4 ms·

I just wanted to buy a computer monitor for my face. I'm paying you $600, can't I just have that? :(

jkestner 11y ago
Software mentality is eating the world. Investors expect recurring revenue from hardware now. I hope there's still demand for no-strings-attached hardware. I'm not sure it's a viable marketing point for enough people.
- pdkl95 11y ago
  The solution is liability. If you collect data about people, you are responsible for what happens to it. Additionally, If your product fails to work as intended because you intentionally added something separate from the intended purpose (like network spyware for VR hardware), then the product is defective.
Silhouette 11y ago
We're seeing similar moves in other areas of technology, such as modern cars -- ever more connected, dubious phone-home behaviour, and so on. The "Internet of Things" hype will surely make it much, much worse. This is not a healthy trend for customers/users, but if entire industries go in that direction because the $$$ signs are too attractive, the practical solution is likely to be statutory regulation. When it comes to strengthening privacy and data protection in today's highly connected world, I personally have no problem with imposing that regulation. But until more normal (non-geek) people understand the implications and potential abuse of modern data collection and mining practices, until people realise it's not just annoying and slightly creepy ads they have to worry about, I doubt we're going to see a critical mass of popular concern for politicians to act.
karpathy 11y ago
Might be easiest to think of your privacy as a currency similar to $. The real cost is 800. They can offer you $600 and 200 in privacy, or they could offer you $800, which people would throw a fit over and not buy. This is also not entirely accurate because the raw price is a one-time purchase, while privacy is hard to upper bound and can even become more valuable later on. Facebook operates on this extreme: it's completely "free" to use, except you have to count your privacy, which in fact turns out to be quite valuable currency. And unfortunately I think we've established several times that at least for social media or even web or apps in general that the other extreme of "pay us more of your normal$ and less of your privacy$" doesn't work well at all. So it looks like you can't have a "monitor for your face and that's it" because human psychology.
- raverbashing 11y ago
  > Facebook operates on this extreme: it's completely "free" to use, except you have to count your privacy, which in fact turns out to be quite valuable currency. True, but I have a choice of what I put there (also, using an ad blocker greatly reduces the tracking they can do) One Kudos I have to give FB is that they allow you to configure what information you can send to apps that use FB for authentication
- ginko 11y ago
  The problem is that they _don't_ offer me the $800 option.
  - Sir_Substance 11y ago
    I'd pay that $800.

Software mentality is eating the world. Investors expect recurring revenue from hardware now. I hope there's still demand for no-strings-attached hardware. I'm not sure it's a viable marketing point for enough people.

pdkl95 11y ago
The solution is liability. If you collect data about people, you are responsible for what happens to it. Additionally, If your product fails to work as intended because you intentionally added something separate from the intended purpose (like network spyware for VR hardware), then the product is defective.

Silhouette 11y ago

We're seeing similar moves in other areas of technology, such as modern cars -- ever more connected, dubious phone-home behaviour, and so on. The "Internet of Things" hype will surely make it much, much worse. This is not a healthy trend for customers/users, but if entire industries go in that direction because the $$$ signs are too attractive, the practical solution is likely to be statutory regulation. When it comes to strengthening privacy and data protection in today's highly connected world, I personally have no problem with imposing that regulation. But until more normal (non-geek) people understand the implications and potential abuse of modern data collection and mining practices, until people realise it's not just annoying and slightly creepy ads they have to worry about, I doubt we're going to see a critical mass of popular concern for politicians to act.

karpathy 11y ago

Might be easiest to think of your privacy as a currency similar to $. The real cost is 800. They can offer you $600 and 200 in privacy, or they could offer you $800, which people would throw a fit over and not buy. This is also not entirely accurate because the raw price is a one-time purchase, while privacy is hard to upper bound and can even become more valuable later on. Facebook operates on this extreme: it's completely "free" to use, except you have to count your privacy, which in fact turns out to be quite valuable currency. And unfortunately I think we've established several times that at least for social media or even web or apps in general that the other extreme of "pay us more of your normal$ and less of your privacy$" doesn't work well at all. So it looks like you can't have a "monitor for your face and that's it" because human psychology.

raverbashing 11y ago
> Facebook operates on this extreme: it's completely "free" to use, except you have to count your privacy, which in fact turns out to be quite valuable currency. True, but I have a choice of what I put there (also, using an ad blocker greatly reduces the tracking they can do) One Kudos I have to give FB is that they allow you to configure what information you can send to apps that use FB for authentication
ginko 11y ago
The problem is that they _don't_ offer me the $800 option.
- Sir_Substance 11y ago
  I'd pay that $800.