You can also not be the product as a free user (like on Weebly). The above quote implies that as a free user, you are always the product, and that's just not true.

Honest question, how is a free user not sold by Weebly?

It appears they have a for pay designer platform. It also appears they are funded... are they done raising rounds and/or not considering going public? The reason I ask, is because every free user is being sold then. Their usage/stat of adoption is being sold to investors and others in order to increase their value/price. I imagine someday, Weebly will find a way to place ads/marketing material in front of those free users (even if its just in periodic emails to those users).

EDIT: I could be wrong about them eventually placing ads in front of the users... but I imagine it and expect it to happen someday. If not, cheers!

I started Weebly. I plan to never place ads in front of free users.

As a company we are profitable and have been for over 4 years. We do plan on going public some day. But I find it a bit of a stretch to say that as a free user we are "selling you" as adoption statistics. As a free user, you are getting a lot of value, you pay nothing in return and you have no negative side-effects either (advertising, data gathering, etc)

The reality for us is that free users tend to be really happy with the service we are providing them for free. And they tend tell their friends about us. And some of their friends eventually pay us money for our Pro service (~$3-7/month).

Does that mean you are being sold? Absolutely not. You don't have to tell a friend. As a matter of fact, you don't have to do anything nice for us at all, and we'll still provide something of value to you for free.

But if you are pleasantly surprised at how easy it was, and you end up telling a friend on your own, that's great! And it justifies the cost of the free users of our service from a business point of view.