Reminder: You Are The Product

A major decision highlights a key concept: users aren't customers. Products are built for customers.

The Teardown

Tuesday :: January 14th, 2024 :: Approx. 3 min read

👋 Hi, this is Chris with another issue of The Teardown. In every issue, I cover how we interact with technology that powers our day-to-day lives.

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Another Moment For A Simple Reminder

I wanted to write in-depth about the Meta decision to reduce content moderation across its product suite.

That post isn’t yet ready.

The decision highlights numerous sensitive topics and trends from today’s always-firing news bazooka. And I need to be very precise and clear with my language about or around those topics. Or, perhaps as this post illustrates, maybe I don’t. Let’s table that point for now.

There’s something else to consider.

I see what looks like a strange contradiction: praise or complaints about Meta’s decision to reduce moderation across its social media properties, on various social media properties.

And, in the decision’s aftermath, I’m reminded of a simple question that ties to the core of any social media company’s strategy.

Are you the customer, or are you the product?

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Users Aren’t Customers

I didn’t mention the word user. So many people use social media. They’re users. But they aren’t customers.

Why? The customer is the person or organization that exchanges dollars for goods or services. Social media companies sell advertising products to customers that use those products to reach their customers - i.e. social media users.

Those customers are other companies of all shapes, sizes, and views. They buy the ability to target consumers across the world using a plethora of knobs and dials. And, thus, a company like Meta is organized (more than anything) around maintaining that customer base. Growing it, too. Robust user data informs robust advertising products that help grow the reach and sales of customer’s business.

So, one very narrow view of Meta’s decision wraps what I just described: revenue maintenance. Meta’s reducing the chance that outside (perhaps political) organizations upset its revenue stream and trajectory.

The bet and strategy is also that users won’t migrate elsewhere or stop using the platform (all products) en masse.

Mark is probably right.

I’m not sure what to think about the other implications of the decision. Using free speech as a driving force or a cover fogs every corner of my brain.

What is free speech? Who decides what we can say or not in public, in private, or in private-communities (i.e. social media).

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