Should we pay to use Facebook or should Facebook pay to use us?

Or YouTube.  Or Flickr.  Or Google.  As you continue to post information in various forms, you are most likely seeking some form of response.  Views, shares, attention, likes, comments.  You do this on a very regular basis, and your doing so provides these entities with their most essential assets: publicity and intellectual-property.  It is through combining these two assets that these free-to-use websites can actually make much of their money through targeted advertising.

 

One of my books talks about how much we actually provide to social media sites.  They are completely dependent on us.  Anil Dash, a vice president with Six Apart posed a question that stuck out to me: "Should Flickr compensate the creators of the most popular pictures on its site?"  I actually really considered this question and did so considering that compensation didn't have to be a monetary value.  But I ultimately realized the answer in any case is no further compensation is needed for either party.

The internet now is a "culture of generosity."  Users willingly take the time to provide information and publicity while the social media sites provide an open outlet to do so.  The users and social media sites obviously both benefit from the exchange.  As long as terms are legal, the benefits between the users and sites are beautifully and exactly equal.

In the case of the Flickr question, yes, the creators of the popularized pictures did bring publicity to the site, BUT the amount of publicity the pictures brought to Flickr is equal to what Flickr as a medium brought to the pictures.  The more I think about this, the more I hear the Newton's Third Law:  To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

I feel that Adam Smith's concept of "the invisible hand" included in The Wealth of Nations is very present here.  Our economy is self-correcting when exercised legally, including in the realm of the internet.  Users of social media unavoidably give up their right not to be used.  The key is that if the process is legal and both parties is willing, how can it not be fair?