Five Decades Later, and the Audience is Still the Product

“If you’re not paying for the product, you’re not the customer – you’re the product being sold.”  This idea is at the heart of the concept known as audience as the product.

It’s an old quote, that is often brought up when talking about advertising. One of the earliest instances of this idea is in this 1973 short video by artists Richard Serra and Carlota Fay Schoolman called Television Delivers People. 

The video is a critique on popular media as a control tactic, for the benefit of “the mass corporations and those in power”. It’s interesting, because the two artists actually bought some airtime to broadcast this almost 7-minute piece, playing it on the medium it actually criticizes. 

The video is just text scrolling on the screen over some generic muzak (i.e. elevator music). Viewing it in 2026 on YouTube of all platforms, has a certain sense of ominousness to it, I think. 

Here’s the text in full:

“The product of Television, Commercial Television, is the Audience. 

Television delivers people to an advertiser. 

There is no such thing as mass media in the United States except for television. 

Mass media means that a medium can deliver masses of people. 

Commercial television delivers 20 million people a minute. 

In commercial broadcasting the viewer pays for the privilege of having himself sold. 

It is the consumer who is consumed. 

You are the product of t.v.

You are delivered to the advertiser, who is the customer. 

He consumes you. 

The viewer is not responsible for programming——

You are the end product. 

You are the end product delivered en masse to the advertiser. 

You are the product of t.v.”

Five decades later, the medium might have changed, but the sentiment still rings true. It just shifted from traditional media into social media. One could argue that nothing has changed – the audience is still the product.

The Audience is Still the Product

As an advertising professional, and someone who has been famous (infamous?) for using social media in the Philippines, this critique rings true. This is a reality that we have to navigate as advertising professionals, as there has to be a certain set of standards we need to keep in order to prevent abuses and uphold the well-being of the general public.

Traditional media has had its share of regulations to prevent these abuses – however, with the rise of social media, these are starting to become outdated. 

Nowadays, the metrics might have changed, but the audience is still the product. This report from the U.S. Federal Trade Commision (FTC) on September 2024 confirms, with actual data, what we’ve known already for a few years now.

Social media and video streaming companies harvest enormous amounts of our personal data and monetize it “to the tune of billions of dollars a year”. And we hand all of this over willingly just to get our daily fix of memes and cat videos.

A Pressing Reality for the Social Media Capital of the World

This US report is of particular interest for us Filipinos, as we were known at one point as “the social media capital” of the world. In a 2018 study of creative agency We Are Social, the Philippines is #1 on the daily time spent on social media, at an average of 3 hours and 57 minutes everyday. 

According to the latest Digital 2026 report, Filipinos still ran among the highest in the world for digital and social engagement, with studies showing an average of 54 hours of digital media use per week – one of the top global figures, second only to Kenya.  

What’s worth noting in this report on Philippine internet use is that Facebook, the most popular social media platform in the country, has an ad reach that now covers an estimated 81.9% of the total population. However, because Meta only allows people aged 13 and up to use Facebook, this ad reach extends to more than the entire eligible audience according to the platform’s own data, indicating saturation. 

Based on the report, Facebook had around 95.8 million users in the Philippines in late 2025. Almost all of them are reachable with ads. The population of the Philippines is at around 117 million, which means that roughly 82% of all Filipinos get targeted by Facebook ads. And these are just those ads that Facebook recognizes as legitimate, not those ads and promotions from influencers or organic users.

Five Decades Later, and we are Still Being Delivered

Half a century after Television Delivers People, the scrolling text feels less like a critique and more like a diagnosis that holds true today. The medium changed – from broadcast TV to social media feeds – but the underlying “transaction” did not. We still don’t pay with money; we pay with attention, behavior, and our personal data. 

The audience is still the product – and now, tracked more precisely, segmented more efficiently, and sold at a scale Serra and Schoolman could not have imagined in their wildest dreams. 

For Filipinos, this reality hits harder. We often frame this reality of being among the most digitally-engaged populations in the world as a cultural quirk, or even a point of pride. But when nearly the entire eligible population is reachable by ads on a single platform, the negatives that come with it become a constant backdrop to almost all Filipino’s daily life – misinformation, disinformation, biases, and commercial pressure bombard us as soon as we pick up our phones and scroll. 

The Framework Needs to Be Updated 

Don’t get me wrong – social media is not inherently evil, nor is advertising inherently abusive. The problem is that there is currently no dedicated regulatory framework that governs social media platforms in the same way traditional broadcast media is regulated.

There are existing legal frameworks that touch on digital and online activities, like data privacy, cybercrime, children’s protection, and even election campaign conduct. However, lawmakers and government agencies have repeatedly called for specific legislation to regulate social media platforms, content, and algorithms – this indicates that existing frameworks are insufficient for today’s digital ecosystem. 

So the question is no longer whether “we are the product”. That much is settled. The real question is whether we are willing to accept being only that – or whether we change the system to make sure that we are recognized as people as well. Not just deliverables, but citizens with agency, limits, and rights.