With news of Unroll.me selling user inbox info to Uber, lots of people are repeating "if you're not paying for it, you're the product."
I've said before, and will continue to say, that that is the wrong formulation. Sometimes you pay for it and you're still the product – look at US ISPs. Sometimes you don't pay for it and you're not the product – free software.
The real question is whether a software or service empowers users, which can't be boiled down to whether you paid.
@xor definately true on paid services where you are also the product. I like to think of payment (especially for FOSS) that it is a product I want to see being sustainable.
I do sort of expect rolled up usage stats (not my personal info) being used for "free" services, or at least ads being shown, as something has to still pay for the service. The usage terms should be clear though.
