"If you aren't paying, you're the product" is exactly correct when dealing with commercial software, GPL and otherwise. That's the idea behind the word "commercial." Commerce is taking place and somebody is making money, whether by offering paid support for GPL software at one end of the spectrum or by selling you out to advertisers at the other end.
I distinctly remember opting in to Apple's music suggestion service. Was that true for AVG's customers?
There's one problem with that philosophy. You can pay for a product and still be the product. If a product wants your information, there's a pretty good chance it will be sold to 3rd parties.
Windows 10 is a good example. It's trying to catch up with Facebook and Google with its new data sharing policies, even though you pay for the product. At least the setting were in 1 place.
> Commerce is taking place and somebody is making money, whether by offering paid support for GPL software at one end of the spectrum or by selling you out to advertisers at the other end.
RedHat is a commercial operation that makes money by selling support contracts for GPL software they produce. But I haven't bought a support contract even though I use some of their software without paying anything, so am I the customer or the product?
You're neither. You're not a part of their business model at all.
Your relationship with Red Hat is very different from your relationship with Apple, Microsoft, Google, or AVG. That should go without saying, but apparently it doesn't.
> You're neither. You're not a part of their business model at all.
Sure you are. Platforms have network effects. They're better off if you use their software than if you use Windows, even if you don't buy a support contract.
So the exchange is that you get free software and they get network effects. It's not an adversarial relationship where you have conflicting interests regarding how much they'll be paid or how much privacy they'll take from you, because network effects don't hurt you (as long as the vendor is not a monopoly) -- if you're using the software then they help you.
Sometimes there is a free lunch.
> Your relationship with Red Hat is very different from your relationship with Apple, Microsoft, Google, or AVG. That should go without saying, but apparently it doesn't.
That's the point. "If you're not paying you're the product" is thereby disproved. You can have a relationship with a commercial entity in which neither is true.
Worse, the implied alternative is also wrong. You can be paying and be the product, as you are with Windows 10.
If you want something to take home, it's this: Stop patronizing companies that convert your privacy into their money.
I distinctly remember opting in to Apple's music suggestion service. Was that true for AVG's customers?