| | The Panopticon Artists |
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< | The Structure of a Swindle |
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> | “The Form of a Swindle: Something for Something” |
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> | In Arthur Leff’s Swindling and Selling, Leff observes that swindlers and conmen never claim to offer their targets “something for nothing.” Marks are not so easily fooled. An unsolicited promise of free goods would immediately arouse suspicion: the mark would wonder what’s in it for the offerer. For the scheme to succeed, the swindler must explain why he will also benefit from the proposed transaction, thereby rendering the offer more credible to the mark. Thus, a convincing swindle almost always takes the form of a deal: “something for something.” [1] |
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< | “Something for something” |
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< | In Arthur Leff’s Swindling and Selling, Leff observes that swindlers and conmen never claim to offer their targets “something for nothing.” Such gratuitous offers are hardly believable to the target, especially coming from strangers. Offering up something for nothing arouses suspicion: the target will wonder what’s in it for the offeror. To succeed, the swindler must explain why he will also benefit from the proposed transaction, thereby rendering the offer more credible to the target. Thus, a convincing swindle almost always takes the form of a deal: “something for something.” [1] |
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> | The Social Media Swindle: Something for Nothing? |
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> | A common refrain about the social media business model is that “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product. The mantra’s underlying message is not just that social media companies commodify their users, but also that they lure in unsuspecting users with the promise of free services. In other words, social media companies seem to swindle users by offering them something for nothing. |
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> | This account of the social media swindle contradicts Leff’s idea that swindlers never offer to simply give something away. If social media companies are in the business of swindling, they seem to be defying Leff’s logic by offering something for nothing. Does this mean that the social media swindle is an exception to Leff’s theory? |
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< | Social Media's Methods |
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> | The Social Media Swindle as an Exchange |
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> | I believe that there is no need to carve out an exception for social media in Leff’s theory. It is more illuminating to view the social media business as an ordinary swindle, in which the swindler cuts a deal with the mark. |
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< | The Conventional Theory and its Limitations |
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> | On this view, the social media swindle consists of convincing users to give up their personal information in exchange for social media services. Users know that the social media company is primarily concerned with its own interests. However, social media companies succeed in persuading users that exchanging personal information for the amenities of a social media account is a good deal. |
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< | A common refrain about the swindling exploits of social media companies is, “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.” In so far as this rallying cry condemns the deceptive and dehumanizing nature of the social media business, I am in complete agreement with its message. We have all read extensively about how social media companies commodify their users by spying on them, selling their attention, and manipulating their behavior. However, I think the expression “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product” can be misleading for two important reasons. |
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> | Social Media’s Not So Secret Business |
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< | First, the expression suggests that there is something inherently questionable about anything that is distributed for free. The logic of the slogan is that if you’re not paying money for something, and it’s valuable, you must be paying for it in some other way, because you could never get something for nothing. Moreover, the free product or service you use must be part of some kind of scheme to derive value from you, because no one would ever provide a product or service without expecting value in return. These rationales reflect the common folk-economic wisdom that you can never get something for nothing (a belief Arthur Leff refers to as the social equivalent of the first law of thermodynamics). [2] |
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> | There is hardly any illusion that social media companies are selflessly giving away their services. It is common knowledge that social media companies make money via advertising. it is also common knowledge that social media companies count among the largest corporations in the world. Moreover, it is widely known that social media companies collect information from users. Anyone who sees a tailored list of recommended friends, videos, or products is probably at least vaguely aware of being tracked in some way—how else would the recommendations be so tailored? Additionally, through widely publicized news stories, like the Cambridge Analytica scandal or the recent Congressional antitrust hearing, more and more people are becoming alert to the degree to which social media compromises their privacy. |
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< | Second, I think the expression in question suggests a misleading and potentially harmful explanation of our decline into technological dystopia. The story is that we leap at the chance to use social media because it is free and we don’t realize that we have to give up anything in exchange for it. We don’t realize we are giving up anything for it because we don’t realize we are, in fact, the product. Hence, the need for a maxim to enlighten us about how free services inevitably commodify us. It is important to note that, in this contrived story, what leads to our ultimate demise is failing to understand that we can never get something in return for nothing. |
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> | These considerations cast doubt on the idea that the social media swindle is driven by luring in unsuspecting users with the false promise of free goods. Users flock to social media and stay there even though they are generally aware that social media companies are profiting off of and even tracking them. |
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> | Swindling the User out of Personal Information |
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< | Toward a New Theory |
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> | The social media swindle, then, is not about unsuspecting users falling prey to the false promise of getting something for nothing—this makes out users to be more ignorant than they are. Rather, the swindle consists of convincing the user that keeping personal information private is less important than maintaining a social media account. Although the user may only have a vague understanding of the privacy risks social media poses, it is essential for social media companies to persuade the users that these risks are far outweighed by the benefits of social media. Users who maintain active social media accounts, whatever reservations they may have, have apparently accepted that social media is worth the costs of whatever profit-making scheme is likely going on in the background. |
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< | Thus, the popular “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product” mantra appeals to the common belief that you can never get something for nothing. This mantra embodies a theory about the nature of the social media swindle, which posits that valuable services can never really be free, but that ignorant social media users fall for the false promise of costless goods without awareness of the non-monetary price they are paying. |
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> | Under this theory, it is easier to understand why people still use social media, and why so many embrace new forms of social media, no matter how widely publicized and grave the misdeeds of social media companies are. Even if users realize that they are commodified and manipulated, and that social media companies profit from them, many maintain a sense that the convenience and benefits of the services they receive are worth the tradeoff. |
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< | My contention is that this theory is completely backwards. We need only refer back to Arthur Leff for an explanation as to why. According to Leff, the belief that you can’t get something for nothing is ubiquitous. As a result, straightforwardly gratuitous offers make for bad cons. Most people are too shrewd to be lured by such a conspicuous gimmick. It is therefore doubtful that the thrust of the social media swindle is giving out services for free. If there really is a swindle at play here, we cannot accept a theory of it that depends on consumers’ oblivious acceptance of anything offered for free. |
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> | Moreover, if the crux of the swindle was simply the alluring promise of free goods, users could easily abandon social media once they realized that they were being commodified and ripped off. The revelation that social media was not actually free would undermine the con. But many people who suspect that they are being commodified and ripped off are not moved to delete their accounts. |
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< | Perhaps, then, users know that the social media companies have something to gain from them, but have nonetheless been swindled into thinking they are getting a good deal. Under this theory, it is easier to understand why people still use social media, and why so many flock to new forms of social media, no matter how widely publicized and grave the misdeeds of these companies are. Even if users realize that they are commodified and manipulated, and that social media companies profit from them, many maintain a sense that the convenience and benefits of the services they receive are worth the tradeoff. |
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< | Thus, perhaps the real con is not that social media companies lured users in with free services. Rather, the con consists of convincing users that trading in their data, privacy, and autonomy for a Facebook page is a good deal. |
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> | Conclusion |
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The Fruits of the Swindle
The Purpose of a Perfect Despotism
What is the end result of this swindle?
Consider Facebook, which surveils its users on an unprecedented scale. It trains its machine learning algorithms with the data it harvests from us, so that it can manipulate our emotions and behavior in precise and subtle ways. It has studied and exploited our psychological vulnerabilities, to the point where many of us can’t put our phones down to sleep. It has embedded itself into our social fabric and sown fear and discord into our politics. Within the trenches of Silicon Valley, the science of a “perfect despotism” has been invented—and to what end?
Apparently, to bring us targeted ads. Advertising revenue, after all, is the lifeblood of social media companies.
Conclusion
Thus, the immense apparatus of mass surveillance and human experimentation that social media has brought to bear on the world is mobilized for no higher or lower purpose than this: increasing the efficacy of advertising. Social media is not just a con—it is a panopticon.
This is clever and (for those of us who are in on the jokes) witty. I think too much time is spent on pointing out that Leff's world contained non-zero marginal cost goods, for which some resource inputs must be shown in a legit deal, and intangibles of uncertain but potentially infinite value like God's grace. The intermediate form of zero marginal cost good of ascertainable value he knew not in his tragically short life. I like to think he would have appreciated some of what I did with his ideas in that world, as you are doing now. But it takes fewer sentences to adjust his ideas than you spend raising valid but fixable objections.
The "and in the end it's only advertising" position is one way of thinking about what's happened. But if one tries to see it from the other side, where the Parasite with the Mind of God is, advertising is a metabolic product—emissions to stimulate more behavior. These collaterally produces metabolic input, revenue, for its helper cells in the interstitial body of the superorganism that is humanity plus the network plus the parasite.
In this case, "swindling" and "selling" are biological processes as well as social ones, representing the share of overall welfare taken by the parasite, the global resources it consumes—which a human moralist would consider a swindle—and all the selling that constitutes the "in the end it's only advertising" ecology.
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> | The idea that the social media swindle is driven by the promise of free services is very misleading. This conception of the swidnle erroneously suggests that distributing valuable services for free is inherently suspect. Moreover, looking to Leff, we can also see that this understanding of the swindle is untenable: the promise of something for nothing arouses suspicion. A more plausible model of the social media swindle acknowledges that users are aware that social media companies are self-interested actors seeking to collect data and make money. A key move in the social media swindle is the offer of genuine exchange: personal information for services.The swindle is successful when the social media companies have cultivated a society which values its services so much and values privacy so little that the the consumer gives up privacy for a social media account without hesitation. The result of this con, is the constant state of surveillance that accompanies a world of social media. Social media is not just a con—it is a panopticon. |
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[1]Leff, Arthur A. Swindling and Selling. Collier Macmillan, 1977. |