Comment by isodev
14 days ago
> I feel … I have been tricked
Everything “free” coming from a company means they’ve found a way to monetise you in some way. The big long ToS we all casually accept without reading says so too.
Other random examples which appear free but aren’t: using a search engine, using the browser that comes with your phone, instagram, YouTube… etc.
It’s not always about data collection, sometimes it’s platform lock-in, or something else but there is always a side of it that makes sense for their profit margin.
Hiding shady or unexpected stuff in the TOS is illegal in the EU and other countries for example. So just because some companies behave amoral, that doesn’t mean we just have to accept hundreds of pages of legalese being able to dictate us.
I don’t think there is something amoral here. Niantic explicitly sends players to take videos of places for rewards. It’s not like it’s done in a sneaky way.
Being somehow surprised they actually plan to do things with the data they have you gather is a bit weird.
No, it isn't. Stop normalizing this behavior. There was no consent. You expect that you are playing a game, not working for them for free.
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Niantic have never made a secret of the fact that they're crowdsourcing to enrich their mapping data (eg data from Wayfarer and Ingress was used to seed Pokemon Go and Wizards Unite). I can't see it as a sudden gotcha, as it's practically their USP.
We don't have to accept it no, but also you shouldn't be dumbfounded when it happens. Always assume everyone is doing it.
only a sith speaks in absolute. plenty of especially free AI products out there
Which are surely, totally not ingesting every iota of data they can get their hands on (legally or not, including your prompts) for training and the soon-to-be born “embedded ads”.
They're free because they're either gathering more data or trying to capture the market.
and who is funding them? how are they paying for their servers? a product can't be free, someone somewhere is paying for it. the main question is why are they paying for it.
No such thing as a free lunch.