"It is very similar to companies like Google and other internet companies. When you go and search on Google you don't pay for that. But sometimes you click on an advert and Google makes money on that"
About this Quote
Zennstrom is doing something quietly radical here: normalizing “free” as the default price of the internet while reminding you that free is never the business model, it’s the bait. By reaching for Google - the most culturally legible example of frictionless utility - he borrows its moral alibi. Search feels like infrastructure, not commerce; you don’t feel the meter running. That’s the point. The comparison isn’t just explanatory, it’s reputational: if Google can be trusted as a neutral gateway while being an ad machine, then Zennstrom’s own venture can be framed as similarly benign.
The phrasing “sometimes you click” is doing a lot of work. It shrinks monetization down to an occasional, almost accidental act by the user, as if revenue is a light byproduct rather than the engineered outcome of design, targeting, and behavioral prediction. The subtext is consent theatre: you chose to click, therefore the transaction is fair. What’s elided is everything that makes “choice” on the internet squishy - default settings, persuasive interfaces, data collection, and the way attention markets turn human curiosity into inventory.
Context matters: Zennstrom is speaking from the early-to-mid Web 2.0 mindset, when ad-supported platforms were becoming the dominant template for scaling services fast. The intent is investor-friendly and regulator-proof: position the company as consumer-first (“you don’t pay”) while legitimizing extraction (“Google makes money”) as a proven, almost inevitable logic of the medium. It’s a pitch for a social contract where users pay with attention and data, and the bill arrives wearing the mask of convenience.
The phrasing “sometimes you click” is doing a lot of work. It shrinks monetization down to an occasional, almost accidental act by the user, as if revenue is a light byproduct rather than the engineered outcome of design, targeting, and behavioral prediction. The subtext is consent theatre: you chose to click, therefore the transaction is fair. What’s elided is everything that makes “choice” on the internet squishy - default settings, persuasive interfaces, data collection, and the way attention markets turn human curiosity into inventory.
Context matters: Zennstrom is speaking from the early-to-mid Web 2.0 mindset, when ad-supported platforms were becoming the dominant template for scaling services fast. The intent is investor-friendly and regulator-proof: position the company as consumer-first (“you don’t pay”) while legitimizing extraction (“Google makes money”) as a proven, almost inevitable logic of the medium. It’s a pitch for a social contract where users pay with attention and data, and the bill arrives wearing the mask of convenience.
Quote Details
| Topic | Internet |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Niklas
Add to List
