We’ve gone full cycle. I joined YouTube TV several years ago. Great price. Access to most of the news I want to watch. Availability on all platforms. Even while traveling. Nice.
Today, ahead of the end of the free world, Google, the owner of YouTube TV is raising their price by $120 a year. Not much, right? BUT!!!
What if marketing said something more like,
“Hey, people are struggling. Money is tight. Let’s do our part, let’s LOWER the cost.”
But that’s not where Google’s management is thinking. Increase revenue. But the message I read, amid the anti-trust actions against Google’s Advertising monopoly, is fk your feelings. We need more money.
Google is not on your side or mine. It might be on the side of the incoming administration, as billionaires are on their payroll as well as their board of directors. Increase prices! Sure thing. I just read Chipotle is doing the same thing. Raise prices NOW.
I’m going to have to look at getting my terrestrial signals of MSNBC and CNN without YouTube TV. I’m not watching the news anyway. A RSS reader of the NYTimes keeps me informed of any chaos being introduced by the incoming administration.
Okay, Google, I’m breaking up with your TV service. Let’s see. I still pay for Google Fiber. I use GMail. I like Google Docs. Why does everything good have to be killed by revenue targets and monetization?
Social media is not social anymore. It’s marketing. It’s 2% of “friends” content and 98% ads, marketing, and demographic harvesting of all of your data and the data of “friends” connected to you. You know they can do that, right? When you fill out a stupid FB Quiz, “Who’s Your Hero for the Battle at the End of the World, TAKE THE QUIZ” for example, you are giving permission to the company behind the quiz (did you read the microcopy disclaimers?) to dig into your demographic data as well as mine, if we are friends. BAD FORM. Stop leaking your own information, and stop leaking mine. Thanks.
As we race toward a new dark horizon, let’s be mindful of what we consume and how we consume it. Let’s pay attention to where we spend our money and our attention. And I’ll help you a little with the fine print. If you post it on any social media account, they OWN IT. They (Facebook, TikTok, IG, Pinterest, et. al.) can resue your images, your text, and your likeness to promote other products and better still making ads look like you are personally endorsing a product you “liked” on Facebook.
Use browser plugins that help kill tracking data. Get off Google products. Join the EFF, we’re really going to need them going into ERA 2025. Or should I say, Error 2025?
Stay strong. Stay hopeful. And practice safe hex for you and your “friends” on social media.
John McElhenney — LinkedIn
