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23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

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Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#421

Post by stronglikedan »

ExactActuation wrote: post #270
jsgo wrote: post #79

> Wojcicki has theories Think the obvious one is that the results are shared and whether someone is a criminal or not (or will be one in the future), people are not particularly comfortable with sharing to parties they didn't initially trust it to for the purposes they trusted it for. Anecdotally, I bought a 23andme kit (just the genealogy one) but never submitted it because the labeling was to send it to the lab in…

> and certainly don't do drugs What about alcohol or caffeine?

Since when do they test for those in insurance related drug screenings?

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#422

Post by jfengel »

kshacker wrote: post #189
ianferrel wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect that this is a difficult thing to market, since most people probably don't realize that the thing they did wasn't a "complete" sequence. "Remember the thing we sold you before? Well, it wasn't that great. But now it is. Give us more money?"

In bay area, we call it version 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 2019, 2020. Who does not want DNA 2020? I do. [NOT in this case]

In Seattle, they call it version 2.0, 10, 2029, Lemur, and Q.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#424

Post by stjohnswarts »

scarmig wrote: post #213
johntiger1 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not exactly how DNA works. Their kids should be mostly fine (99.99% similar is still night and day)

If the government encounters one of their kid's DNA, that's enough to identify them as a son/daughter of the person with that DNA profile. If a medical insurance company purchases their DNA, analyzes it, and anticipates that a child of theirs is likely to have medical costs 5x the average, those costs will be passed on to those kids, absent legislation to the contrary. This applies to everyone you're related to, as w…

Yeah I keep waiting to hear about insurance companies finally paying off politicians enough to get HIPPA revoked.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#425

Post by maxioatic »

rainyMammoth wrote: post #309
hi41 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sent a saliva swab and got my dna analyzed by 23andme. I got back information I already knew such as where I came from etc. Serious question. IF the government catches a relative of mine who is a rapist or a murderer from my dna, I don’t see anything wrong with it. Could someone please explain what could go wrong. Keeping our community from heinous criminals is a good thing isn’t?

ah, here we go. The notoriously flawed "I'm doing nothing wrong and I have nothing to hide" argument. There are so many reasons why this is wrong and it is a pretty well known philosophical stance. A couple reasons: - You assume that the government is acting for your best interest. What would happen if we elect a crazy president that changes the direction of the country? (Think WW2 Germany with their eugenics). - You…

I'm curious what you mean by philosophical stance. Could you expand a little?

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#426

Post by stjohnswarts »

glennpratt wrote: post #299
cookiecaper wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this isn't science fiction or conspiracy theory anymore. Several high-profile cold cases have gone hot as police have been trawling the datasets submitted to 23AndMe et al and investigating the family trees of persons whose DNA is similar-ish to the samples in unsolved cases. [0] The results are mainly bupkis anyway, and you're paying for the privilege of having police agencies across the country (world?) give…

It's all tradeoffs, I want some privacy, but I also like crimes being solved. In fact, I'd see that as a benefit even if I'm related to criminals. Of course this assumes it is used correctly and fairly, which is the hard part.

I personally feel that privacy and individuality holds much more value than solving crime. I hope society never comes to the point that they'll allow government to do anything to them in order to provide "safety"

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#427

Post by JohnFen »

brigandish wrote: post #314
JohnFen wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The group that you have some sort of actual say in how they operate. That usually means the government, not a private business.

You can buy shares that give you voting rights in a company, and you can decide to spend (or not) your money with a company. The latter is not available to you with the government and has been shown, I would argue, to have a greater effect over a company than voting in a democracy, and that's as an individual. Maybe that's comparable with picking parties to vote for but it's not quite the same. I wouldn't trust eithe…

> You can buy shares that give you voting rights in a company

Which is saying that you can only have a "vote" if you're wealthy enough. That doesn't seem like an actual solution to me.

> and you can decide to spend (or not) your money with a company.

Which is what I do, but doing that doesn't affect the company's behavior.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#428

Post by 0xcraft »

After a woman reached out to me on Facebook last Father's Day I took the 23andme test. Yes I had a new to me baby sister!

She found me after taking the test herself looking for her (our) paternal linneage. A not too distant common relative did the 23andme too and a little detective work in online obituaries was all she needed to find me. Strangest FB message I have gotten to date. I thought she was a cybersecurity recruiter as I noticed she was looking at my LinkedIn profile a few days prior to contact.

I used to be more concerned about the privacy implications. Maybe it's my age or something but I feel at peace with my choice. Besides I realized once one somewhat close relative is in the database it takes very little to link us all up.

Was it worth it all things considered? For me it was though without the desire to confirm our relationship I probably wouldn't have done it.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#429

Post by JohnFen »

collyw wrote: post #355
JohnFen wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm similar. My sister pressured me into doing it about 5 years ago. These days, I really regret that I gave in and did it.

Surely most of the interesting stuff would be shared between you and your sister assuming you have both parents the same.

She wanted me to do it instead of her because you can get more information that she cares about from men than women, due to certain things linked to sex chromosomes.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#430

Post by stjohnswarts »

kenjackson wrote: post #397
zyang wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did it 6/7 years ago because the novelty, and enthusiastically recommended it to family and friends. Now I regret doing it considering how Google and Facebook has abused consumer data. I definitely would not submit my kids to the same fate.

The technology is here now. If a bad actor wants your data they can easily get it without you submitting anything. Unless you protect your bodily fluids I think you should generally already consider your dna compromised.

Since I'm a boring white male who isn't currently angering any "actors" of significant size I'm not too worried about that. I would be much more worried about 23 and me sharing my DNA than James Bond busting through my window and stealing my poop for DNA.
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