You don't have a source for your claim either. I'm at least saying that you should recognize how Google provides you plenty of free tools like search, docs, sheets, present, maps, email, etc and entertainment like YouTube. Facebook allows you to connect with your friends, talk to people about your interests, a marketplace, entertainment from photos, videos, streams. Meta also offers Insta for sharing photos or stories and they are investing heavily into XR.
These companies do a lot and I do not think you should trivialize all that they have done by saying that they've done something bad in the past and not even say what they have done. Have you considered the people who want to work their want to actually improve people's lives working on these different projects. Have you considered that large compensation can make people ignore issues. Have you considered that people are just interested in working on the stuff that's available there.
> You don't have a source for your claim either. I'm at least saying that you should recognize how Google provides you plenty of free tools like search, docs, sheets, present, maps, email, etc and entertainment like YouTube.
I would argue none of these are free, because they use/sell your data. If it wasn't so google could not exist.
> Facebook allows you to connect with your friends, talk to people about your interests, a marketplace, entertainment from photos, videos, streams. Meta also offers Insta for sharing photos or stories and they are investing heavily
For facebook and instagram there are at least studies which have shown the harm they are doing to teenagers and children, so there is at least some established facts that show the bad influence (lets not even get into the political bits).
> These companies do a lot and I do not think you should trivialize all that they have done by saying that they've done something bad in the past and not even say what they have done.
That's a slippery slope though, at some point you can justify working for anyone because you don't want to consider their actions of the past to judge them. What about continued action though, e.g. meta burying their own studies on their affect on the mental health of teenage girls just to continue making their profits. At some point someone has to take responsibility to continue working for them (and some people are even actively involved in these decisions).
>I would argue none of these are free, because they use/sell your data
In a technical sense sure, but from the user's perspective it's equivalent to being free since the user doesn't have to do anything different compared to if it was a free service.
>meta burying their own studies on their affect on the mental health of teenage girls just to continue making their profits
Are you referring to the study that said that Instagram on average improved mental health in 12 out of 12 categories for teen boys and in 11 out of the 12 categories they were surveying for teen girls (the exception being that 32.40% of teenage girls with body image issues felt Instagram made it worse)? It was internal research which is why it was initially kept internal.
All those things you mentioned are great, sure. But to my mind, something can be useful, fun, loved, enjoyed while actively making your life worse. The obvious example being addictive drugs.
My smartphone, for example, has definitely made a lot if things more convenient. It use it all the time, for all sorts of useful things. Marvelously useful piece of technology, the smartphone. Has it improved my life? I'm honestly not sure, but my gut reaction is no, because it's ruined my already limited ability to focus(I have ADHD). It actually makes me far more productive having my phone turned off, despite how useful I seem to think it is.
My point is that something can be useful and do all sorts of things for you, but that can still be true while it's actively harmful to you. And you might not even be conscious of this about yourself, let alone most of the global population.
These companies do a lot and I do not think you should trivialize all that they have done by saying that they've done something bad in the past and not even say what they have done. Have you considered the people who want to work their want to actually improve people's lives working on these different projects. Have you considered that large compensation can make people ignore issues. Have you considered that people are just interested in working on the stuff that's available there.