3 ms·

Sure, if you are not paying for a service you are the product. I get that. You get that. We can make informed decisions about balancing cost/privacy. But the s

Sure, if you are not paying for a service you are the product. I get that. You get that. We can make informed decisions about balancing cost/privacy. But the same cannot really be said for the average consumer. This is not because the average consumer is too stupid to understand, but more so because the services themselves deliberately obfuscate their data collection and its consequences forcing users to do their own research to try and understand what is happening. Honestly what would be really interesting to me would be to give users a clear-cut choice between tracking vs paying. E.g. replace the dialog in the article with a choice between allowing Facebook to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites or paying a $2/mo subscription fee. I am not so delusional as to think that 75% of people will opt for the subscription, but it would be really interesting to see how many actually would!

danbruc 5y ago
[...] paying a $2/mo subscription fee. I am not so delusional as to think that 75% of people will opt for the subscription [...] Which is weird in itself, not exactly sure how we ended up in this spot. People in a restaurant or a bar are never thinking whether they should order another drink that will be gone in a couple of minutes based on the costs but they refuse to spend one dollar on buying a mobile game that they play for hours and hours and that forces them to watch an ad every minute.
- melomal 5y ago
  Because people like products and tangible things. Look at the Apple accessories - overpriced, overengineered yet people will happily overpay, lose it and then pay for it again. Ask someone for £3 for a full vehicle check to know if it's been stolen, crashed, written off, still on finance (basically major headaches) is way too much of an ask. An example that I have is my project that does the above. 300 free checks and 5 premium checks 6 months later, I still scratch my head at how people are scared of buying 2nd hand cars but literally do nothing to protect themselves.

danbruc 5y ago

[...] paying a $2/mo subscription fee. I am not so delusional as to think that 75% of people will opt for the subscription [...] Which is weird in itself, not exactly sure how we ended up in this spot. People in a restaurant or a bar are never thinking whether they should order another drink that will be gone in a couple of minutes based on the costs but they refuse to spend one dollar on buying a mobile game that they play for hours and hours and that forces them to watch an ad every minute.

melomal 5y ago
Because people like products and tangible things. Look at the Apple accessories - overpriced, overengineered yet people will happily overpay, lose it and then pay for it again. Ask someone for £3 for a full vehicle check to know if it's been stolen, crashed, written off, still on finance (basically major headaches) is way too much of an ask. An example that I have is my project that does the above. 300 free checks and 5 premium checks 6 months later, I still scratch my head at how people are scared of buying 2nd hand cars but literally do nothing to protect themselves.