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The deeper question then is the following: Why is it so hard to have people care about privacy enough? If there would be such a strong gradient towards privacy

The deeper question then is the following: Why is it so hard to have people care about privacy enough? If there would be such a strong gradient towards privacy-favoring products and services, why does society so slowly adapt? + It might be that the risks are not yet understood. As argued here: http://laoutaris.info/index.php/2016/09/11/oh-but-people-dont-care-about-privacy/ http://laoutaris.info/index.php/2016/09/11/oh-but-people-don... + It is politically a much stronger move to act upon feelings of fear than on more abstract risk calculations. Advocated here: https://openmedia.org/en/why-it-so-hard-convince-people-care-about-privacy https://openmedia.org/en/why-it-so-hard-convince-people-care... + From our bubble we might think privacy is valuable, but this might just not be shared broadly. Rich people admire privacy: http://www.businessinsider.de/wealthy-people-care-about-privacy-the-most-2016-10 http://www.businessinsider.de/wealthy-people-care-about-priv... + People might not want privacy, but something slightly related: they do not want surprises. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/12/people-dont-tru.html http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/12/people-dont-.... I don't know how many business models are based on privacy, but my assumption is that it's much more likely to succeed with your startup on betting that people will share what you didn't think they would share, then to build a security minded niche product or service.

Analemma_ 9y ago
Because the benefits of giving up your privacy are certain and immediate, and the drawbacks are uncertain and in the future. Humans are really bad at evaluating tradeoffs of this kind; see global warming, poor rates of retirement savings, etc.
TremendousJudge 9y ago
Here's my theory: most people don't actually understand what having access to your data means. I learned this some years ago when I wrote a little tool that surveyed the people connected to my uni's computer lab (using ssh and who). The whole project was just for fun, and one of the things I did was logging the names and times of everyone who started a session. I then told about this to some friends, who were like "cool!". But when I showed them the actual data (rows and rows of "this person was on this machine from this hour to this hour"), with real names, they freaked out. Showing them the data they didn't learn anything new, since I had already told them exactly what I was doing. But it wasn't until they saw with their own eyes the real names and times that they actually understood the implications. And this wasn't your run of the mill facebook user, it was computer science students. So I can understand perfectly why people don't care about online privacy: people just don't get it by being told about it. They have to see it. So show them their usage logs, and they will understand

Analemma_ 9y ago

Because the benefits of giving up your privacy are certain and immediate, and the drawbacks are uncertain and in the future. Humans are really bad at evaluating tradeoffs of this kind; see global warming, poor rates of retirement savings, etc.

TremendousJudge 9y ago

Here's my theory: most people don't actually understand what having access to your data means. I learned this some years ago when I wrote a little tool that surveyed the people connected to my uni's computer lab (using ssh and who). The whole project was just for fun, and one of the things I did was logging the names and times of everyone who started a session. I then told about this to some friends, who were like "cool!". But when I showed them the actual data (rows and rows of "this person was on this machine from this hour to this hour"), with real names, they freaked out. Showing them the data they didn't learn anything new, since I had already told them exactly what I was doing. But it wasn't until they saw with their own eyes the real names and times that they actually understood the implications. And this wasn't your run of the mill facebook user, it was computer science students. So I can understand perfectly why people don't care about online privacy: people just don't get it by being told about it. They have to see it. So show them their usage logs, and they will understand