An argument that companies should pay users for their data • Hacker News Board

Re: An argument that companies should pay users for their data

#41

Post by jonbarker » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:11 PM UTC

wpasc wrote: post #6

The media portrayal of the tech world would be more impactful if it weren't so hyperbolic, dramatized, and skewed. There are myriad valid complaints about the tech world, but Facebook paying you for you posting your photos is not one of them. Facebook is free. Google search is free. 15gb of gmail/google drive is free. You get those free, truly amazing services for nothing because the companies found ways to generate…

The problem is that the ads model works for a while, then they realize it doesn't anymore and they change the free tier. This seemed to have happened recently with gmail. Impossible to know what the eventual monetization model will be when signing up. I think this is the justified cause of the mistrust. Also there are the observations 'free as in beer' and 'if you're not the customer you're the product.' Both of which have merit.

Re: An argument that companies should pay users for their data

#42

Post by afpx » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:11 PM UTC

wpasc wrote: post #6

The media portrayal of the tech world would be more impactful if it weren't so hyperbolic, dramatized, and skewed. There are myriad valid complaints about the tech world, but Facebook paying you for you posting your photos is not one of them. Facebook is free. Google search is free. 15gb of gmail/google drive is free. You get those free, truly amazing services for nothing because the companies found ways to generate…

First, do you or anyone you know directly or indirectly profit from these types of services? Because I find your emphatic endorsement hard to understand.

To be fair, I do use some of these services, too (carefully). But, that’s only because often I can’t find quality alternatives. For instance, I would pay for a high-quality service like Mint (I don’t use it) that kept my data private, but there is none.

Since gathering / ad-selling services are so lucrative, they essentially subsidize the development of the highest-quality products in the market. The best engineers work for these companies. They have massive teams of people refining their products. And, these companies use IP laws to prevent clones. Essentially, they lock out for-fee competitors.

Because of this, I’m a strong supporter of consumer protection laws and regulations. Capital often flows toward deceptive and unethical practices. And, all companies are eventually forced to follow the leader, otherwise they disappear. Laws are the only ways to prevent this.

Re: An argument that companies should pay users for their data

#43

Post by chopin » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:20 PM UTC

montrose wrote: post #2

There's a whole genre of articles based on conflating two senses of "your," belonging to you, and about you. If I observe that you have blue eyes, that's a fact about you, but it doesn't belong to you, at least not without redefining what "belong" means. It would be helpful if, instead of deliberately conflating these two senses of "your," articles on this subject went in the other direction and explicitly discussed…

I think it is pretty easy. The moment you start storing this data outside your brain, it's "my" data. You can memorize or observe it all you want but not store it permanently or semi-permanently elsewhere.

I think it is a sad state of affairs that it had to come to this point resulting from "don't ask for permission upfront, ask for forgiveness later" (most skip the latter part anyway, if not confronted with a shitstorm) mentality.

Re: An argument that companies should pay users for their data

#44

Post by agentdrtran » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:21 PM UTC

afpx wrote: post #42

wpasc wrote: post #6

The media portrayal of the tech world would be more impactful if it weren't so hyperbolic, dramatized, and skewed. There are myriad valid complaints about the tech world, but Facebook paying you for you posting your photos is not one of them. Facebook is free. Google search is free. 15gb of gmail/google drive is free. You get those free, truly amazing services for nothing because the companies found ways to generate…

First, do you or anyone you know directly or indirectly profit from these types of services? Because I find your emphatic endorsement hard to understand. To be fair, I do use some of these services, too (carefully). But, that’s only because often I can’t find quality alternatives. For instance, I would pay for a high-quality service like Mint (I don’t use it) that kept my data private, but there is none. Since gather…

Try Tiller. It puts all of your data into a Google Sheet with nice premade templates. Not quite as nice UX as mint but pretty close and allows for better customization.

Re: An argument that companies should pay users for their data

#45

Post by ryanmonroe » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:21 PM UTC

afpx wrote: post #42

wpasc wrote: post #6

The media portrayal of the tech world would be more impactful if it weren't so hyperbolic, dramatized, and skewed. There are myriad valid complaints about the tech world, but Facebook paying you for you posting your photos is not one of them. Facebook is free. Google search is free. 15gb of gmail/google drive is free. You get those free, truly amazing services for nothing because the companies found ways to generate…

First, do you or anyone you know directly or indirectly profit from these types of services? Because I find your emphatic endorsement hard to understand. To be fair, I do use some of these services, too (carefully). But, that’s only because often I can’t find quality alternatives. For instance, I would pay for a high-quality service like Mint (I don’t use it) that kept my data private, but there is none. Since gather…

You start by saying the parent comment is hard to understand, then go on to explain why the statements are true. These two statements are essentially the same

>Since gathering / ad-selling services are so lucrative, they essentially subsidize the development of the highest-quality products in the market. The best engineers work for these companies. They have massive teams of people refining their products. And, these companies use IP laws to prevent clones. Essentially, they lock out for-fee competitors.

> You get those free, truly amazing services for nothing because the companies found ways to generate value from the data being gathered. The cost to maintain that infrastructure and provide those great services is pretty high and has taken some brilliant engineers years of sweat.

The only real difference is your use of the phrase "lock-out", but I don't think that's a reasonable way to look at it. If enough people really want to be part of a fee-based ecosystem, no one is stopping a company from engaging those people. You bring up IP laws, but that's really an independent issue, since fee-based and ad-based businesses can both use IP laws in the same way.

Re: An argument that companies should pay users for their data

#46

Post by saas_co_de » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:21 PM UTC

deong wrote: post #33

marcinzm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Calculating the value of your data is pretty easy actually. No it's not. You're mixing up the value of the data with the value of your attention. The world has made a killing off of advertising long before personalization came about so saying it's all due to personalization is a bit silly imho.

It's also conflating a bunch of stuff that goes into Google's valuation that isn't directly tied to ownership of your data. Once upon a time, Google just made a search engine, and that search engine quickly took over the world. Google made a lot of money plopping ads on search results long before you could create a Google account or store all your email there. Presumably, the technical ability to build products like…

> If Google deleted all personal data, the company would not be worth $0

They would be worth less than zero because without the personal data they would have no ad revenue to subsidize their money losing loss-leader ventures that only exist to collect data and/or suck people in to watch advertising.

Re: An argument that companies should pay users for their data

#47

Post by dsacco » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

oldcynic wrote: post #22

wpasc wrote: post #6

The media portrayal of the tech world would be more impactful if it weren't so hyperbolic, dramatized, and skewed. There are myriad valid complaints about the tech world, but Facebook paying you for you posting your photos is not one of them. Facebook is free. Google search is free. 15gb of gmail/google drive is free. You get those free, truly amazing services for nothing because the companies found ways to generate…

This is a conversation I have occasionally had with non tech friends. I'm sorry, you are the one being hyperbolic. It's like you haven't even noticed what's been happening the last 10 years or so. > You get those free, truly amazing services lol. Services that exist without an honest portrayal about what they do with the data they gather, or anything like clarity on the extent of what is possible. Not content with th…

> This is a conversation I have occasionally had with non tech friends. I'm sorry, you are the one being hyperbolic. It's like you haven't even noticed what's been happening the last 10 years or so.

In my opinion, you're mistaking apathy for ignorance. Reasonable people can disagree about whether or not the exchange is fair. I work in tech, have heard everything you just wrote many times, and my response is continually, "Eh, I'm okay with that." People I've spoken to about this outside of tech often don't know about the data collection to quite the extent you're talking about and don't care about it. When I mention how extensive the data collection is, they're often surprised, but often they still don't care. The most I've personally seen is a vague discomfort that didn't seem to persist, given the person's behavior didn't change at all.

It gets kind of frustrating for people like myself to hear this argument rehashed over and over in the way you've just presented it, as though people who are okay with their data being used simply "don't understand" or haven't been paying attention. Everything you wrote is - while clearly not neutrally presented - in the zeitgeist on HN. There's nothing really new about it, and you're only convincing the people who already agree with you. Yes, we know our data is being used, we get it. We're picking up what you're putting down. Right there with you. We just don't really care.

You can draw a normative conclusion about me based on that statement if you'd like. It probably sounds callous and asinine from your perspective, but like I said: reasonable people can disagree. Anecdotally speaking, most people I "enlighten" about the data hoovering you describe don't meaningfully change their behavior or preferences. Consider that when people are not aware of how their data is being used, it doesn't always mean they're being victimized; it can also mean they are vaguely aware that their data is "out there", and they implicitly don't care enough about it to investigate further. That's a valid position to take.

Re: An argument that companies should pay users for their data

#48

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:25 PM UTC

agentdrtran wrote: post #44

afpx wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, do you or anyone you know directly or indirectly profit from these types of services? Because I find your emphatic endorsement hard to understand. To be fair, I do use some of these services, too (carefully). But, that’s only because often I can’t find quality alternatives. For instance, I would pay for a high-quality service like Mint (I don’t use it) that kept my data private, but there is none. Since gather…

Try Tiller. It puts all of your data into a Google Sheet with nice premade templates. Not quite as nice UX as mint but pretty close and allows for better customization.

[deleted]

Re: An argument that companies should pay users for their data

#49

Post by marcinzm » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

saas_co_de wrote: post #46

deong wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also conflating a bunch of stuff that goes into Google's valuation that isn't directly tied to ownership of your data. Once upon a time, Google just made a search engine, and that search engine quickly took over the world. Google made a lot of money plopping ads on search results long before you could create a Google account or store all your email there. Presumably, the technical ability to build products like…

> If Google deleted all personal data, the company would not be worth $0 They would be worth less than zero because without the personal data they would have no ad revenue to subsidize their money losing loss-leader ventures that only exist to collect data and/or suck people in to watch advertising.

Google made plenty of money from search and search advertising before personalization.

Re: An argument that companies should pay users for their data

#50

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

wpasc wrote: post #6

The media portrayal of the tech world would be more impactful if it weren't so hyperbolic, dramatized, and skewed. There are myriad valid complaints about the tech world, but Facebook paying you for you posting your photos is not one of them. Facebook is free. Google search is free. 15gb of gmail/google drive is free. You get those free, truly amazing services for nothing because the companies found ways to generate…

...would it? IE, would we still be reading it. We keep crying out for better media but private, public, for profit or not... the popular/successful stuff is hyperbolic, dramatized, and skewed. IF we want it even half as bad as we say we do... where's all the calm & collected media? Genuine question, where is it & why isn't it here?

   ^Sorry, way off topic

To the topic... this line of argument feels (I don't have much more to go an than feels) unsatisfying. Sweet or not, it's hard to see this as a deal, in any way but the most abstract. First, users' end of the deal is secretive, complicated and has hard to understand implications. Second, most of the benefits (to users and The Googles) and most of the dangers (to users and maybe society) are a product of aggregation, which complicates the concept of a deal even more.

Also, these things tend to be monopolistic and data is more moat.