> In the digital economy, user data is typically treated as capital created by corporations observing willing individuals. This neglects users' roles in creatin

> In the digital economy, user data is typically treated as capital created by corporations observing willing individuals. This neglects users' roles in creating data, reducing incentives for users, distributing the gains from the data economy unequally, and stoking fears of automation. Instead, treating data (at least partially) as labor could help resolve these issues and restore a functioning market for user contributions, but may run against the near-term interests of dominant data monopsonists who have benefited from data being treated as "free." Countervailing power, in the form of competition, a data labor movement, and/or thoughtful regulation could help restore balance. This is one of Jaron Lanier's arguments. And I guess Tim Berner-Lee's as well. Individuals should own their data and corporations should pay for access to it. Or at least the dynamics of who owns what should be re-thought because when two visionaries think the current model is broken the rest of us should probably take notice and think about what they're trying to say. > Nilay Patel: How do you make people’s data valuable? Do you have to pass a law? > Jaron Lanier: It has to come from multiple directions at once. I think there should be laws. I think people should be encouraged to take advantage of labor law if it’s powerful in whatever country they live in or whatever other body of law might be available in order to bargain for the value of their data and be able to create mids that extract value for the benefit of the people the data comes from on their own terms. > "With advertising you're never going to get the motivations aligned," Berners-Lee said. That's a common refrain with websites and apps that must serve two masters -- those of us using them, for whom privacy is desirable, and the advertisers funding them, for whom privacy makes ad targeting harder. -- https://www.cnet.com/news/web-inventor-tim-berners-lee-wants-to-give-you-your-data-back/ https://www.cnet.com/news/web-inventor-tim-berners-lee-wants... https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/9/18302076/data-monetization-control-manipulation-economy-jaron-laniers-virtual-reality-vr-vergecast https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/9/18302076/data-monetization...