The Greatest Heist You Never Noticed
When we think of theft, we imagine something tangible being taken: money, jewelry, a car. But the greatest heist of the modern era wasn’t carried out with a crowbar or a mask. It was carried out quietly, invisibly, through our screens.
For the past two decades, Big Tech has been strip-mining humanity itself turning our conversations, habits, relationships, and private moments into raw material. They harvested our lives, packaged them into data, and sold them to the highest bidder.
The shocking truth is this: you weren’t the customer. You weren’t the user. You were the product.
The Economics of Exploitation
Big Tech perfected a business model unlike anything in human history. The promise was simple: “free” services. Free social media, free search engines, free email, free entertainment platforms. But there was nothing free about it.
Every “like,” every search, every swipe was converted into a data point. Each one went into vast machine-learning models that mapped out who you are, what you believe, and what you might do next. Then it was sold to advertisers, to corporations, and sometimes to governments.
The profits were staggering. Entire companies ballooned into trillion-dollar giants on the backs of human behavior. Social media platforms make hundreds of dollars per year off the average user in developed countries. Multiply that by billions of users worldwide, and the scale becomes incomprehensible. Big Tech didn’t just become powerful corporations they became the most powerful entities in history, controlling more wealth and influence than many governments.
You, Monetized
How much is your life worth? To Big Tech, it’s worth exactly as much as they can extract from you.
They profit from your attention. Every second you spend scrolling isn’t just wasted time it’s monetized time. Ads are slipped between posts, in videos, in search results. Each click, each pause, each comment signals your interests, and those interests are auctioned in real time to advertisers eager to target you.
They profit from your emotions. Platforms have learned that outrage spreads faster than joy. Division creates more clicks than unity. So algorithms favor what keeps you hooked: controversy, conflict, chaos. They shape not just what you see, but how you feel, weaponizing psychology for profit.
They profit from your relationships. Every message to a friend, every new contact added to your circle, every family photo uploaded becomes another data trail. Who you love, who you trust, who you argue with it’s all information with value.
They profit from your secrets. Your private searches, your late-night questions, your whispered concerns into a voice assistant all of it goes somewhere. Nothing is too personal to be collected.
And all the while, you earn nothing.
The Illusion of Choice
Big Tech insists you chose this. You clicked “agree” on the terms and conditions. But what choice did you really have? When the entire internet is run by a handful of corporations, “choice” is reduced to picking which monopoly mines you.
The terms of this trade were never equal. They offered the illusion of community and connection while hiding the true cost: mass surveillance. It wasn’t a partnership it was exploitation dressed up as convenience.
Shadow Control
The raw data wasn’t enough. Big Tech wanted more than to know you they wanted to shape you.
Feeds and algorithms were fine-tuned to determine what rose to the top and what sank into obscurity. At first, it seemed harmless: recommendations for videos, suggested friends, targeted ads. But soon, it became clear that entire conversations, movements, and political debates were being controlled in subtle ways.
Voices could be silenced without anyone noticing. Shadowbanning, a practice where a user isn’t blocked, but their reach is quietly throttled, became a common tactic. Content that didn’t align with approved narratives vanished from visibility.
Platforms became invisible editors of public discourse, deciding which voices the world would hear and which would be buried. They weren’t just selling ads, they were shaping culture, elections, and even the trajectory of nations.
The Numbers Game
Consider the scale: billions of users, each generating data every second of every day. Together, that data fuels advertising ecosystems worth hundreds of billions annually. One platform alone generates over $160 billion a year by monetizing its users’ lives. Another video platform generates more than $50 billion annually through advertising and subscriptions, built on content created for free by its users.
For individuals, the numbers are shocking. In developed markets, a single user can generate over $200 per year in revenue for a social platform. That means an average family of four could be worth nearly $1,000 annually, without ever receiving a cent. Extrapolated to billions worldwide, this becomes one of the largest wealth transfers in history, from the many to the few.
And what do users get in return? A free login, a handful of features, and a steady drip of manipulation.
The Power Problem
The wealth is staggering, but the power is worse.
Big Tech controls the world’s information. They decide what news you see, what ideas spread, and what is silenced. They influence elections by amplifying certain voices and muting others. They partner with governments to monitor citizens, providing the perfect blend of corporate efficiency and state power.
And unlike traditional governments, Big Tech is unelected, unaccountable, and global. Their reach crosses borders, affecting billions who never signed up to be governed by them.
Still Happening Today
Some believe this problem belongs to the past that recent reforms and ownership changes have solved it. But even today, the same patterns continue.
- Platforms still monitor every click and keystroke.
- Algorithms still throttle content deemed “unacceptable.”
- Creators still see their livelihoods erased overnight by vague policy violations.
- Shadowbanning still ensures dissenting voices fade quietly into obscurity.
From social giants to short-video platforms, from search engines to video sites, the model hasn’t changed. Humans are still the product. The profits still soar. The control still tightens.
The Uncomfortable Truth
The internet was once imagined as a digital commons, a place where humanity could connect freely, share ideas, and expand knowledge. Instead, it has become a strip mine, extracting value from humanity itself.
Every piece of data you produce feeds a system designed to profit from your life while giving you nothing in return. Every click fuels companies that sell your future as though it were inventory.
This is not an accident. It is the model. And until it is dismantled, until technology is rebuilt on transparency and freedom rather than exploitation, the truth will remain the same:
You are not the customer.
You are not the user.
You are the product.
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