4 ms·

I think you make an interesting strawman, but look in the reverse direction. If companies put the same revenue figure per customer as a pricetag, and then offe

by abofh 4y ago

I think you make an interesting strawman, but look in the reverse direction. If companies put the same revenue figure per customer as a pricetag, and then offered a discount of 100% to opt out, would it work? Have two pennies if you can answer that without a presumptive bias.

jstummbillig 4y ago
That's simple enough: I don't know. But I get the a vague feeling you are being rhetoric and you think you do? If that's the case, please, just offer up the answer alongside your thoughts leading up to it. Also I don't think I made a strawman (of any quality) but it's somewhat telling you think I did. To be super lame: I have very conflicted feelings about this topic and no conclusive opinion.
- abofh 4y ago
  Occam hits the nail on the head - those with valuable data will pay, the value of "privacy" is not a long tail graph, it's a diminishing return. So the products for the poor are subsidized by the information of the able at a cost to everyone. That doesn't feel sustainable to me - we're barely twenty years into the Google era, and how many hours have been wasted opting out of tracking? How many useful things could have been created for a dollar per user instead of mesothelioma ads? That the indigent get 'free' service is a byproduct of the fact that companies abuse everyone else to subsidize it. "Your" data may be worth a buck, but to the right person, targeting "you" is worth a fortune - the value you extract from your Gmail address is the same, the value they extract is not.
occamrazor 4y ago
There is an adverse selection problem: the users who would pay are probably the richer -and most profitable- ones. The only equilibrium is a very high price to opt out, far above the average revenue per user, and essentially nobody would pay for it. Insurance has similar problems since a long time: search for Stiglitz and “unraveling“ for literature on the topic.

by abofh 4y ago

jstummbillig 4y ago

That's simple enough: I don't know. But I get the a vague feeling you are being rhetoric and you think you do? If that's the case, please, just offer up the answer alongside your thoughts leading up to it. Also I don't think I made a strawman (of any quality) but it's somewhat telling you think I did. To be super lame: I have very conflicted feelings about this topic and no conclusive opinion.

abofh 4y ago
Occam hits the nail on the head - those with valuable data will pay, the value of "privacy" is not a long tail graph, it's a diminishing return. So the products for the poor are subsidized by the information of the able at a cost to everyone. That doesn't feel sustainable to me - we're barely twenty years into the Google era, and how many hours have been wasted opting out of tracking? How many useful things could have been created for a dollar per user instead of mesothelioma ads? That the indigent get 'free' service is a byproduct of the fact that companies abuse everyone else to subsidize it. "Your" data may be worth a buck, but to the right person, targeting "you" is worth a fortune - the value you extract from your Gmail address is the same, the value they extract is not.

occamrazor 4y ago

There is an adverse selection problem: the users who would pay are probably the richer -and most profitable- ones. The only equilibrium is a very high price to opt out, far above the average revenue per user, and essentially nobody would pay for it. Insurance has similar problems since a long time: search for Stiglitz and “unraveling“ for literature on the topic.