“If you are not paying for it, you are the product.” To what extent is this true for Quora users?

A dictum from Michaelis Maus which is quite true of the Silicon Valley manifestation of technocommunism. True of Google, True of Facebook.

… Except, Quora once again has an idiosyncratic take on it:

Do Top Writers not see ads on Quora?

They don’t: so the content producers who Quora values the most don’t get ads. In that regard, they are not directly monetised…

… but they are still commodified. Oh, Good Lord, are they ever commodified…

Scott Welch: When do you think Quora is going to end? by Nick Nicholas on The Insurgency

  • Why does Quora not care when users leave? Because content written by the Ian York’s of the world will be generating revenue forever.
  • Why does Quora not appear to care about writers? Because we are disposable bots who exist only to game PageRank.

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