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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

#181
post #96
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it didn't provide value, no one would be using it.

Right, that's why I use heroin.

Lots of people consider feeling good to be valuable. Risk to health is part of the cost that people are willing to pay. Same for alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, skydiving.

Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data

#182
post #111
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Aren't companies already paying indirectly by providing free service? I think it's more about changing the frame. That Tech companies have been profiting off something you actually have always intrinsically owned, your personal data, and now is the time to retake that ownership.

But there's a lot of cases where there's data about someone that is not owned by them. e.g. If I go into a store and am recorded on the CCTV, the store still owns that video, even if it is about me. This could be pretty similar to the way that if someone uses Facebook and clicks on something, Facebook would own the log which recorded this. In other cases the data that users upload to websites is definitely owned by t…

I agree with that but we're talking about things that are really measurements of your mind right? What kind of articles do you read, what kind of posts do you like, products you like to buy etc. The Tech giants use rough simulacra of your mind to try and target you as efficiently as possible with ads. This seems like some kind of Black Mirror episode to me.

Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data

#183
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the point of it all isn't to make the consumer money, but to make companies less indiscriminate about gathering and storing data?

Can't you achieve the same effect at user level by faking some data + messing with tracking via Firefox containers + Ghostery + Cookies AutoDelete?

The government setting up an independent, trustworthy program to do this for every single person either unaware or unskilled enough to do this would cost a lot more than $10/person, or whatever this dividend is.

But if the "you" you're referring to here is actually just you, of course you can.

Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data

#184

It's ironic that they require you to input "as many of your emails as possible" in order to fight on your behalf. Fighting fire with fire, I guess? Seems wrong though...

It's more ironic that they apparently can't be trusted with data because they geoblock GDPR-countries which you would only do if you know ahead of time that you can't deliver your website without datamining your visitors.

Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data

#185
This sounds like an enforcement nightmare. It’s a nice idea, but how would it actually work?

So we would get some sort of commission from Instagram for every ad we view. And the government will need to track this for every Californian, then divvy up a couple dollars per person each year.

I know there are some Yang fans on HN and I don’t want to get too political here but his ideas are too oversimplified, from the $1k UBI thing to this they feel like the left’s version of “build a wall”. They’re simple ideas that are great for social media attention but ultimately oversimplify an inherently complex problem.

Again, I’m not trying to make a political argument either way here, just pointing out how social media seems to incentivize our leaders to oversimplify policy ideas.

Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data

#186
post #170

Instead of the lunatic, "lead balloon" BS like this (or UBI, for that matter), I'd rather someone worked on requiring US websites to honor "do not track" by law. Right now there's this idiotic arms race where browser vendors (other than Google, of course) are baking in more and more anti-tracking, and adtech companies are piling on more and more sophisticated tracking on the other end. Because the problem is asymmetr…

GDPR doesn't say you have to 'warn' for 'cookies' but that you have to ask consent for data processing before doing it and you can't deny people if they don't want that. If you happen to use a cookie to track a user for data processing then you may pop up a cookie-specific message.

In the end what needs to happen is exactly what GDPR is made for: don't grab people's data and track them unless they say it is OK to do so.

Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data

#187
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like this is putting the cart before the horse. Why should we care what Facebook can and can't afford? We don't owe them a business model. The point of this is to remit to the user the value that has been extracted from them. If Facebook cannot make money, i.e. contribute value, on top of that, then they are actually a drain on society surviving off negative externalities and should go. Deciding how much a user…

How would this work for, say, Google. Say they cut users a check and their business model no longer worked. Would they then charge for searches? Would users have the option to keep free searches in lieu of a payment?

Yes right now it's just assumed your value, your cost, their value, and their cost all balance out. But let's slap some numbers and everything and actually see if it does.

If we have the option to pay up front, or sell off my data and maybe end up in the red or black. It will all be very complex in the end, but that's just exposing the inherent complexity that already exists and is just papered over.

Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data

#188
The information provided in this article is sparse; Yang discusses the vision of where this project was probably inspired by in his "Yang Speaks" podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmNCVHcZp5s episode w/ Jaron Lanier (re: data unions, brokers, etc.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-WuwG_fYJ4 pre-launch episode

Make sure to check out the FAQ and Privacy Policy of the project to get a better grasp of what legal framework and actions they are taking.

Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data

#189
post #55
post #26

It doesn't work. There isn't enough money in the data for anyone to care. Your entire data load might be worth $100 a year . The only reason it funds massive industries is cost-effective aggregation by dirt-cheap computer power. I ran the numbers on Facebook a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19462402 It comes out that they're making roughly $17/yr in annual revenue per user. Revenue , not profit . Cr…

When I see these breakdowns I think I’d pay $17 per year for Facebook without all of the ads and tracking and data mining and knowing I was just getting a good service optimized for its customers. Why not ban tracking and ad targeting and selling personal data, and force that business model to go extinct, and now they have to start charging for service and their users become actual customers.

[deleted]

Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data

#190
post #55
post #26

It doesn't work. There isn't enough money in the data for anyone to care. Your entire data load might be worth $100 a year . The only reason it funds massive industries is cost-effective aggregation by dirt-cheap computer power. I ran the numbers on Facebook a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19462402 It comes out that they're making roughly $17/yr in annual revenue per user. Revenue , not profit . Cr…

When I see these breakdowns I think I’d pay $17 per year for Facebook without all of the ads and tracking and data mining and knowing I was just getting a good service optimized for its customers. Why not ban tracking and ad targeting and selling personal data, and force that business model to go extinct, and now they have to start charging for service and their users become actual customers.

$17 is the global average. If you live in a country like the US, you probably generate way more revenue per year, since you have more spending power (and thus are more valuable to advertise to).

I think the general problem is that those who can afford to pay for Facebook are those who are the most valuable to advertisers. So if you gave users the choice to pay or not, the users who draw the advertising revenue would pay, leaving the users who the advertisers don't really want to advertise to.

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