The Era of Free Social Media Is Over

Cost of entry is no longer just your attention

Image: Badly edited by author

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If the product is free, you are the product.

It’s the defining phrase of the current era of social media. It’s the idea that because we aren’t paying to use the service, we, the users, are the product. The cost of entry is not monetary; it’s our eyeballs and our attention. As we scroll, tap and swipe, we give away thousands of data points, which the platform stitches together to create sophisticated models that enable brands to target users with unprecedented accuracy.

In reality, you are the one being sold as a product to advertisers.

For the longest time, we were naive about the true cost of giving away our data. We happily complied to access the ‘benefits’; unrealistic standards, lowered productivity, fake news and damage to our mental health. And while we did, the top brass of these social media companies laughed themselves into untold riches. Meta earned $113 billion in ad revenue in 2022, which made its overlord, Zuckerberg, filthy rich.

But, in the last few years, cracks have appeared in this once impenetrable model. User growth is stagnating. Many of the platforms are struggling to remain relevant…