I foresee tech companies creating paid and non-paid versions of their products. If you don't want your data monetized, please pay $50/month for Google Search, GMail, Maps, and YouTube. If you are okay with the value exchange of ads and free services, then you are opting into a mutually agreed upon arrangement with no compensation.
Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
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Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#12how much would you pay monthly for Google ?
Im paying for Google Storage, Youtube Premium and would like one fee where I dont see any ads at all.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#13I foresee tech companies creating paid and non-paid versions of their products. If you don't want your data monetized, please pay $50/month for Google Search, GMail, Maps, and YouTube. If you are okay with the value exchange of ads and free services, then you are opting into a mutually agreed upon arrangement with no compensation.
This would create a weird paradox:
Advertisers want people with disposable income.
People without much disposable income get really targeted ads (they won’t pay for the privacy).
People with disposable income pay for the privacy service and don’t get ads or get poorly targeted ads.
It then becomes more like traditional ads that get broadcast to everyone.
So the policy shoots itself in the foot.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#14I'm all for people controlling their data and being fully informed of how it's being used, but I just don't understand the idea that you should be paid for the data that you give to companies when you choose to use their products. The payment that you get is the products. You don't get a check from Google, but you get to use Google, which is an incredibly useful tool. I like Yang, but I think he's barking up the wron…
By adding payouts into the mix, companies become incentivized to not sell your data if it's not material to them. I go to the store, I buy something. Transaction over. The idea that the store tracks the shit out of me when I'm in the store is creepy enough. I can accept that ship has sailed since I'm in their store.
That the store turns around and makes money off of that browsing data so Facebook can sell me ads for products I lingered in front of, is another level entirely. Thus the data dividend forces the store to truly think through wether or not it's worth it to them to the data. For mega-corp retailers like Target or Whole Foods, they may decide it is (though I'd prefer not), and in that case, since it is my data being sold it doesn't seem unreasonable that I should get something from that transaction. (Unlike physical goods, my data, eg home address/email/IP address/etc, doesn't stop being mine just because someone else also has it.)
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#15Aren't companies already paying indirectly by providing free service? I am no fan of Facebook but I am using the service free of cost and in return company collects data for targeted advertising. Shouldn't this be more targeted at cable companies which collect a monthly fee and again sell your data? And may be forcing Big Tech to provide a paid alternative which doesn't use data collected?
Facebook is also making money off of you by showing you ads. It's a question of how much is enough. Facebook is charging nothing, sure, but what if the value they take from us (our data, our ad attention+clicks) is more valuable than the value they give us (a free social media)?
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#16Aren't companies already paying indirectly by providing free service? I am no fan of Facebook but I am using the service free of cost and in return company collects data for targeted advertising. Shouldn't this be more targeted at cable companies which collect a monthly fee and again sell your data? And may be forcing Big Tech to provide a paid alternative which doesn't use data collected?
I think the basic premise is that the status quo of transactions (free service for user data) has resulted in an imbalance of power for tech companies, and that by increasing the cost of acquisition, users have a means to collectively negotiate better "market rates" from the tech companies for services rendered. It can be regarded as similar to "unionizing" the users.
It would be interesting to get some preliminary guidance on what tech companies would do in response (start charging for premium services? only give premium services to the most valuable users?)
Andrew Yang has also mentioned in prior podcasts on UBI (Freakanomics, etc.) that probably the best way to fund such a program would be proceeds from increased taxation on tech companies.
I for one would love to see cable companies turned into public utilities. But that goal is not mutually exclusive from the goal to give the consumer some more power over the big tech conglomerates.
Disclaimer: I work at Google, opinions my own.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#17Facebook is giving me much more real value than they could ever make from me in dollars.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#18I foresee tech companies creating paid and non-paid versions of their products. If you don't want your data monetized, please pay $50/month for Google Search, GMail, Maps, and YouTube. If you are okay with the value exchange of ads and free services, then you are opting into a mutually agreed upon arrangement with no compensation.
I'm not sure that can work with so many of those services being built on a social graph.
You may not want your data monetized, but if you are in the contacts list of somebody else who has opted in, your half of any conversation isn't going to be excluded.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#19I'm all for people controlling their data and being fully informed of how it's being used, but I just don't understand the idea that you should be paid for the data that you give to companies when you choose to use their products. The payment that you get is the products. You don't get a check from Google, but you get to use Google, which is an incredibly useful tool. I like Yang, but I think he's barking up the wron…
I absolutely love the idea of imposing a cost for holding personal data. It should be an expensive, carefully weighed decision whether anyone's data is kept for any longer than absolutely necessary.
The only incentive companies generally respond to is financial, that's where we need to impact them to make them think.
(Yes, some companies do try to do right, but they are sadly outnumbered. So far.)
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#20Aren't companies already paying indirectly by providing free service? I am no fan of Facebook but I am using the service free of cost and in return company collects data for targeted advertising. Shouldn't this be more targeted at cable companies which collect a monthly fee and again sell your data? And may be forcing Big Tech to provide a paid alternative which doesn't use data collected?
Facebook is also making money off of you by showing you ads. It's a question of how much is enough. Facebook is charging nothing, sure, but what if the value they take from us (our data, our ad attention+clicks) is more valuable than the value they give us (a free social media)?
Well if what they gave us was more valuable than what they took, they wouldn’t be a very profitable company, would it?