For many, the analysis stops here. "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Google locks in users, sells them to advertisers, who are their co-conspirators in a scheme to screw the rest of us. 

But that's not right. For one thing, paying for a product doesn't mean you won't be the product. Apple charges a thousand bucks for an iPhone and then nonconsensually spies on every iOS user in order to target ads to them (and lies about it):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

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