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Comment by tsumnia | Hacker News Reader

Just let me profit or opt-out of the sale! Some how the mindset/unspoken agreement/TOS-spoken agreement that I have to "pay" with my personal data to use these products has become too commonplace. It doesn't have to be much, but if I were allowed to generate an extra $20 a month that'd be great! I already use Google Rewards, and at this point that's the only "surveys" I get.

If I play fantasy futurologist for a second, it would even make for some interesting economics. Underrepresented groups for a particular analysis could pay more, because those groups' data is rarer. A straight, white, male techie is probably a saturated market, so I wouldn't generate much, but a Hispanic woman's could be more valuable.

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> the mindset...that I have to "pay" with my personal data to use these products has become too commonplace

I don't mind it so much when it's Facebook because it's clear they have to make money somehow. When it's the phone company that I pay money to, it's more surprising, and it feels like I'm being taken advantage of.

How are these different? Even if you already pay for a service they will maximize their return by doing everything that is legally allowed. This needs CCPA-style disclosure and opt out I think.

The difference is expectation. I expect my phone calls to be private. That goes for the associated data.

I don't have the same expectation of FB. I don't know anyone who does.

I know people, who were very surprised to hear, that FB can read all their personal messages as well.

> I don't know anyone who does.

This is a problem with running in mostly technical circles. I don't think your expectations are well aligned with "average citizen".

It's not your phone company that's making money from your location data so much as the third party apps (Yelp, Weather Channel etc.) that you have installed on your phone for free. In order to use those apps, you often have to consent to them sharing your location data to ad-tech companies to help them serve ads to you if you're in specific areas.

You sure about that? - "EFF Sues AT&T, Data Aggregators For Giving Bounty Hunters and Other Third Parties Access to Customers’ Real-Time Locations" - https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-sues-att-data-aggrega...

I highly recommend Doctorow's "Radicalized" for the other angle of this: pervasive, locked IoT devices baked-in to a rental agreement. "Only use proprietary soap for your washing machine - after all, that's the reason your rent is priced where it is."

The white male techie would still be more valuable because of the extra disposable income.

These companies use your data to make money. Paying you would mean they'd have to make more than they pay you from the addition of said data.

Today, I suspect the benefit of having said data is probably unknown. This data is probably only valuable in aggregate to determine trends.

Showing you a random advertisement vs an advertisement based on the page info vs an advertisement with your data included. I suspect an advertisement based on the page info is 90+% of the value.

That being said, they can't truly pay you meaningful amounts for your data and answer to their shareholders. That's why it's not really done yet.

Plus, they dont' need to in many cases. The whole internet is designed to collect all this data from you, without your consent being necessary.

> Today, I suspect the benefit of having said data is probably unknown. This data is probably only valuable in aggregate to determine trends.

One of the biggest purchasers of this data is private bounty hunters. It’s definitely useful to them, both in real time and “recent time”.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43z3dn/hundreds-bounty-hu...

The value of a targeted ad is a lot higher than just +10%

> "This data is probably only valuable in aggregate to determine trends."

Aafaik, when the data is available on the free market that means anyone can buy it. Anyone includes your favorite three-letter intelligence agencies.

Imagine that. Your personal data without a wiretap or other legal authorization.

No thanks.

> Paying you would mean they'd have to make more than they pay you from the addition of said data.

> This data is probably only valuable in aggregate to determine trends.

I disagree with this data point only because their current profits are being generated because they do not have to pay their data producers. And while I agree with the sentiment that the data is only valuable in aggregate, this doesn't mean my data is worth $0.00. Its still worth pennies, so maybe instead of $20, I earn $5, or less. The point is I'm paid for it. An analogy I had while I was driving over this comment is the equivalent to, say, an orange tree. A single orange is not as valuable as an "aggregate" of oranges.

In the current data economy, companies have maintenance expenses for their "orange harvesters", but not for the oranges themselves. Again, this has often brought up points of "you are using their service, its their data", but I'd say a) this bill clearly shows that some people do not agree with that sentiment, and b) (to continue with the farm analogy) this is where something like share farming [1] would be a usable model.

[1] https://dairy.ahdb.org.uk/technical-information/business-man...

The economics of location data is such that if providers had to pay them much per person, they'd no longer buy the data. If they paid the real worth per person, it'd probably come down to 1/2 cent a month.

Not true. I work on a targeting product, and if we could have accurate targeting data for a business decision maker, we’d pay significantly more per individual. The problem is that most people’s targeting data is not worth that much. Particularly the data of those who’d want to make a buck off it.

1. You are profiting - you get all the apps and content for free.

2. > Underrepresented groups for a particular analysis could pay more, because those groups' data is rarer. A straight, white, male techie is probably a saturated market, so I wouldn't generate much, but a Hispanic woman's could be more valuable.

Audience size doesn't equate well to cost of data. Buying power is most correlated thing to data cost. In this fantasy, rich white techy males earn more money form their data, and a hispanic woman earns very little.

Your personal data often includes other peoples personal data though...

Jaron lainier wrote a great book about your model called “Who Owns the Future.” In it, he describes a future where almost all profits go to large cloud centres and there are no jobs. He argues that by monetizing the data people produce that trains the ai of the future, people could avoid some of this and still have dignified lives and be self sufficient

Edit: typo

With the occasional discussions about a Universal Basic Income, this is how I viewed it'd be plausible.

Just to continue the discussion about the book, he dislikes basic income because it makes everybody fully dependent on the government for their wellbeing. He prefers a system where people have the dignity of having a way to earn their money :)

I'm not whether sure I agree or not, but the book was interesting

I don't mean basic income as a government expense; rather that the basic income is coming from selling your data and dictated by what the market is willing to pay for it.

Oh interesting, I misunderstood

I don't follow. If the majority of people create no wealth, it seems unlikely that getting paid only for their data is going be sustainable.

Today, no-one is interested in paying the poorest people in the world for their data.

>Just let me profit or opt-out of the sale!

You'll get like $5 just once. It's valued at nowhere near $20/month.

Facebook paid teens $20 a month to access their browsing history and DMs

https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-pays-people-to-access-the...

Location data is much cheaper: $9.50/mo for 1000 users

https://www.cnet.com/news/location-data-from-a-gas-station-a...

The goal is not to provide a knob for a power user, it's to change norms and avoid the tragedy-of-the-commons scenario that we're currently in.

Individual users are not going to opt out of anything, even though in aggregate, they state that they want the defaults to change.

Yea, I really don't understand how T-Mobile (the Uncarrier!) hasn't figured out that they could just offer a $10 monthly credit in exchange for "opting in" and bask in the massive marketing windfall they could get from it.

Wouldn't data of opt-in users only be less valuable to bounty hunters, since their targets would opt out much more than the other population?

It would depend on what percentage of the data revenue is purely going to bounty hunters (my guess: low). Also, my understanding is that most bounty hunters are basically doing collections, not chasing down hardened criminals.

It'd be even better if it were $50 or $100 a month!

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