False economy What’s in it for me? Understand what makes the

Argument 8: Social media companies make a 
lot of money from what you give up for free.
You’ve probably heard the talk: soon, many jobs 
will become automated, and the people who 
worked those jobs will become redundant.
Just take translators, for instance. Today, rather 
than employing a professional translator, people 
often use free translation software such as 
Google Translate. Though such software is often 
referred to as “intelligent,” it actually relies 
entirely on information that Google takes from 
users.
Every day, millions and millions of translations, 
made by real people, are compiled by Google’s 
algorithms. Perhaps someone using Google 
Docs translates a poem from Chinese to English 
for a friend. Well, any information you provide on 
a BUMMER service is fair game, so Google can 
use that translation to optimize its own software.

---

In other words, even as BUMMER companies 
are warning that people will soon be replaced by 
robots, they’re failing to remunerate them for the 
contributions they make, not to mention the data 
they provide. Put more bluntly, the BUMMER 
machine is contributing to people becoming 
financially insecure.
The most obvious solution would be to change 
the BUMMER business model.
This is by no means impossible. Indeed, way 
back in the 1960s, pioneering information 
technologist Ted Nelson proposed a model 
where people would make and receive mini-
payments for content on a digital network.
However, this model was rejected by the people 
who contributed most to the design of the 
internet. These people insisted that software 
should be free and open, which, eventually, led 
to BUMMER’s ad-based business model.
People were initially attracted to Gmail and 
Facebook because they were free, enabling 
these companies to grow so rapidly. But, by 
getting a Facebook or a Google account, we 
agreed to be spied on, and we relinquished our 
claim to the content we produce while using their 
services. This wasn’t a smart trade.
The best way to reverse the damage would be to 
have people pay a small fee every month for the 
content they consume. This may sound bad, 
considering that the services are now free. But 
people wouldn’t only be paying; they’d be able to 
make money for contributions, too.