Interesting Video: Free is a Lie

Lance Weatherby posted a link to this video on his blog, and I agree with him that it's interesting and worth watching.

While the presenter (Aral Balkan) is a bit over the top in his analysis of Google (e.g., I really don't think Project Tango is a grand conspiracy by Google to secretly map the inside of everyone's house), I do think the point he gets to later in the video (when he shifts from the implications of our ceding our data to the big 4 - Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter - to his thoughts on user experience) are interesting. His point about the main problem with the "Free" alternatives are insightful.

It's worth a watch!  Here's the description of the video, from youtube:

It's time for a design revolution in open technology. Companies like Google and Facebook that dominate the Internet promise us free services in exchange for the right to watch and study us; to mine and farm us. Like quarries, like livestock, we are natural resources to be exploited in a brave new digital world of corporate surveillance that threatens our most fundamental freedoms.
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There are open alternatives but they are too difficult for most of us to use.
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It is time to bring design thinking to open source and build beautiful, seamless open consumer products that are easy to use and which respect our fundamental freedoms.

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