Illusion vs Reality of “Free” Stuff
All of us loves “free” stuff don’t we? However, the word “free” is used so much that now it is being absued by organizations who advertise things as free but they really are not. This was my realization in the past few months and I’d like to share the same with you in this blog.
Illusion of “Free Speech”: In the good old 🇺🇸, people proudly love the idea of “free speech” but is it really “free” ? No I don’t mean that you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire, I mean can you really talk freely and honestly about your opinions and views without getting banned from a platform where it took you hard work to build your reputation. Let’s say you have political views that you would like to share with your fans but they don’t align with some other people’s ideas, these other people can be a frigne group of users or even the leaders at these companies who prodly taut thier platform as enabler of free and open communication but one day decide to ban you just coz they don’t like / share your opinion. Does that honor the idea of free speech?
This is not much different than what happens in 🇨🇳 🇰🇵 where if you say anything that even slightly upsets the status quo — you not only loose access but your life can also be in danger and people in the west like to lecture and critize the state of affairs in these countries without failing to realize situation is no different in their own countries, what an irony.
Illusion of “Free Market Economy”: The infamous Reddit revolt of 2021 where Reddit WSB community went against the Mega Wallstreet Investment and Brokerage Firms provied the idea of “Free Market” is totally false.
When the big time wall street investors started to loose money in the same game by the same rules they had been winning for so long, they decided to cut off access of millions of users from the popular trading app, Robinhood so no one could sell GameStop (NYSE : GME) shares as they were short selling it. That left millions of traders mad at the realization that the market and platforms that promise free trade and access were only “free” for small players until it served the interest of the bigger players.
Also we can look at the 2008 Great Recession where big companies were bailed out and very few people were held responsibile, the same people who played a great role in casusing the bubble to profit from it. These two incidents goes to show that the market economies aren’t really free.
Illusion of “Free Software on the Internet with exception of OSS etc”: Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps, Android OS, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook.com offer their platform and services to billions of users for free, are they running a charity or some kind of generous non profit?
How do they afford to to offer such large tech services for free to us? Guess what, there is a famous quote which goes like — “If it’s free online, then YOU are the real PRODUCT”, more precisely your “Attention Span” is the valuable currency that you are trading with these companies, they in turn sell that to thier “advertisers” who by colluding with “free” platform providers manipulate and bombard you to “Buy” things you may not need or want. It is all done under the wonderful of illusion of offering people free servies out of the kind and generous heart of these organizations and thier leaders. If you’re not convinced, recommend watching the 2020 documentary “The Social Dilemma”.
So next time someone tell you this is “free”, remember there is no free lunch!
