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Comment by Manuel_D | Hacker News Reader

Is it inconceivable that people actually see lower savings in exchange for tracking shopping habits is a beneficial transaction? Safeway can more effectively distribute products. I get to save money. Safeway has an incentive to keep this data secure - if it leaked then their competitors gain an advantage. And even if it does leak, how are my grocery shopping habits being published really going to negatively impact me? I mean, I guess I can see how a dieting influencer secretly buying donuts might be scandalous... but 99.9% probably DGAF if their grocery lists were leaked.

I often find that people just reflexively assume that data collection about their habits is inherently a net negative, rather than laying out the cost benefit analysis.

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> Is it inconceivable that people actually see lower savings in exchange for tracking shopping habits is a beneficial transaction?

I would argue that the vast majority of people are unable to fairly evaluate this tradeoff due to the intentional lack of transparency in what is collected, how it is used, and who it gets shared with (and how they use it).

> And even if it does leak, how are my grocery shopping habits being published really going to negatively impact me?

Alone? Not much. It's about aggregating as many data points as possible. Your grocery is just one of those.

And when the data about me is aggregated... what then? I get served ads that are more likely to actually interest me? The data gets leaked and the degree to which I nerd out about amateur radio and videogames is supposed to be scandalous?

Or your car insurance rates go up because of what a model has inferred, rightly or wrongly, about your driving habits. But as the driver you are unaware of this because 1) the car insurance company doesn't tell you 2) your car manufacturer buried it in the legalize jungle of the TOS which no one can reasonably be expected to read.

https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/personal-informa...

Presumably some people's rates also go down on account of more extensive information gathering. If the insurance company just raised rates across the board, they'd no longer be as cost competitive as other insurance providers.

Not if all insurance providers are playing this game. Like algorithmic rent fixing currently happening.

Insurance companies are some of the most regulated industries: their profit margins are capped by law, at least for healthcare insurance.

Ironic that you mention algorithmic renting fixing: a single digit percentage of the rental market actually used RealPage. And when cities banned it, rents were unchanged. The evidence of rent fixing is largely absent.

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