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I don't get your Disneyland example. I replied to comments saying users are getting to use Facebook for free but that is not true, they are paying indirectly vi
by danbruc 5y ago
I don't get your Disneyland example. I replied to comments saying users are getting to use Facebook for free but that is not true, they are paying indirectly via ads. Did anyone claim that you get Disneyland for free? No, you pay for it. Some part with the ticket price, some part when you pay food and drinks, some part with merchandise, some part maybe later when you watch your next Disney movie as the whole thing is to some extend a gigantic ad.
And it matters how you divide it up. You could have a high ticket price and give away all the food for free but that big upfront payment would probably be off-putting for many even if they end up not paying more. For people who only want to ride some roller-coaster and not eat and drink your offering is now not attractive. Other people would exploit your offering, eating only the most expensive stuff in huge quantities.
You could also do it the other way around, have no tickets and pay for everything individually. This will change the entire experience and you have the added complexity of processing payments in many more locations. And all this also applies to you tax example, some services are only used by some part of the population, the other part might be unhappy to also pay for it. If you do not have a driving license, why should you pay for driving license renewals? On the opposite end of the spectrum you might have healthcare where you want to spread the risk across everyone and not only have those pay that actually need it. Its all mostly a matter of trade-offs and incentives how you structure it.
To make the analogy more fitting, imagine Disneyland not charging you for tickets. But they put up cameras and track you all day long, record what you eat, with whom you visit the park, what merchandise you buy, and measure some chemical indicators when you use their toilettes. And then they sell this information to other companies to pay for your visit to Disneyland.
- intev 5y ago> And it matters how you divide it up. You could have a high ticket price and give away all the food for free but that big upfront payment would probably be off-putting for many even if they end up not paying more. For people who only want to ride some roller-coaster and not eat and drink your offering is now not attractive. Other people would exploit your offering, eating only the most expensive stuff in huge quantities. Bingo! This is exactly my point! To go off what you said, if Disneyland operated like how you described (selling your data for income), the park would be completely different. They would be optimized to collect that data because the whole park was built on the premise that everything is free and we are going to siphon as much from you in the form of data. Every ride in the park will be built to gather that data. However since Disneyland is not that, they haven't optimized for data collection. It's built on making you happy by the time you leave, not making you spend as much time as possible in the park. You seem to want to walk into a Disneyland that's optimized for data collection and be like "Wow you guys are collecting too much data! You guys anyway make money from me buying stuff! Just stop collecting my data! I pay for all I use indirectly though the stuff I buy!" <--- That's convoluted and unfair. Your sudden awakening for privacy concerns doesn't suddenly replace all the lost income that they have depended on and everyone has willingly given for so long. You can't just wave a magic wand on such a fundamental business model change and expect it to be fixed after your sudden change of mind. It's incredibly naïve to thing you can change business models like that. Companies live and die on their business models. Again looping back to the things you mentioned about two Disneylands - they are completely different. It was you who changed in between. Suddenly you feel that they are not entitled to your data. But you've been giving them your data for years, and got them hooked on it. And now suddenly you are disgusted. Nothing wrong with changing or wanting different things but you feeling disgusted suddenly says a lot more about you than them. Personally I think its a necessary change but I would have liked to seen it implemented in a more regulatory level but over a longer period of time so everyone has time to change. Apple is acting in an extremely predatory manner. They are forcibly lowering the quality of their competitor's ad network quickly so suddenly their ad network becomes a lot more viable. I wouldn't be surprised to see a big jump in the ad network spend over the next few years. They're doing all this under the guise of protecting the user but it's obviously bullshit. This is very clear with their vehement opposition of right to repair. They don't care about the consumers. They want to keep growing and they will keep doing so by whatever means necessary (under the guise of protecting consumers) to achieve this goal.