“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” That slightly glib phrase often regurgitated at tech conferences, is perhaps something worth contemplating on for a few minutes. It speaks of course mainly to social media companies, conceived by a generation of technologists who understood and harnessed the viral power of social networking online. And it‘s been a hugely successful and profitable enterprise. No longer are they the idealistic college nerds, but CEO’s of multi-million dollar corporations. The deal is simple. They loan you a free patch of land within their walled garden. On this land you can grow your own content like photos, videos, text, comments and you get to share them with other people who also live within the walled garden. But you don’t own the fruits of your labour. They do. And they harvest that content and auction it to other companies who want to try and sell your stuff. […]