You are not a product

🍕 I’m JA Westenberg. I write essays about technology, philosophy, productivity, and what it means to be human. If you like ideas that take their time, you’re in the right place.

While you’re here, a few things I’ve built: Kerouac, a writing app | Post Through It, a solo microblogging tool | Distributism.ai, my MCP platform | Laterware, all the AI news you need | Studio Self, a thought leadership agency for founders x VCs.

You can buy my book Permissionless here.

You’ve heard the line (slogan?) a thousand times.

“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.”

It’s a clever-sounding thing people post on the very platforms they criticize and spew at the parties I am no longer invited to because I have a terrible habit of rolling my eyes, and because I have no poker face at all.

But I think the idea is wrong.

Or perhaps - it’s not wrong enough.

It lets you believe the transaction makes some kind of sense: the platforms take your data and/or your soul, but you get free cat videos. A fair trade, maybe slightly sleazy, but completely understandable.

A product.

Fine.

Products are things. Things get used, sure, but they also get shelved, preserved, owned.

All well and good.

But you are not actually the product.

You are the Mine.Read more