“Our relationship with many of the Internet companies we rely on is not a traditional company–customer relationship. That’s primarily because we’re not customers. We’re products those companies sell to their real customers. The relationship is more feudal than commercial. The companies are analogous to feudal lords, and we are their vassals, peasants, and – on a bad day – serfs. We are tenant farmers for these companies, working on their land by producing data that they in turn sell for profit.”
