[autoexec]

> If you're not paying for something that clearly has a cost to the entity providing it, then value will be extracted from you in other ways.

Then we should get used to the idea that even when you're paying a lot of money for something the entity taking your money will still do everything and anything to extract even more value from you including collecting and selling your data, remotely disabling features of the thing you paid for so they can start charging you a monthly fee to get them back, aggressively infesting the product with ads, pushing updates that degrade the service to incentivize you to upgrade, etc.

The greed of companies and their shareholders will never be satisfied so ultimately what we need are real consumer protections in the form of powerful regulation and enforcement.

[gtowey]

I agree. I'm not defending the current state of affairs by any means.