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I'm all for people controlling their data and being fully informed of how it's being used, but I just don't understand the idea that you should be paid for the

I'm all for people controlling their data and being fully informed of how it's being used, but I just don't understand the idea that you should be paid for the data that you give to companies when you choose to use their products. The payment that you get is the products. You don't get a check from Google, but you get to use Google, which is an incredibly useful tool. I like Yang, but I think he's barking up the wrong tree. We should be focused on giving people control over their data and awareness of how it's being used so they can make informed decisions, not insisting they get paid for it.

fragmede 6y ago
By adding payouts into the mix, companies become incentivized to not sell your data if it's not material to them. I go to the store, I buy something. Transaction over. The idea that the store tracks the shit out of me when I'm in the store is creepy enough. I can accept that ship has sailed since I'm in their store. That the store turns around and makes money off of that browsing data so Facebook can sell me ads for products I lingered in front of, is another level entirely. Thus the data dividend forces the store to truly think through wether or not it's worth it to them to the data. For mega-corp retailers like Target or Whole Foods, they may decide it is (though I'd prefer not), and in that case, since it is my data being sold it doesn't seem unreasonable that I should get something from that transaction. (Unlike physical goods, my data, eg home address/email/IP address/etc, doesn't stop being mine just because someone else also has it.)
- qeternity 6y ago
  You’re missing the point: when you go to a store, you hand them cash. When you go to a website, you hand them data, which they turn around and sell for cash. The data you give them is the payment for their product. Why else would Facebook invest billions into free products? I’m not shedding a tear for the mega corps, but people need to understand that companies will charge for products one way or another.
  - maerF0x0 6y ago
    Many people think that "free" is a bad deal given the profits these companies make. Many people would prefer the more transparent pricing of "$5 per month" over the abstract "Whatever we can earn from your data, combined with everyone else's, by any means"
    - ksdale 6y ago
      I agree that transparent pricing would be an excellent option to have, but based on some quick googling, FB's net profit is only something like 25 cents per monthly active user per month (assuming I did the math correctly...). If FB gave people a rebate in the amount of their net profit, the whole transaction would round out to FB operating and people getting it for free, so it's not obviously that bad of a deal for users, at least not with profit as the metric.
      - maerF0x0 6y ago
        But also if your point is true, I'd happily pay $3 a year for FB to retain all rights to the data they collect about me. My data is only worth $3 a year to others, but my privacy and peace of mind is worth more than that to me.
        ksdale 6y ago
        Yeah for sure, I think these paltry per user numbers make a great case for having a user pay option.
        Sodman 6y ago
        I agree with you as a user. From the company's perspective though, I'm guessing there's a decent correlation between "people who will pay $, instead of free" and "people who have enough disposable income to impulse-buy high-cost items from your ads". As anecdata, if you offered me instagram without ads for $10 / year I wouldn't even blink before accepting it. Yet I've also bought a half dozen things from their ads for > $50 over the last few years, which is likely more valuable to them. Or more specifically, makes their ad platform more valuable to their ad-buying business customers.
zentiggr 6y ago
I absolutely love the idea of imposing a cost for holding personal data. It should be an expensive, carefully weighed decision whether anyone's data is kept for any longer than absolutely necessary. The only incentive companies generally respond to is financial, that's where we need to impact them to make them think. (Yes, some companies do try to do right, but they are sadly outnumbered. So far.)
lukifer 6y ago
I recommend Jaron Lanier's "Who Owns The Future?" [0] on the subject. Trading data for services is not an unreasonable mechanism for value exchange, a priori, and arguably better than nothing at all (the social externalities of "engagement algorithms" notwithstanding). Rather, I think consumers are getting a poor exchange rate, not least because they have very little agency or transparency into the nature of the transaction. It's all or nothing: cede massive economic power to a small number of centralized corporations and enjoy (admittedly significant) trickle-down utility value; or, live as a quasi-Luddite and eschew these services entirely [1]. It's also worth noting the hidden costs behind the scenes: the massive power of data consolidation, and the accompanying "winner take all" dynamics, creates near-monopoly power in which the centralized networks (Amazon in particular) can dictate terms and prices, usually through the supply side rather than the demand side as was done by trusts and monopolies of old. (This also isn't new to internet services: the centralization of purchasing data through debit/credit cards pioneered the model.) Lastly, Lanier likes to point out the curse of normalizing the price of "free" for software and services: while consumers obviously prefer it, every consumer is also a producer in one way or another, and so will find when it's their turn to sell some digital service / creative work / non-excludable good, the market is largely intractable to actually paying for things. The "surveillance capitalism" model crowds out other business models in many cases, making a small number of centralized winners the only players with the economy of scale to make money on "free" services. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Owns_the_Future%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Owns_the_Future%3F [1] Even then, one's data is often swept up indirectly through one's social graph. If I avoid using Google services, but send an email to a @gmail.com, the contents of that email are ingested and profited from all the same.
hinkley 6y ago
I think there's a category error here around 'choice'. Who is choosing? I can walk into a store and look around without making a commitment to buy a product. I may leave realizing that there is nothing for me here. I chose not to become a customer. Or I chose to be a customer and there was a ritual exchanging of gifts and information which is relatively clear to all parties. Websites don't work that way. I can't 'browse' without them already tracking me. I haven't agreed to anything yet. The transition happens without my awareness. It's predatory.
- chr1 6y ago
  The difference is that a store doesn't spend significant amount of their resource on you when you just look around, but most of websites do. Suggesting that sites do not have right to retain information about what you asked them to do after you've read an article or created an account, would be similar to saying that bookstore should allow you to read entire books standing in the store, or that they can't use their security cameras because you may be visible on them.
- strgcmc 6y ago
  You may be (un)pleasantly surprised by the amount of physical/real-world tracking of in-store traffic that stores are engaging in now. In many physical stores, you don't really have the option of "'browsing' without them already tracking me" either. Worse yet, there's not even a pretense of viewing/accept some Terms and Conditions when you physically enter the store (at least websites pay the lip service of having a T&C posted or a cookie consent pop-up). One random example from 2018 (so, probably a lot more advanced and widespread by now): https://www.adweek.com/digital/adobes-newest-labs-project-can-track-in-store-customers-in-real-time/ https://www.adweek.com/digital/adobes-newest-labs-project-ca...
  - hinkley 6y ago
    I would characterize this as "the situation has been bad for so long in the online world that it has now metastasized into the physical world". Could be I'm wrong about that, but how long do you have to embolden people before they do something truly brazen?
grok22 6y ago
If Google charged for the same services instead of providing it for free, would they make the same amount of billions? I assume everyone would agree that they would make way less. So the exchange in value is asymmetric and it still sort-of makes sense that you get some money for the outsize value that your personal details represents to them.
- awillen 6y ago
  What's wrong with that, though? That's the essence of a lot of business - I take something with a certain amount of value to you and find a way to make it more valuable to someone else, then I capture the value I added along the way. The guy who sells flour to the baker isn't getting cheated because the baker can sell the flour for more than he pays for it once he puts it into a cake.
  - grok22 6y ago
    Nothing wrong with that, but likewise, what is wrong with trying to make money off of Google making money off of your information? At some-point, if the asymmetry is so large, it does make sense to try and capitalize on that.
shrimpx 6y ago
The gap in your reasoning is the assumption that giving them your data is an exact and fair payment in exchange for using their service. We actually have no idea how much data is worth, because these companies have created a culture that simply takes data from you. There is no market. Isn’t that convenient for facebook and google?
- renewiltord 6y ago
  For those who are comfortable sharing their data, it is a fair payment by definition. Otherwise they wouldn't do it. Especially because Google has alternatives that you're not forced into.
  - shrimpx 6y ago
    The issue is that people generally don’t think “I’m using this in exchange for google recording and selling my data”. They mostly think it’s free. My dad mostly thinks it’s free, mostly because he believes in the law and doesn’t think google would be allowed to do nefarious things.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

fragmede 6y ago

By adding payouts into the mix, companies become incentivized to not sell your data if it's not material to them. I go to the store, I buy something. Transaction over. The idea that the store tracks the shit out of me when I'm in the store is creepy enough. I can accept that ship has sailed since I'm in their store. That the store turns around and makes money off of that browsing data so Facebook can sell me ads for products I lingered in front of, is another level entirely. Thus the data dividend forces the store to truly think through wether or not it's worth it to them to the data. For mega-corp retailers like Target or Whole Foods, they may decide it is (though I'd prefer not), and in that case, since it is my data being sold it doesn't seem unreasonable that I should get something from that transaction. (Unlike physical goods, my data, eg home address/email/IP address/etc, doesn't stop being mine just because someone else also has it.)

qeternity 6y ago
You’re missing the point: when you go to a store, you hand them cash. When you go to a website, you hand them data, which they turn around and sell for cash. The data you give them is the payment for their product. Why else would Facebook invest billions into free products? I’m not shedding a tear for the mega corps, but people need to understand that companies will charge for products one way or another.
- maerF0x0 6y ago
  Many people think that "free" is a bad deal given the profits these companies make. Many people would prefer the more transparent pricing of "$5 per month" over the abstract "Whatever we can earn from your data, combined with everyone else's, by any means"
  - ksdale 6y ago
    I agree that transparent pricing would be an excellent option to have, but based on some quick googling, FB's net profit is only something like 25 cents per monthly active user per month (assuming I did the math correctly...). If FB gave people a rebate in the amount of their net profit, the whole transaction would round out to FB operating and people getting it for free, so it's not obviously that bad of a deal for users, at least not with profit as the metric.
    - maerF0x0 6y ago
      But also if your point is true, I'd happily pay $3 a year for FB to retain all rights to the data they collect about me. My data is only worth $3 a year to others, but my privacy and peace of mind is worth more than that to me.
      - ksdale 6y ago
        Yeah for sure, I think these paltry per user numbers make a great case for having a user pay option.
      - Sodman 6y ago
        I agree with you as a user. From the company's perspective though, I'm guessing there's a decent correlation between "people who will pay $, instead of free" and "people who have enough disposable income to impulse-buy high-cost items from your ads". As anecdata, if you offered me instagram without ads for $10 / year I wouldn't even blink before accepting it. Yet I've also bought a half dozen things from their ads for > $50 over the last few years, which is likely more valuable to them. Or more specifically, makes their ad platform more valuable to their ad-buying business customers.

zentiggr 6y ago

I absolutely love the idea of imposing a cost for holding personal data. It should be an expensive, carefully weighed decision whether anyone's data is kept for any longer than absolutely necessary. The only incentive companies generally respond to is financial, that's where we need to impact them to make them think. (Yes, some companies do try to do right, but they are sadly outnumbered. So far.)

lukifer 6y ago

I recommend Jaron Lanier's "Who Owns The Future?" [0] on the subject. Trading data for services is not an unreasonable mechanism for value exchange, a priori, and arguably better than nothing at all (the social externalities of "engagement algorithms" notwithstanding). Rather, I think consumers are getting a poor exchange rate, not least because they have very little agency or transparency into the nature of the transaction. It's all or nothing: cede massive economic power to a small number of centralized corporations and enjoy (admittedly significant) trickle-down utility value; or, live as a quasi-Luddite and eschew these services entirely [1]. It's also worth noting the hidden costs behind the scenes: the massive power of data consolidation, and the accompanying "winner take all" dynamics, creates near-monopoly power in which the centralized networks (Amazon in particular) can dictate terms and prices, usually through the supply side rather than the demand side as was done by trusts and monopolies of old. (This also isn't new to internet services: the centralization of purchasing data through debit/credit cards pioneered the model.) Lastly, Lanier likes to point out the curse of normalizing the price of "free" for software and services: while consumers obviously prefer it, every consumer is also a producer in one way or another, and so will find when it's their turn to sell some digital service / creative work / non-excludable good, the market is largely intractable to actually paying for things. The "surveillance capitalism" model crowds out other business models in many cases, making a small number of centralized winners the only players with the economy of scale to make money on "free" services. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Owns_the_Future%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Owns_the_Future%3F [1] Even then, one's data is often swept up indirectly through one's social graph. If I avoid using Google services, but send an email to a @gmail.com, the contents of that email are ingested and profited from all the same.

hinkley 6y ago

I think there's a category error here around 'choice'. Who is choosing? I can walk into a store and look around without making a commitment to buy a product. I may leave realizing that there is nothing for me here. I chose not to become a customer. Or I chose to be a customer and there was a ritual exchanging of gifts and information which is relatively clear to all parties. Websites don't work that way. I can't 'browse' without them already tracking me. I haven't agreed to anything yet. The transition happens without my awareness. It's predatory.

chr1 6y ago
The difference is that a store doesn't spend significant amount of their resource on you when you just look around, but most of websites do. Suggesting that sites do not have right to retain information about what you asked them to do after you've read an article or created an account, would be similar to saying that bookstore should allow you to read entire books standing in the store, or that they can't use their security cameras because you may be visible on them.
strgcmc 6y ago
You may be (un)pleasantly surprised by the amount of physical/real-world tracking of in-store traffic that stores are engaging in now. In many physical stores, you don't really have the option of "'browsing' without them already tracking me" either. Worse yet, there's not even a pretense of viewing/accept some Terms and Conditions when you physically enter the store (at least websites pay the lip service of having a T&C posted or a cookie consent pop-up). One random example from 2018 (so, probably a lot more advanced and widespread by now): https://www.adweek.com/digital/adobes-newest-labs-project-can-track-in-store-customers-in-real-time/ https://www.adweek.com/digital/adobes-newest-labs-project-ca...
- hinkley 6y ago
  I would characterize this as "the situation has been bad for so long in the online world that it has now metastasized into the physical world". Could be I'm wrong about that, but how long do you have to embolden people before they do something truly brazen?

grok22 6y ago

If Google charged for the same services instead of providing it for free, would they make the same amount of billions? I assume everyone would agree that they would make way less. So the exchange in value is asymmetric and it still sort-of makes sense that you get some money for the outsize value that your personal details represents to them.

awillen 6y ago
What's wrong with that, though? That's the essence of a lot of business - I take something with a certain amount of value to you and find a way to make it more valuable to someone else, then I capture the value I added along the way. The guy who sells flour to the baker isn't getting cheated because the baker can sell the flour for more than he pays for it once he puts it into a cake.
- grok22 6y ago
  Nothing wrong with that, but likewise, what is wrong with trying to make money off of Google making money off of your information? At some-point, if the asymmetry is so large, it does make sense to try and capitalize on that.

shrimpx 6y ago

The gap in your reasoning is the assumption that giving them your data is an exact and fair payment in exchange for using their service. We actually have no idea how much data is worth, because these companies have created a culture that simply takes data from you. There is no market. Isn’t that convenient for facebook and google?

renewiltord 6y ago
For those who are comfortable sharing their data, it is a fair payment by definition. Otherwise they wouldn't do it. Especially because Google has alternatives that you're not forced into.
- shrimpx 6y ago
  The issue is that people generally don’t think “I’m using this in exchange for google recording and selling my data”. They mostly think it’s free. My dad mostly thinks it’s free, mostly because he believes in the law and doesn’t think google would be allowed to do nefarious things.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]