
What if people were paid for their data? - koolba
https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2018/07/07/what-if-people-were-paid-for-their-data
======
johngalt
Data gathering is valuable only because it's a concentration of a huge number
of very low value things.

Think of it like a dam and reservoir at the drainage of a major watershed. You
can position things to collect all the rain and snow melt over a large area.
But it's not like you are going to pay everyone for each rain drop.

------
x2f10
How much is an individual's data worth? Is it enough to pay for an ongoing
Google / Facebook account?

------
ahartman00
I'm really fascinated to see how the next 5-10 years play out for the news
industry.

They seem really focused on google and facebook, who have a great deal of
control over the flow of traffic to the news sites. The EU in 2014, has even
tried to get google to pay for headlines and snippets [1]. And they just
decided not to go ahead with a similar plan [2].

Yet the news seem to ignore the isps, despite their willingness to actually
alter content in traffic to display ads. [3][4][5] I feel that they are
stepping over dollars to pick up dimes? Perhaps I am biased, but one of those
seems like more of a threat to me.(Yes, I know about https) Where is the
constant barrage of net neutrality opinion pieces? Are they not worried?

Now they want to talk about paying users for data. From the heading on the
article: "Our site uses cookies to deliver relevant messages during your
visit, such as presenting our latest offers". Obviously they know which
articles I am interested in(which products might i buy), but I have heard they
keep track of how long it takes me to read it(are speed readers more
affluent?), and where people stop reading(short attention span correlated to
increases spending impulsiveness?).

Am I going to get paid to read the news? This is a very valuable service I
provide. Yet the economist charges(which I am in favor of), and complains
about the free services(which I find really convenient and cheap). Are
news/data collection companies going to be exempt? Are they in favor of paying
users?

I guess seeing how the GDPR unfolds will be interesting wrt the news.

1\. [http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/12/the-fight-to-get-google-
to-...](http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/12/the-fight-to-get-google-to-pay-for-
news-continues-in-europe/)

2\.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44712475](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44712475)

3\. [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2015/08/atts-...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2015/08/atts-free-wi-fi-hotspot-injects-extra-ads-on-non-att-
websites/)

4\. [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/verizon-x-
uidh](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/verizon-x-uidh)

5\.
[https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/12/comcast-s...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/12/comcast-
still-uses-mitm-javascript-injection-serve-unwanted-ads-messages/)

