Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class
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Re: Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class
#2This entire article is an oxymoron. A "marker of class" is something that signals to other people which social class you belong to. The whole point of privacy is to not signal anything to anyone.
Also not to mention that the biggest tracking signals companies care about are your financials: credit cards, bank accounts, etc. The largest swath of the "unbanked", people who pay with cash, etc. are poor.
Re: Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class
#3This entire article is an oxymoron. A "marker of class" is something that signals to other people which social class you belong to. The whole point of privacy is to not signal anything to anyone. Also not to mention that the biggest tracking signals companies care about are your financials: credit cards, bank accounts, etc. The largest swath of the "unbanked", people who pay with cash, etc. are poor.
I think it’s more of a paradox than an oxymoron. The lack of having to maintain public social media accounts (especially a LinkedIn) may be interpreted as higher class. Poor people have to spend their time putting out content and building an “online presence” to get jobs, friends, etc, while higher class people don’t have to deal with those distractions.
Re: Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class
#4The best situation to be in is wealthy when nobody knows about it. The latter requires privacy. Those those who seek privacy carry a signal as a result.
Re: Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class
#5I feel like the idea of privacy as a luxury is not limited to high-tech society. Do poor people in a primitive society have more privacy than poor people in a developed country?
We're always so concerned with machines recognizing us, but what about other people? If I live in a small village, the owner of the general store will surely remember my face just like an ML-laden camera or POS system. We get creeped out when machines suggest things related to our past behavior, but love it when the bartender already knows what we like. People who remember you can spread rumors just like your data can be sold to another company.
I'm not trying to say that privacy doesn't matter at all, of course. I'm just wondering how much things have actually changed, privacy-wise.
Re: Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class
#6This entire article is an oxymoron. A "marker of class" is something that signals to other people which social class you belong to. The whole point of privacy is to not signal anything to anyone. Also not to mention that the biggest tracking signals companies care about are your financials: credit cards, bank accounts, etc. The largest swath of the "unbanked", people who pay with cash, etc. are poor.
I think this a pedantic take on the headline. The intent behind the entire article is that privacy is a privilege for those who can afford it.
Re: Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class
#7I feel like the idea of privacy as a luxury is not limited to high-tech society. Do poor people in a primitive society have more privacy than poor people in a developed country? We're always so concerned with machines recognizing us, but what about other people? If I live in a small village, the owner of the general store will surely remember my face just like an ML-laden camera or POS system. We get creeped out when…
The difference is reciprocity.
“Everyone knows everyone” vs “I know you, but you don’t even know who I am”.
Re: Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class
#8The only service he mentions by name is Protonmail, which has a free tier, which he doesn't mention. The pay version is about $7.50 USD a month, which is not cost prohibitive if you care about it.
His theory seems to be that if you have a bunch of these, they will add up. Maybe, but I can't buy the argument without more and better examples to back it up.
I mean, if you had Protonmail and a $5/mo VPN, you'd still be spending less than the cost of a standard Netflix subscription. And if you stopped subscribing to Netflix because you cared about privacy, you'd be SAVING money.
He does bring up a good point, which is that you need to have a certain amount of technical fluency to do this stuff. The other example he lists is the Pi-hole: does he think the cost of a $35 Raspberry Pi is what's keeping most people from running this software? That's not it at all: it's the obscurity of the project, and the knowledge it takes to set it up. There are plenty of people in the world for whom $35 is a big expense, but the number of people who are prevented from using one because of the cost is very low.
Re: Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class
#9This entire article is an oxymoron. A "marker of class" is something that signals to other people which social class you belong to. The whole point of privacy is to not signal anything to anyone. Also not to mention that the biggest tracking signals companies care about are your financials: credit cards, bank accounts, etc. The largest swath of the "unbanked", people who pay with cash, etc. are poor.
That’s not quite true. There are all kinds of class signifiers that are subtle signals to in group members. High end jewelry is often quite under stated for this reason. The way you speak is also a class thing, as is a wide range of subtle social behavior.
Noticeably not having a social media account clearly is a visible behavior that could be a marker of class, as would anything else privacy related.
Re: Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class
#10If the author's premise is correct, that privacy is a marker of class, then a conclusion drawn from that is more people will be striving for greater privacy.
TBH, the comments are more interesting than the author's opinion.
https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2021/07/15/privacy_...
It's true that "privacy" from "tech" companies is not easy and could cost money if someone tries to replace every "service" that tech companies purport to offer with a supposedly "private" version. But is that the only way to approach "alternatives". See the comments.
What he is not considering is that luring users into surveillance with "services" ("let us do that for you") is neither easy nor cheap either. Arguably tech companies spend far more time and (investor's) money to lure users into surveillance and trying to collect ever more user data than I do to compiling and running different OS, using different software and actively managing a home network in ways that make personal UX better and tech company data collection and ad tech jobs more difficult. Plus I do not have to waste investors' money in the process or carry out instructions that require compromising ethics ("gentlemen do not read each other's mail"). Thankfully, when I spend time fiddling with computers I reap the results of my own work and follow my own ethics.