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It’s amazing to me that a huge component of the problems TBL and colleagues are trying to solve are not discussed in the article, or here: we exchange our data

by b1daly 8y ago

It’s amazing to me that a huge component of the problems TBL and colleagues are trying to solve are not discussed in the article, or here: we exchange our data to access services that are valuable, and expensive to develop to maintain. Because our personal data is incorporated into a highly networked system (the various ad platforms), is worth much more than if it isolated, or “decentralized.” Unless a new system, that allows individuals more fine grained control over how their data is designed to aggregate with mass numbers of other users’ data, this personal data will have a marginal value approaching zero. This implies that other means of financing the vast client-server system,that is increasingly dominant in the first and second world societies, will have to be found. It will also require pretty restrictive regulation to prevent companies from simply proceeding as they are, aggregating mass quantities of user data, from which they profit. While awareness of the problems, potential and real, is slowly dawning amongst the “civilian” population, it is a confused and ill- informed type of concern. I’m thinking of friends who get upset at learning the government is spying on everyone, who simultaneously post countless intimate details of their lives on Facebook (or Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc.)

godzillabrennus 8y ago
Some of the most valuable data we have is our purchase history. That lets advertisers know what we buy. They can then target us better. ShopIn is working to decentralize buying personas and put users in the drivers seat of how companies can use that data. It’ll be interesting to see how it works.
confounded 8y ago
That invasive advertising surveillance must happen — or we wont be able to afford to stay in touch with each other — is a very common argument, but not a convincing one to me. This was zucc’s argument to Congress for extracting as much personal data as possible from people. Surely there must be a middle ground between an app that people enjoy using being worth $570B and employing 25,000 experts to tweak it slightly, and being worth less than nothing after server costs. I agree with you that should a decentralized social media app take off, it’s likely to be less profitable, but I dont think that necessarily means that no-one wants to work on it, that no-one wants to use it, or that it won’t exist.
- gaius 8y ago
  That invasive advertising surveillance must happen — or we wont be able to afford to stay in touch with each other — is a very common argument Just yesterday a Google spokesmodel talked about “balancing user privacy against business needs” https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/29/california_data_privacy_law/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/29/california_data_pri... But making profits is not a human right!
  - sorokod 8y ago
    Corporations are people too and profit is the oxygen they need.
    - gaius 8y ago
      Balance compliance with the law against desire to make profits, is the accurate translation. Pure Silicon Valley.
    - rusk 8y ago
      Yeah I love seeing corporations have their liberty curtailed in jail when they break the law. /s
  - brainwad 8y ago
    The products wouldn't exist if they didn't make a profit. So really, it's balancing user privacy against user desire for the product to exist.
- ff317 8y ago
  Don't assume the cost of the infrastructure for privacy-invasive advertising is free, or that it's just automatically easy to do such things once you're offering some other user-facing service. Acquiring, storing, correlating, and sharing all of that user data is very expensive in architectural terms. It will vary by business model, but I would imagine anywhere from 20-80% of operating costs go out the window if you architect your systems to only offer the services users actually wanted.
johnchristopher 8y ago
WhatsApp used to work and be profitable for Ç99 a year.
- bryanrasmussen 8y ago
  was it worth not selling at that amount of profitability though?
  - johnchristopher 8y ago
    Ask founders, ask users.
    - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
      users don't have a decision in the sale.
      - johnchristopher 8y ago
        You think they weren't impacted ?
inimino 8y ago
You are making a huge assumption here, namely that advertising-supported services that cost billions to develop and maintain, and which generate billions in advertising revenue, would still cost billions to develop and maintain if they were not generating billions in advertising revenue. This assumption is in my opinion entirely incorrect.
- BerislavLopac 8y ago
  The underlying reason for those services having both high costs and high revenues is that they have extremely high volume of users. I'm sure something like Duck Duck Go has much lower operational costs, even though it's providing not substantially different service than Google's search engine. My point is that the cost and revenues are not a function of each other as much as they're both a function of usage. Once you get a high volume of users, it's pretty natural to convert at least a small part of that to advertising revenue, even if doesn't fit well to your platform (cf. Twitter). It takes a principled decision not to dip into that revenue source -- I remember once reading how Jason Calacanis was pissed at Jimmy Wales for not wanting to include ads on Wikipedia.
  - yogthos 8y ago
    Compare Twitter with Mastodon Social. Twitter employs 3000 people and it's a hugely complex piece of software. Meanwhile, Mastodon is mostly built by a single guy, and a small volunteer community. Majority of that complexity is not there to make user experience better. I actively use both platforms, and I find that Mastodon provides a better user experience in pretty much every way. The UI is snappier, it has better features for interacting with others, it doesn't restrict the API, and so on. The main cost of Twitter comes from building tools to monetize and exploit the users of the platform.
    - BerislavLopac 8y ago
      > The main cost of Twitter comes from building tools to monetize and exploit the users of the platform. Which is precisely my point. Or at least one half of it.
timbl 8y ago
"Because our personal data is incorporated into a highly networked system (the various ad platforms), is worth much more than if it isolated, or “decentralized.” Actually this is IMHO a myth. It is worth more to the ad companies. But not to me. In fact, my data is more interesting and more valuable to me than to the ad system. When I can run apps (including AI) which work for me doing aggregation across all kinds of data about me they will provide me with much greater power. Personal data integration. AIs which work for me, report to me. Being able to write trusted apps which have read/access to all aspects of a person's life, not just the stuff they shared in a social network silo.
- rusk 8y ago
  Yeah it really irked me when I discovered that I couldn't easily review the tracks that I "loved" with Apple music. When researching just why I found some disingenuous nonsense on the Apple support forums about how they use it to help provide a better experience. Yeah, tanks hows about I get to see the tunes that I liked myself and make those judgements. Never pressed the "love" button again. I presume this is what you're getting at. That these companies get to harvest my data and make insights about me that I don't get to make myself.
hutzlibu 8y ago
"I’m thinking of friends who get upset at learning the government is spying on everyone, who simultaneously post countless intimate details of their lives on Facebook (or Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc.)" This is not a contradiction. When you post, you can choose, what informations get out. You have control. (in theory) When you get spied on, you can't choose. In other words, yes the whole world may see pictures of me and my friends (even though I don't post on those services), but I still don't share my bedroom insights nor pillow talk.
arkh 8y ago
> Unless a new system, that allows individuals more fine grained control over how their data is designed to aggregate with mass numbers of other users’ data DRM for user data: you have a stock of data about yourself and everytime someone want to access it they have to ask for permission using the DRM you have put in.
yogthos 8y ago
Mastodon Social is a perfect example of a thriving decentralized platform. It is a network of small communities that are mostly run by volunteers or are supported by the users directly. There are no ads or exploitation of users in this system. Hosting is incredibly cheap nowadays, and the whole point behind decentralization is that no single server has to host all the users. You can run a Digital Ocean server for 5 bucks a month and host your own community. Meanwhile, containarization makes it much simpler to deploy and keep complex apps up to date. Other decentralized services such as PeerTube are also popping up, and all these services are able to talk to one another via an open protocol called ActivityPub. You might be wondering how people are supposed to make money off this and the answer is that they aren't. We don't need walled gardens and megacorps mining our data in order to talk to one another.

by b1daly 8y ago

godzillabrennus 8y ago

Some of the most valuable data we have is our purchase history. That lets advertisers know what we buy. They can then target us better. ShopIn is working to decentralize buying personas and put users in the drivers seat of how companies can use that data. It’ll be interesting to see how it works.

confounded 8y ago

That invasive advertising surveillance must happen — or we wont be able to afford to stay in touch with each other — is a very common argument, but not a convincing one to me. This was zucc’s argument to Congress for extracting as much personal data as possible from people. Surely there must be a middle ground between an app that people enjoy using being worth $570B and employing 25,000 experts to tweak it slightly, and being worth less than nothing after server costs. I agree with you that should a decentralized social media app take off, it’s likely to be less profitable, but I dont think that necessarily means that no-one wants to work on it, that no-one wants to use it, or that it won’t exist.

gaius 8y ago
That invasive advertising surveillance must happen — or we wont be able to afford to stay in touch with each other — is a very common argument Just yesterday a Google spokesmodel talked about “balancing user privacy against business needs” https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/29/california_data_privacy_law/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/29/california_data_pri... But making profits is not a human right!
- sorokod 8y ago
  Corporations are people too and profit is the oxygen they need.
  - gaius 8y ago
    Balance compliance with the law against desire to make profits, is the accurate translation. Pure Silicon Valley.
  - rusk 8y ago
    Yeah I love seeing corporations have their liberty curtailed in jail when they break the law. /s
- brainwad 8y ago
  The products wouldn't exist if they didn't make a profit. So really, it's balancing user privacy against user desire for the product to exist.
ff317 8y ago
Don't assume the cost of the infrastructure for privacy-invasive advertising is free, or that it's just automatically easy to do such things once you're offering some other user-facing service. Acquiring, storing, correlating, and sharing all of that user data is very expensive in architectural terms. It will vary by business model, but I would imagine anywhere from 20-80% of operating costs go out the window if you architect your systems to only offer the services users actually wanted.

johnchristopher 8y ago

WhatsApp used to work and be profitable for Ç99 a year.

bryanrasmussen 8y ago
was it worth not selling at that amount of profitability though?
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  Ask founders, ask users.
  - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
    users don't have a decision in the sale.
    - johnchristopher 8y ago
      You think they weren't impacted ?

inimino 8y ago

You are making a huge assumption here, namely that advertising-supported services that cost billions to develop and maintain, and which generate billions in advertising revenue, would still cost billions to develop and maintain if they were not generating billions in advertising revenue. This assumption is in my opinion entirely incorrect.

BerislavLopac 8y ago
The underlying reason for those services having both high costs and high revenues is that they have extremely high volume of users. I'm sure something like Duck Duck Go has much lower operational costs, even though it's providing not substantially different service than Google's search engine. My point is that the cost and revenues are not a function of each other as much as they're both a function of usage. Once you get a high volume of users, it's pretty natural to convert at least a small part of that to advertising revenue, even if doesn't fit well to your platform (cf. Twitter). It takes a principled decision not to dip into that revenue source -- I remember once reading how Jason Calacanis was pissed at Jimmy Wales for not wanting to include ads on Wikipedia.
- yogthos 8y ago
  Compare Twitter with Mastodon Social. Twitter employs 3000 people and it's a hugely complex piece of software. Meanwhile, Mastodon is mostly built by a single guy, and a small volunteer community. Majority of that complexity is not there to make user experience better. I actively use both platforms, and I find that Mastodon provides a better user experience in pretty much every way. The UI is snappier, it has better features for interacting with others, it doesn't restrict the API, and so on. The main cost of Twitter comes from building tools to monetize and exploit the users of the platform.
  - BerislavLopac 8y ago
    > The main cost of Twitter comes from building tools to monetize and exploit the users of the platform. Which is precisely my point. Or at least one half of it.

timbl 8y ago

"Because our personal data is incorporated into a highly networked system (the various ad platforms), is worth much more than if it isolated, or “decentralized.” Actually this is IMHO a myth. It is worth more to the ad companies. But not to me. In fact, my data is more interesting and more valuable to me than to the ad system. When I can run apps (including AI) which work for me doing aggregation across all kinds of data about me they will provide me with much greater power. Personal data integration. AIs which work for me, report to me. Being able to write trusted apps which have read/access to all aspects of a person's life, not just the stuff they shared in a social network silo.

rusk 8y ago
Yeah it really irked me when I discovered that I couldn't easily review the tracks that I "loved" with Apple music. When researching just why I found some disingenuous nonsense on the Apple support forums about how they use it to help provide a better experience. Yeah, tanks hows about I get to see the tunes that I liked myself and make those judgements. Never pressed the "love" button again. I presume this is what you're getting at. That these companies get to harvest my data and make insights about me that I don't get to make myself.

hutzlibu 8y ago

"I’m thinking of friends who get upset at learning the government is spying on everyone, who simultaneously post countless intimate details of their lives on Facebook (or Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc.)" This is not a contradiction. When you post, you can choose, what informations get out. You have control. (in theory) When you get spied on, you can't choose. In other words, yes the whole world may see pictures of me and my friends (even though I don't post on those services), but I still don't share my bedroom insights nor pillow talk.

arkh 8y ago

> Unless a new system, that allows individuals more fine grained control over how their data is designed to aggregate with mass numbers of other users’ data DRM for user data: you have a stock of data about yourself and everytime someone want to access it they have to ask for permission using the DRM you have put in.

yogthos 8y ago

Mastodon Social is a perfect example of a thriving decentralized platform. It is a network of small communities that are mostly run by volunteers or are supported by the users directly. There are no ads or exploitation of users in this system. Hosting is incredibly cheap nowadays, and the whole point behind decentralization is that no single server has to host all the users. You can run a Digital Ocean server for 5 bucks a month and host your own community. Meanwhile, containarization makes it much simpler to deploy and keep complex apps up to date. Other decentralized services such as PeerTube are also popping up, and all these services are able to talk to one another via an open protocol called ActivityPub. You might be wondering how people are supposed to make money off this and the answer is that they aren't. We don't need walled gardens and megacorps mining our data in order to talk to one another.