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No, Data Is Not the New Oil
- CoolestBeans 8y agoYes "data is the new oil" is a clumsy buzzwordy metaphor. But I don't see how the author's hypothetical refutes this. He claims that because data is only useful to it's generator. But this doesn't hold water to me, both oil and data are useless to the end consumer until they are refined. It just so happens that the data "miners" and "refiners" in our day are vertically integrated (like Standard Oil was back in the day). The real reason data is not like oil is that data is replicable and nonconsumable. Even still, I think the "data as oil" metaphor is valuable because it communicates this concept that we are becoming addicted to this resource that has world-altering negative externalities. That's all.
- jfengel 8y agoAs with previous discussions about file sharing, although data is replicable, the people who own it will go through some hoops to prevent replication. Many felt that meant that the data ought to be free, and it was widely pointed out that they likely didn't feel that way about data they owned. Some of the same artificial-scarcity tools are applied: when Facebook sells its data, the use of that data is limited by contract, which includes not selling it on or giving it away.
- sherlock_h 8y agoThere is consent to re-sell the data for whatever purposes to 3rd parties in a lot of privacy statements that you agree to when signing up for various apps/services. The difference with Facebook/Google is that there is massive scale involved. An interesting solution could be to give every user a piece of FB in accordance with the volume/quality of data shared, thus enabling them to partake and profit in whatever data sharing they do!