What a useless policy to spend time on. No one cares except the vocal geeks and if it did go through I’m sure people will be excited to get a $5 check once a month.
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
#272What a useless policy to spend time on. No one cares except the vocal geeks and if it did go through I’m sure people will be excited to get a $5 check once a month.
Your missing the forest for the trees. Unionizing workers isn’t about everyone getting a penny more because they are organized. It’s about restoring power balance by organizing the many who contribute more than the few.
If you get everyone who contribute data to Facebook, google, twitter etc. organized, then you can do a hell of a lot more than just get a couple of dollars for each person. You might even get them to clean up major parts of their act. Because a threat of “tomorrow we will request GDPR removal of all content from 1million users unless you do x” is much more of a threat than #quitfacebook will ever be.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#273It 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 $17/yr in annual revenue per user. Revenue , not profit . Cr…
That is missing the whole point. I would even pay for them stopping it. Getting money is certainly a misunderstanding of the issue and goal. It also underscores who is the owner of the data. Remember all the copyright claims by platforms on their user content? It is not because of 5$ a year.
It would also disincentive them collecting info on me.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re missing the point: when you go to a store, you hand them cash. When you go to a website, you hand them data, which they turn around and sell for cash. The data you give them is the payment for their product. Why else would Facebook invest billions into free products? I’m not shedding a tear for the mega corps, but people need to understand that companies will charge for products one way or another.
If I walk into a store and make no purchase creates no value for the store. Visiting a website with a Facebook tracker (21.9% of the web) and making no purchase creates value for Facebook.
you would be surprised, but that also creates value for the store.
i worked with a company that tracks you and your facial expressions as you move thru the store. they analysed that data to show new products and move things around.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#275I'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 think there's a category error here around 'choice'. Who is choosing? I can walk into a store and look around without making a commitment to buy a product. I may leave realizing that there is nothing for me here. I chose not to become a customer. Or I chose to be a customer and there was a ritual exchanging of gifts and information which is relatively clear to all parties. Websites don't work that way. I can't 'bro…
not only are physical stores tracking you, but i still remember the documentary about the perfume that is spread out across the store to make you buy more.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#276It 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…
They should just tax data / ads. FB can send one big check to government.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't have to be either/or. An individual could pay and opt out of data mining. Anyway, personalized ads is just the tip of the iceberg, the real problem with that data doesn't exist on a small scale. The problem is that mountain of data could be abused, for example to manipulate public opinion, elections, the stock market, etc, and blackmail. Even if you aren't vulnerable to these things directly, the abuse pot…
Opting out would then require trusting an organization who is incentivized to collect data to not collect it. That can't be the solution.
If you don't trust them, don't give them your data or your money.
Of course all this would be predicated on trust and a government that would actually use teeth if fraud was committed.
Hah.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That sort of statement requires data to back it up. On other social media websites that offer "pay to remove ads" versus "get personalized ads", like Reddit or Twitch, about 1% of users pay. Wikipedia asks for donations and very few people donate, percentage-wise. So I think if you want to show a substantially higher number, say even 10%, you'll need to provided evidence. Even if 10% of users paid, would they be wi…
> I want Facebook, and I want it for free with personalized ads. Same with Gmail, Yelp, Reddit, Google Maps, Instagram, Youtube, and a bunch of other web services. Exactly! I don't know why it's so hard for people to realize that there are people that 100% ok with the offerings from these companies and would rather not have legislation interfere with such transactions
I think mostly people argue that people who are OK with it don't know any better, don't know how much they're being tracked, etc. I don't think that's true today, everyone knows these companies know everything, even if they're not very tech savvy, and still they don't care as much as privacy advocates wish.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't sound so bad on the surface, but it would mean that most of my friends aren't on facebook, or any other social network, which would mean that it is close to pointless.
Most of your friends probably pay for Netflix. The motivation for Netflix is to give you just enough quality to keep you paying every month. For a free service like Facebook you the user have no expectation of quality because you're paying nothing. So Facebook's motivation is not to provide quality but to keep you engaged and clicking. They've discovered that best way to do that is to infuriate you and to radicalize…
The majority would, I guess. Not enough for it to matter.
Re: Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
$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…
For reference it's approximately $143 per year for the US market, per user ($11.92 per month). ~220-230 million monthly active US users, $31.4 billion in sales (projected 2020 figure) for that market. That's of course not adjusting for hours of use for a given user, data contribution, and so on.
Do you know the numbers for daily active users or weekly active users?
And do those numbers include messenger?
It would be fascinating to see some histograms of users and usage. Especially one that compares ad buyers, page managers, and personal only users.