I realise that Google places ads in the native Gmail environment. However, when using a third party front end to embed the Google services, how does the company make money off that? When I use Thunderbird to access Gmail or the Google Calendar or when I map my Google Drive to the file explorer, how can Google profit from this kind of use?
I recommend the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff. It’s from 2018 but it is still very applicable. It explains what big tech is doing/trying to do with your data and how they intend to make money.
It’s info dense and may take some time to get through but it is very eye opening even for someone like myself that felt pretty well aware of their tactics and intentions before reading the book.
Shoshana Zuboff really was ahead of its time. So many people who were privacy conscious and therefore thought they were clever by simply thinking that Google makes money by only selling your data completely missed the scale of manipulation and control big tech has (myself included).
Google/big tech doesn’t sell your data. Google/big tech sells advertisers predictions of your behaviour, a highly refined, processed version of your data. Advertisers cannot purchase your data, only “impressions” or “views.” In an extra sinister twist, Google/big tech then uses it’s resources to manipulate you in ways such that their predictions become true.
This is why their predictions are the best, because after making them, they have a financial incentive to manipulate them into being true. It is why we naturally see more and more polarization, because after Google has sold the prediction that you will engage is a specific type of content (e.g. right ring rabbit holes), it is financially incentivised to make that a reality, and therefore further push you in that direction, to make their prediction true.
How to “improve” prediction using behavior modification - ScienceDirect - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207022001066