In December of 2004 I was searching on Google for lyrics when I noticed amongst my search results an offer for free ringtone downloads. I’m not the kind of person who cares much about having a fancy ring on my cell phone (after all, my Nokia 3310 only plays monotone rings, and besides, I’m too old for such silliness), but it said “free” so I decided to explore.
When I found the song I wanted to download, the instructions said, “Enter your cell phone number to get this on your phone.” A few moments after I did so, my phone beeped indicating I had a text message. The message informed me that the ring tone had been downloaded to my cell phone. Then I simply selected my new ringtone for my “Normal” profile on my phone, and voilà, Smoke on the Water plays whenever I receive a call!
A great free service, right? Not so fast! By all appearances it was free. After all it said it was free. And I never gave them any means by which to charge me—I mean they don’t even know my name, my address, certainly not my credit card number, and I never entered into any legal agreement with them. The only information I gave them was my cell phone number (in fact, what’s to keep me from putting in someone else’s cell phone number?). It was inconceivable to me that it could be anything but free.
One additional comment. People need to realize that there are ways of exploiting people where the cost of redress exceeds the value of the loss. It is important to understan that in our complex mass market economy, IN EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE SITUATIONS SOME COMPANY/ GROUP/ PERSON WILL FIND A WAY TO TARGET THESE AREAS OF VULNERABILITY AND MILK THE POPULACE. There is simply no way to get around this. If it is possible to get away with something that provides profit, that thing will be done.
That’s why the blogosphere and the web can be really important. It is a way of increasing the price of those little incidents so that they are understood to be something much bigger.