you meet them where they are: “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product”. IMO people are generally far too complacent wrt these issues.
I find it strange that you’re trying to dispute the veracity of this; you worked for Google, a company that is the gold standard for this business model.
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