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Err, what am I "afraid" of? That application developers won't collect usage data about me? =) I have asked numerous times for the use cases that people are wor

Err, what am I "afraid" of? That application developers won't collect usage data about me? =) I have asked numerous times for the use cases that people are worried/fearful/concerned of - this was an honest enquiry. However, nobody seems to be able to answer it. Let me tackle the things you mentioned - aspiration, ambition, preference etc. Yes, it is certainly true that some users would have the aspirations to create their own web-based email (a la Gmail), or file-storage service (a la Dropbox), or their own photo-sharing service (a la Instagram), or their own social network. However, I should point out two things. Firstly, the stark popularity of those services would seem to suggest that for most people, they have done the cost/benefits analysis, and figured out it doesn't make sense. The effort involve simply doesn't make sense for them. The whole point of webapps and most mobile apps is that they store data remotely on some service - I would posit this would be a far greater concern (if you didn't trust the app developers) than whether they knew how often you opened their app, or which features I used. Secondly - let's be honest, most of us couldn't create our own GMail, Dropbox, or Instagram even if we did have "aspirations, ambitions, preferences" to do so. We simply don't have the technical know-how, time and/or experience to do anything remotely approaching their usability, performance, reliability or collaboration features - or their scale. There is an enormous amount of engineering effort that goes into any of these services - and most people are willing to buy into the whole web-based application thing, in order to take advantage of that. I am open to being convinced otherwise - but I have yet to see a reason why the majority of people would buy into web-apps/mobile apps, and have fundamentally miscalculated the cost/benefits.

tombrossman 11y ago
When you say "Firstly, the stark popularity of those services would seem to suggest that for most people, they have done the cost/benefits analysis, and figured out it doesn't make sense. The effort involve simply doesn't make sense for them." do you understand that for many people, decisions are not carefully considered after collecting and reviewing all the pros and cons before arriving at a scientifically rigorous conclusion? It is far more likely that users just choose what their friends or work colleagues use, based on word of mouth recommendations. The 'network effect' is what this is called. There isn't much 'miscalculation' happening in these scenarios, there may be little to no calculation at all.
- victorhooi 11y ago
  I don't think you give people enough credit. Sure, it might not be as explicit as "here is a spreadsheet, with quantitative values assigned to each pro/con". However, there is certainly intuition and a decision making process involved - it may just not be the same way you or I might have done it. At the end of the day - if a person notices negative impacts from using a product, then they will stop using that product. There are tech companies that have lost trust - and they lose users as a result. Sony of course is a classic example - and they've had to work pretty hard to regain that trust. Another example - Samsung has a poor reputation for software quality and lots of jank - sure, a non-technical person may not be able to verbalise it in those terms, but they may simply describe the iPhone as "smoother". This was reflected in their numbers - they were bleeding money for a while, and still are. It's like people complaining about the walled garden that is Apple - I loathe Apple, and the walled garden approach, but I can't argue that it's not popular. For many people, they can deal with all the cons, because of the product/services that Apple provides. I might not choose to use an iOS device - and I will actively steer my family away from it (just converted my father to a Nexus 5X), but I'm not going to automatically assume that people who use iOS devices are ignorant - they may just have different costs/benefits analyses to me. Until you can provide a reason that actually affects them (which is why I have asked for numerous times what the actual concrete issues are), they will continue to use those products, in order to garner the benefits.
nitrogen 11y ago
The reasons people want their privacy respected are numerous and have been discussed to death; do an HN search for "privacy" and related terms. Is-implies-ought fallacy notwithstanding, you haven't demonstrated why privacy should be abused or why people should be okay with it.
- victorhooi 11y ago
  If you choose to use a webapp - e.g. Dropbox, Gmail, Instagram, Flickr - you are already trusting those services to store your data. There is an implicit trust there. I would have thought them already having all your emails, files, documents etc. is a far greater trust than whether they know how often you open up their app.... The topic of this discussion is around Amazon Underground collecting telemetry data on app usage. This is clearly stated in their TOS, and they explain that it's for re-compensating app authors. Can you explain how this is a breach of privacy, as opposed to simply being the deal you strike, when they give you paid apps free?

tombrossman 11y ago

When you say "Firstly, the stark popularity of those services would seem to suggest that for most people, they have done the cost/benefits analysis, and figured out it doesn't make sense. The effort involve simply doesn't make sense for them." do you understand that for many people, decisions are not carefully considered after collecting and reviewing all the pros and cons before arriving at a scientifically rigorous conclusion? It is far more likely that users just choose what their friends or work colleagues use, based on word of mouth recommendations. The 'network effect' is what this is called. There isn't much 'miscalculation' happening in these scenarios, there may be little to no calculation at all.

victorhooi 11y ago
I don't think you give people enough credit. Sure, it might not be as explicit as "here is a spreadsheet, with quantitative values assigned to each pro/con". However, there is certainly intuition and a decision making process involved - it may just not be the same way you or I might have done it. At the end of the day - if a person notices negative impacts from using a product, then they will stop using that product. There are tech companies that have lost trust - and they lose users as a result. Sony of course is a classic example - and they've had to work pretty hard to regain that trust. Another example - Samsung has a poor reputation for software quality and lots of jank - sure, a non-technical person may not be able to verbalise it in those terms, but they may simply describe the iPhone as "smoother". This was reflected in their numbers - they were bleeding money for a while, and still are. It's like people complaining about the walled garden that is Apple - I loathe Apple, and the walled garden approach, but I can't argue that it's not popular. For many people, they can deal with all the cons, because of the product/services that Apple provides. I might not choose to use an iOS device - and I will actively steer my family away from it (just converted my father to a Nexus 5X), but I'm not going to automatically assume that people who use iOS devices are ignorant - they may just have different costs/benefits analyses to me. Until you can provide a reason that actually affects them (which is why I have asked for numerous times what the actual concrete issues are), they will continue to use those products, in order to garner the benefits.

nitrogen 11y ago

The reasons people want their privacy respected are numerous and have been discussed to death; do an HN search for "privacy" and related terms. Is-implies-ought fallacy notwithstanding, you haven't demonstrated why privacy should be abused or why people should be okay with it.

victorhooi 11y ago
If you choose to use a webapp - e.g. Dropbox, Gmail, Instagram, Flickr - you are already trusting those services to store your data. There is an implicit trust there. I would have thought them already having all your emails, files, documents etc. is a far greater trust than whether they know how often you open up their app.... The topic of this discussion is around Amazon Underground collecting telemetry data on app usage. This is clearly stated in their TOS, and they explain that it's for re-compensating app authors. Can you explain how this is a breach of privacy, as opposed to simply being the deal you strike, when they give you paid apps free?