Don't trust something if you can't see where it keeps its brain
Baz and I had a conversation about the games that he found on LiveJournal. The question is, "Why is someone paying for you to play that game?". This can also be expressed as TANSTAAFL - there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
I explained that there are a couple main ways we pay for "free" things: with our attention, in the case of advertising, and with our information. On the secondary level, the free stuff is a loss-leader, or someone has given you their time for their own reasons.
This question about free-appearing things seems like a good life skill to have. I am not sure where I learned such deep skepticism, but it's obviously here to stay, and I want to pass it on.
Who is paying for you to do that? Why? What are they getting out of it? What is it costing you in intangibles such as data security and privacy?
In other news, this weekend he started scripting things in his new game obsession, Roblox. It's an interesting environment, and I am super excited that he is working on even little bits of coding, just because he wants to do something with them.
I explained that there are a couple main ways we pay for "free" things: with our attention, in the case of advertising, and with our information. On the secondary level, the free stuff is a loss-leader, or someone has given you their time for their own reasons.
This question about free-appearing things seems like a good life skill to have. I am not sure where I learned such deep skepticism, but it's obviously here to stay, and I want to pass it on.
Who is paying for you to do that? Why? What are they getting out of it? What is it costing you in intangibles such as data security and privacy?
In other news, this weekend he started scripting things in his new game obsession, Roblox. It's an interesting environment, and I am super excited that he is working on even little bits of coding, just because he wants to do something with them.