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> More transparency would help... I would advocate for the ultimate transparency. The dissolution of privacy altogether. Nothing benefits the incumbents more

> More transparency would help... I would advocate for the ultimate transparency. The dissolution of privacy altogether. Nothing benefits the incumbents more than the subjects being passionate about not giving the information they give them to anyone else. This has the same effects as employees not disclosing their wages: it only benefits the employer, in the game of assymetry of information. If the information is public, then the little-start-up that could would effectively be able to attack the giants.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
In addition to raw data, the processed data is also valuable. It might be good for trained ML models to be available to all, for example. Those are the competitive advantage.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  Trained ML models could be a reasonable trade secret, after all, its not hard for an engineer that knows about it to spill the beans naturally as he looks for another job. But an ML engineer with the data facebook has, cannot do the same somewhere else.
Y7ZCQtNo39 9y ago
If your salary is public information, then any future employer can peg to it, rather than the market rate. It is to your benefit for your compensation to be privately held.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  If everyone's salary is public information, you can see what they're paying everyone else and get at least that much for the same job.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- eropple 9y ago
  It's not to my benefit at all. In every salary negotiation past my first job out of college I have said "I expect to be paid $X to switch jobs" and I was paid $X (or very close to; obviously, sometimes you kick a little back) to switch jobs or I didn't switch jobs. What you do is what's important. Make a proactive argument for your value and you don't have to fall back on your current compensation.
  - PeachPlum 9y ago
    What if every time they thought "we got him/her for a measly $X, sweet"
- conanbatt 9y ago
  Employers know a lot more about salaries than you do, considering they have a lot more information points, reliable information data than you. The information asymmetry is too pronounced to be overcome by mere negotiation tactics.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Combined with collective bargaining, not so much. Star-system employment as well, mentioned for completeness, though that doesn't scale to populations: everybody cannot be a star.
- losvedir 9y ago
  Just get two competing offers. Then the question flips from "how little will the candidate accept?" to "how much can we afford?".
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
482794793792894 9y ago
This is a notion that sounds great at first, but it's entirely shallow. - There are tons of information pieces that functionally need to be private, for example passwords, and tons of information pieces that better just should be kept private for your own benefit, like medical records. - You're not helping us customers. If every company knows everything about us, then every company can exploit our mental vulnerabilities to get us to buy more things we don't need. - Privacy is a basic human need. Lack of privacy can lead to severe mental issues, as illustrated by Panopticons.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  > There are tons of information pieces that functionally need to be private, for example passwords, and tons of information pieces that better just should be kept private for your own benefit, like medical records. Passwords are a solution of authorization , not authentication. Your face is not private but it can also be used as a password. Medical record information is valuable only because it is private. If it were public, it wouldn't be considered as important. Much like wage data. > You're not helping us customers. If every company knows everything about us, then every company can exploit our mental vulnerabilities to get us to buy more things we don't need. The opposite on two accounts: today, the company that holds that data uses it against you without you knowing, precisely the requirement of privacy makes it impossible to understand how a company is using that information the way you describe. And secondly, nothing better than to erode a company's benefit of using that information than competing with others that do the same. > Privacy is a basic human need. Lack of privacy can lead to severe mental issues, as illustrated by Panopticons. Im not a psychology expert, but I'm willing to argue that privacy is a defense against other injustices, not valuable in itself.
  - stale2002 9y ago
    > Medical record information is valuable only because it is private. If it were public, it wouldn't be considered as important. Much like wage data. Ummm, thats not true at all. A whole lot of people would not want all their friends knowning every little detail about their medical history. There are lots of embarrassing issues that people have that nobody would want to be made public. Think STDs or mental health issues.

sillysaurus3 9y ago

In addition to raw data, the processed data is also valuable. It might be good for trained ML models to be available to all, for example. Those are the competitive advantage.

conanbatt 9y ago
Trained ML models could be a reasonable trade secret, after all, its not hard for an engineer that knows about it to spill the beans naturally as he looks for another job. But an ML engineer with the data facebook has, cannot do the same somewhere else.

Y7ZCQtNo39 9y ago

If your salary is public information, then any future employer can peg to it, rather than the market rate. It is to your benefit for your compensation to be privately held.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
If everyone's salary is public information, you can see what they're paying everyone else and get at least that much for the same job.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
eropple 9y ago
It's not to my benefit at all. In every salary negotiation past my first job out of college I have said "I expect to be paid $X to switch jobs" and I was paid $X (or very close to; obviously, sometimes you kick a little back) to switch jobs or I didn't switch jobs. What you do is what's important. Make a proactive argument for your value and you don't have to fall back on your current compensation.
- PeachPlum 9y ago
  What if every time they thought "we got him/her for a measly $X, sweet"
conanbatt 9y ago
Employers know a lot more about salaries than you do, considering they have a lot more information points, reliable information data than you. The information asymmetry is too pronounced to be overcome by mere negotiation tactics.
dredmorbius 9y ago
Combined with collective bargaining, not so much. Star-system employment as well, mentioned for completeness, though that doesn't scale to populations: everybody cannot be a star.
losvedir 9y ago
Just get two competing offers. Then the question flips from "how little will the candidate accept?" to "how much can we afford?".

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

482794793792894 9y ago

This is a notion that sounds great at first, but it's entirely shallow. - There are tons of information pieces that functionally need to be private, for example passwords, and tons of information pieces that better just should be kept private for your own benefit, like medical records. - You're not helping us customers. If every company knows everything about us, then every company can exploit our mental vulnerabilities to get us to buy more things we don't need. - Privacy is a basic human need. Lack of privacy can lead to severe mental issues, as illustrated by Panopticons.

conanbatt 9y ago
> There are tons of information pieces that functionally need to be private, for example passwords, and tons of information pieces that better just should be kept private for your own benefit, like medical records. Passwords are a solution of authorization , not authentication. Your face is not private but it can also be used as a password. Medical record information is valuable only because it is private. If it were public, it wouldn't be considered as important. Much like wage data. > You're not helping us customers. If every company knows everything about us, then every company can exploit our mental vulnerabilities to get us to buy more things we don't need. The opposite on two accounts: today, the company that holds that data uses it against you without you knowing, precisely the requirement of privacy makes it impossible to understand how a company is using that information the way you describe. And secondly, nothing better than to erode a company's benefit of using that information than competing with others that do the same. > Privacy is a basic human need. Lack of privacy can lead to severe mental issues, as illustrated by Panopticons. Im not a psychology expert, but I'm willing to argue that privacy is a defense against other injustices, not valuable in itself.
- stale2002 9y ago
  > Medical record information is valuable only because it is private. If it were public, it wouldn't be considered as important. Much like wage data. Ummm, thats not true at all. A whole lot of people would not want all their friends knowning every little detail about their medical history. There are lots of embarrassing issues that people have that nobody would want to be made public. Think STDs or mental health issues.