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Good. Next step, have EU countries come up with an estimation of the value of their citizens' private data that FB and Google gobbles up and tax them on that to
by jbigelow76 7y ago
Good. Next step, have EU countries come up with an estimation of the value of their citizens' private data that FB and Google gobbles up and tax them on that too.
Edit: companies -> countries
- dahfizz 7y agoDoes that mean that EU citizens should also pay for these services? Or do you expect these companies would continue to operate in the EU with no net profit.
- negrit 7y agothey make money out of you, you're already paying.
- jbigelow76 7y agoYes, they should. FB doesn't want to get taxed? Create a non-tracking version and paywall it, I would actually pay for that myself.
- dahfizz 7y agoYou and maybe a dozen other people. Social media is worthless without widespread adoption.
- Qwertystop 7y agoIt could potentially share the backend -- track only those people who are on the free version, but keep everyone on one network. Also, no. Social media existed before the current big general-purpose networks. See Usenet, email lists, IRC, forums, etc. A single big network with no particular purpose or common interest provides different benefits, better in some ways and worse in others, but niche networks still have their own worth.
- jbigelow76 7y agoI should have expanded more on your original reply in my parent response but rather than editing it I'll continue it here. You said: Or do you expect these companies would continue to operate in the EU with no net profit. A tax doesn't have to eat up all the net profit. Googling "how much is a Facebook user worth" comes back with about $158 dollars, whether that's accurate or not is beside the point, some value can be derived[1], France can say "we want a X% tax on that value". If the tax is too high FB leaves the market and France gets nothing so there is little incentive to do that[2]. FB then has to take the cost of servicing a user against their value minus the tax and decide if they want to continue as is, offer a paywall option to avoid the tax, or leave the market altogether... I don't understand why this would be so controversial? [1] Whether FB or regulators should set that value is up for discussion. [2] Some would see FB as such an overwhelming societal net negative they would want to tax it out of existence, but that could be true for any industry (fossil fuels, tobacco , meat, etc...)
- noir-york 7y ago> Does that mean that EU citizens should also pay for these services? Making people pay to access Facebook etc would be the best possible move for society ever.
- vuln 7y agoI would agree. Even something as low as $1 a month or $10 a year would change everything.
- buboard 7y agoWhy not google and FB pay the users directly?
- NeutronStar 7y agoWhy would they purposefully reduce their profits?
- mac01021 7y agoWould I get paid per search when I use Google and per post when I use Facebook?
- buboard 7y agoMany ways. Even a tax would do, as long as the tax collector gave it back to the users proportionally to the time spent on either site. E.g. facebook could be forced to give you discounts for your card or sth.
- chillacy 7y agoBing has a rewards program, I have a few friends who use Bing just to collect something like ten bucks of Amazon gift card every month.
- dublidu 7y agoIsn’t this tax on ad revenue already a good proxy for the value of user data?
- user5994461 7y agoWe already implemented that last year. That's called the GDPR. Regulators are not quick, give them a year or two to deliver the fines.