Nielsen Research paid me to fill out consumer preferences and TV viewing surveys last month. Sure, they didn't pay more than ten bucks, but it was cash and it was more than I ever got from Google,...
Nielsen Research paid me to fill out consumer preferences and TV viewing surveys last month. Sure, they didn't pay more than ten bucks, but it was cash and it was more than I ever got from Google, Facebook, Twitter, or Medium.
I've received $49.46 in Google Play credits over about 2.5 years from Google Survey rewards. Not a great return, but the surveys take about ten seconds to fill out, so it's something, I guess.
I've received $49.46 in Google Play credits over about 2.5 years from Google Survey rewards. Not a great return, but the surveys take about ten seconds to fill out, so it's something, I guess.
I've made a little more than that from them over the same time span. I sometimes do the whole terrible surveys-for-money thing on an app. /r/beermoney stuff, basically. It always amazes me how...
I've made a little more than that from them over the same time span.
I sometimes do the whole terrible surveys-for-money thing on an app. /r/beermoney stuff, basically. It always amazes me how much advertisers will pay - even factoring in what the app middlemen are taking, etc - to identify people for their targeted campaigns. Tragically I'm not the right demo for most of the stuff (i.e. someone considering buying a new car in the next month...), so I mostly get to do lengthy surveys wherein I try to be the voice of reason. Also kind of impressive how much some places value one person's opinion. (Of course, has to be the right person... and in some cases, the right opinion. A lot of surveys are... pretty unobjective, lol.)
Just to play devils advocate but Google, Facebook and Twitter are free services (I can't speak to medium because I don't know it and I'm too lazy to look it up). What would you value the services...
Just to play devils advocate but Google, Facebook and Twitter are free services (I can't speak to medium because I don't know it and I'm too lazy to look it up). What would you value the services they've rendered you in comparison with the data you've given them? If they went to a paid/subscriber model but stopped collecting data, how much would you spend to continue using their service?
I don't use Facebook and Twitter at all, and certainly wouldn't consider using either if they charged. If anything, I think they should be paying me. As for Google, their services were never free....
I don't use Facebook and Twitter at all, and certainly wouldn't consider using either if they charged. If anything, I think they should be paying me.
As for Google, their services were never free. They might not have charged a fee, but they expected you to let them watch your activity online, let them read your email and data-mine it, and record your searches so that they could show you ads for shit you've already searched for and might even have purchased already.
Fuck Google. I'm working on freeing myself from those assholes, too. It's just harder to delete Google than it was to delete Facebook and Twitter.
I have a handful of counter-arguments to this article, while generally agreeing that something does need to be done about the current state of affairs. I just happen to think these types of...
I have a handful of counter-arguments to this article, while generally agreeing that something does need to be done about the current state of affairs. I just happen to think these types of suggestions are barking up the wrong tree.
"Personal data are much more valuable than you think"
The overwhelming majority of the time, this is false. In fact quite the opposite. Most people overestimate the value of their personal data by several orders of magnitude. Way down towards the end of the article it is pointed out that "If Facebook shared out its profits across all its monthly users, for instance, each would get just $9 a year." That calculation itself is already off, because it presumes that all of the value of their profits is generated by the collection of personal data, and ignores that a large part of the value being generated is based on the systems and infrastructure to collect and disseminate that data. Certainly without that personal data, the systems would not be worth much, but likewise without the systems, the data is largely worthless. And even with those optimistic calculations, the financial return would be basically nothing.
One of the things that this article almost gets to, and is often skipped over in these conversations, is that a single individual's personal data means nothing (excepting certain rare conditions). It is the collective aggregation of data that is valuable. As discussed here in the context of machine learning, you need a lot of data from a lot of sources to generate any sort of value. The complete collection of that data, after being collected, sorted, and pruned, can indeed be worth a lot. But the value of any one individual point of data there is small, and meaningless without the rest of the whole.
Then you get to suggestions like 'the rise of what he calls "data-labour unions", organisations that serve as gatekeepers of people's data,' which honestly makes me bristle a bit. For one thing, Facebook, Google, et al, are already acting as gatekeepers of people's data, and we've seen how well that has played out. Or we can consider Equifax, an organization collecting personal data without the expertise to handle it. Any sort of large gatekeeper in this space is going to be a massive target, and it will take some absolutely top of the line technical knowledge to ensure the platform's safety. If they are a smaller gatekeeper to present less of a target, their value is severely undercut.
Ultimately the model of such an organization is going to be extraordinarly difficult to get right. A publically held for-profit company would have to be more transparent than pretty much any other corporation in history, and would still stand on a precipice of shifting the wrong way at any moment (via stock-holder decisions, corporate buyouts, etc). A privately held company would likely be inextricably bound to a trust in the founder(s), and thus have a limited potential life. A public non-profit, like a union as they try to suggest here, means that the organization is bound to the members' whims at any time. And frankly, I don't trust enough of the public to make the best decisions in these areas most of the time, especially in an area where public understanding is quite limited overall, and can be easily influenced.
"But Mr Weyl argues that the skills needed to generate valuable data may be more widely spread than you might think"
I am reiterating at this point, but to draw towards the conclusions that they have made: the data itself is not that valuable. Likewise the skills to generate that data are not that valuable. Being able to use that data in a meaningful way is where the value is created. The "big data distilleries" will continue to be the ones drawing in the wealth given these suggestions, even if they deign to give us some peanuts in return.
Transaction costs all but certainly outweigh marginal benefit, and the real win (for the data broker) is in being the monopoly or largest aggregator. The concept also still discounts negative...
Transaction costs all but certainly outweigh marginal benefit, and the real win (for the data broker) is in being the monopoly or largest aggregator. The concept also still discounts negative unintended consequences.
Full disclosure, this is a plug for a startup my friend and I are trying to get up and running. I was going to make a separate post about it at some point but that seems too self-promotional....
Full disclosure, this is a plug for a startup my friend and I are trying to get up and running. I was going to make a separate post about it at some point but that seems too self-promotional.
Metro is about ethical data collection with a focus on fairness and transparency. The idea is that you select what data you want to sell and who you want to sell it to and a browser extension gathers that data while you browse. If it sounds interesting I'd really love some feedback.
I don't mind providing data for a return: Screenwise Meter add-on provided browsing info to Google for dollars a week convertible to various gift cards. Google Opinion Rewards is way to get some...
I don't mind providing data for a return:
Screenwise Meter add-on provided browsing info to Google for dollars a week convertible to various gift cards.
Google Opinion Rewards is way to get some info based on phone habits (YouTube, location, browsing) mixed with questionnaires for small but useful returns.
The Nielson surveys mentioned earlier seem to be more common than before as it's easier to track cordcutting viewing that way.
Discounts at grocery stores for info about what I'm buying has been a thing for a long time.
I think I'm clearly more okay with data sharing when I know it's part of the process - more transparent. I did take the dealer sticker off my car because I didn't get anything for their free advertising and I didn't like the way it looked but I know some dealers will give free oil changes if you leave their sticker on or license holder and I probably would have if that applied to my dealer sticker.
I believe that personal info is important and valuable but it's currently hard to quantify in a way that is easily managed or controlled.
Nielsen Research paid me to fill out consumer preferences and TV viewing surveys last month. Sure, they didn't pay more than ten bucks, but it was cash and it was more than I ever got from Google, Facebook, Twitter, or Medium.
I've received $49.46 in Google Play credits over about 2.5 years from Google Survey rewards. Not a great return, but the surveys take about ten seconds to fill out, so it's something, I guess.
I've made a little more than that from them over the same time span.
I sometimes do the whole terrible surveys-for-money thing on an app. /r/beermoney stuff, basically. It always amazes me how much advertisers will pay - even factoring in what the app middlemen are taking, etc - to identify people for their targeted campaigns. Tragically I'm not the right demo for most of the stuff (i.e. someone considering buying a new car in the next month...), so I mostly get to do lengthy surveys wherein I try to be the voice of reason. Also kind of impressive how much some places value one person's opinion. (Of course, has to be the right person... and in some cases, the right opinion. A lot of surveys are... pretty unobjective, lol.)
Just to play devils advocate but Google, Facebook and Twitter are free services (I can't speak to medium because I don't know it and I'm too lazy to look it up). What would you value the services they've rendered you in comparison with the data you've given them? If they went to a paid/subscriber model but stopped collecting data, how much would you spend to continue using their service?
I don't use Facebook and Twitter at all, and certainly wouldn't consider using either if they charged. If anything, I think they should be paying me.
As for Google, their services were never free. They might not have charged a fee, but they expected you to let them watch your activity online, let them read your email and data-mine it, and record your searches so that they could show you ads for shit you've already searched for and might even have purchased already.
Fuck Google. I'm working on freeing myself from those assholes, too. It's just harder to delete Google than it was to delete Facebook and Twitter.
I have a handful of counter-arguments to this article, while generally agreeing that something does need to be done about the current state of affairs. I just happen to think these types of suggestions are barking up the wrong tree.
The overwhelming majority of the time, this is false. In fact quite the opposite. Most people overestimate the value of their personal data by several orders of magnitude. Way down towards the end of the article it is pointed out that "If Facebook shared out its profits across all its monthly users, for instance, each would get just $9 a year." That calculation itself is already off, because it presumes that all of the value of their profits is generated by the collection of personal data, and ignores that a large part of the value being generated is based on the systems and infrastructure to collect and disseminate that data. Certainly without that personal data, the systems would not be worth much, but likewise without the systems, the data is largely worthless. And even with those optimistic calculations, the financial return would be basically nothing.
One of the things that this article almost gets to, and is often skipped over in these conversations, is that a single individual's personal data means nothing (excepting certain rare conditions). It is the collective aggregation of data that is valuable. As discussed here in the context of machine learning, you need a lot of data from a lot of sources to generate any sort of value. The complete collection of that data, after being collected, sorted, and pruned, can indeed be worth a lot. But the value of any one individual point of data there is small, and meaningless without the rest of the whole.
Then you get to suggestions like 'the rise of what he calls "data-labour unions", organisations that serve as gatekeepers of people's data,' which honestly makes me bristle a bit. For one thing, Facebook, Google, et al, are already acting as gatekeepers of people's data, and we've seen how well that has played out. Or we can consider Equifax, an organization collecting personal data without the expertise to handle it. Any sort of large gatekeeper in this space is going to be a massive target, and it will take some absolutely top of the line technical knowledge to ensure the platform's safety. If they are a smaller gatekeeper to present less of a target, their value is severely undercut.
Ultimately the model of such an organization is going to be extraordinarly difficult to get right. A publically held for-profit company would have to be more transparent than pretty much any other corporation in history, and would still stand on a precipice of shifting the wrong way at any moment (via stock-holder decisions, corporate buyouts, etc). A privately held company would likely be inextricably bound to a trust in the founder(s), and thus have a limited potential life. A public non-profit, like a union as they try to suggest here, means that the organization is bound to the members' whims at any time. And frankly, I don't trust enough of the public to make the best decisions in these areas most of the time, especially in an area where public understanding is quite limited overall, and can be easily influenced.
I am reiterating at this point, but to draw towards the conclusions that they have made: the data itself is not that valuable. Likewise the skills to generate that data are not that valuable. Being able to use that data in a meaningful way is where the value is created. The "big data distilleries" will continue to be the ones drawing in the wealth given these suggestions, even if they deign to give us some peanuts in return.
Transaction costs all but certainly outweigh marginal benefit, and the real win (for the data broker) is in being the monopoly or largest aggregator. The concept also still discounts negative unintended consequences.
Full disclosure, this is a plug for a startup my friend and I are trying to get up and running. I was going to make a separate post about it at some point but that seems too self-promotional.
Metro is about ethical data collection with a focus on fairness and transparency. The idea is that you select what data you want to sell and who you want to sell it to and a browser extension gathers that data while you browse. If it sounds interesting I'd really love some feedback.
But running a free service is hard enough! You want us to pay users? They're supposed to be paying us! /s
I don't mind providing data for a return:
I think I'm clearly more okay with data sharing when I know it's part of the process - more transparent. I did take the dealer sticker off my car because I didn't get anything for their free advertising and I didn't like the way it looked but I know some dealers will give free oil changes if you leave their sticker on or license holder and I probably would have if that applied to my dealer sticker.
I believe that personal info is important and valuable but it's currently hard to quantify in a way that is easily managed or controlled.