Most of the services we enjoy from Web2.0 companies are offered “FREE” of charge. Friendly reminder here….NOTHING’S FREE!! The cost for free services may be hidden, but ultimately each User pays for the services in some way.

Users have for the most part stopped reading the Terms and Conditions to which they agree when they register at free Web2.0 sites. Many Users have NEVER reviewed the Terms and Conditions, but in their defense, the deals early on were pretty fair. Google swore they’d do no evil and began rolling out service after service - for FREE!

I appreciate what Google’s founders were attempting to do when they pledged to do no evil. Ironically however, because ‘do no evil’ was characterized as a standard by which to act, and not as an ideal towards which to strive, people came to count on it. Users quickly viewed it as the norm for Google and other web companies.

Users were happy to let Google use their data to improve search results, to filter spam, and whatever else Google might do under the terms of the User Agreements. For a short while it even seemed that Google’s duty to investors was aligned with its sense of responsibility to its Users and its interest in doing no evil. Eventually however, Google was forced act in keeping with its duty to investors and short term profitability.

Deficient (adj.)

[Latin deficiens from deficientem, present participle of deficere, to desert, fail]

A present participle is a verb form denoting ongoing action. In Modern English, present participles characteristically end with –ing.

The Latin word “deficere” is formed from de meaning “down, away” and facere meaning “to do, perform.” Deficiency is evidenced in one’s actions, taken in view of the actions for which one is known capable. One who is deficient fails to perform in a way that, but for the deficiency, would otherwise be attainable.

Are you still with me, or are you intellectually deficient?

Now consider the word ‘factitious’ (adjective) -

• produced by man rather than by natural forces
• not produced by natural forces; “brokers created a factitious demand for stocks”
• Created by humans, artificial; Counterfeit, fabricated, not produced by natural forces.

A factitious situation or event is the result of a person’s intentional manipulations. For example, when the “[B]rokers created a factitious demand for the company’s stock,” the demand for the stock was driven not by the actual performance of the company, but by the representations and actions of stock brokers who were intentionally manipulating people’s demand for the stock.

The word factitious comes from the Latin ‘factitius’ which means “artificial.” Factitius comes from the present participle of the Latin word facere, “to do.” Consider the possibility that all human goings-on are factitious. Factitious’s root means ‘to do!’

Stay with this line of thought, the payoff is worth it. facere comes from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) base *dhe- “to put, to do.” Do you see where this is going? Have you solved this little etymological mystery?

In Proto-Indo-European *dhe- meant “to put, to do,” while in Latin de- means “down, away” and ‘facere’ means “to do.” Put the two together and you arrive back at “deficient.” a word encoding how long ago Latin put down PIE languages, acting to keep them down today!