[wodenokoto]

Bridges are worthless if no one is crossing it. By crossing a bridge you are working for free.

A Mozilla employee once put it a lot better: "privacy is a currency for which the user doesn't know the exchange rate". We are buying a service from Facebook, and we pay in privacy without really knowing how much we are actually paying.

[pc2g4d]

You crossing a bridge actually lowers that bridge's utility to others---eventually it will become too full and nobody else can cross at a given moment.

You using Facebook basically creates value for you and others, including Facebook itself.

[randomgyatwork]

I don't see the comparison with the bridge, the bridge doesn't make money by being crossed?

Isn't your second point supporting the claims of the article?

[wodenokoto]

No. The currency point clearly states that you are paying for a service, but you don't know by how much. Maybe that old painting in the attic didn't seem to be worth a lot, so you should it at a yard sale for $5, only later to find out it was worth millions. Maybe you thought your privacy had low value and traded it for online services, only to find out, you could have asked for so much more.

The article claims that you are working for free to make facebook money (which - at least to me - implies you deserve a kick back).

The bridge example is to show that things not being used are always worthless, so saying that Facebook only has value because of its users is a pointless statement. A bridge not being crossed is also worthless.

[dizzy3gg]

you don't know you're paying for it when you walk across a bridge?