“Free” isn’t free

The World Wide Web has serious problems: it invades our privacy, pelts us with fake news, and aggravates our anxieties, while making a handful of big companies enormously powerful. Where did these problems come from, and what should we do about them?

“Free” isn’t free explains that a major cause of all these problems is what it dubs the Original Sin of the web: collecting personal information about users and selling it to marketers. It argues that although better laws could help, the key to a better web is for us users, rather than marketers, to become the customers.

Written by a software developer and data scientist, “Free” isn’t free is concise and cogent, with practical advice for people who build the web, public officials who regulate it, and all of us who use it.