[ha292]

By and large, the main product of the Web industry is the user. Content or code that is sold as a property or a service is used to lure in the product (the user) and sell the most-commercially viable aspect of the product (that is the information about their "categories") to the highest bidders (advertisers).

Is it too much of a stretch to say that this mode of user-segregation-and-information-selling is pretty much a new form of "commoditization" of human beings.

[harmonicon]

I would say it's more like the commoditization of the potential to extract profit from human beings. It is hard to blame the big Co though; most people happily give up information voluntarily for the services the websites provide. I am routinely chided for shunning social networks. Meanwhile, do-nothing congress are set upon legislating a new sanction on Iran.

[headgsaket]

IMHO best comment on hackernews of 2014. Eyeballs is an inaccurate description, it was imported from the tv era. Online privacy is fading because it's the source of user information commodity that is being mined/traded/exploited. A brave new world.