
An argument that companies should pay users for their data - phront
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/business/economy/user-data-pay.html
======
montrose
There's a whole genre of articles based on conflating two senses of "your,"
belonging to you, and about you. If I observe that you have blue eyes, that's
a fact about you, but it doesn't belong to you, at least not without
redefining what "belong" means.

It would be helpful if, instead of deliberately conflating these two senses of
"your," articles on this subject went in the other direction and explicitly
discussed the distinction.

We have from time to time redefined what "belong" means, but these
redefinitions tend to be very complicated and have all sorts of unforeseen
consequences. My guess is that a redefinition on the scale of facts about you
= your property would be a disaster.

~~~
taneq
And here you're conflating "public facts about you" with "facts that only your
cell phone / mattress / underpants / web browser know about you."

"Facts about you" falls into at least two categories: "Facts which you want
and reasonably expect to remain private", and "facts which you display to the
world and have no expectation of privacy about."

~~~
rhizome
Which is fine as far as semantics go, but in the context of this thread the
first category doesn't exist unless you're under 13 and in the US, or subject
to the GDPR, or a few other nooks and crannies of international laws.

------
dasil003
This is absolute nonsense and dangerous to boot. Facebook's ARPU is still less
than $20/year. If they literally paid all of their profits directly to their
user it would still be a pittance. The real value of privacy has to do with
freedom, manipulation and surveillance, and that is not represented by
economic measures at all. Talking about the value of the data in purely
economic terms is exactly the way you would want to frame the issue if you had
more nefarious plans down the line.

~~~
adventured
Facebook is probably going to hit $100+ ARPU in the US + Canada for fiscal
2018. It was $85.41 for 2017.

It was $27.76 in Q4, and $21.20 in Q3 (for the US + Canada).

It's not implausible that it'll eventually hit $200 per year in the US +
Canada.

For fun, here's their quarterly ARPU over the last few years in the US+CA,
starting from 1Q15, excluding all Q4 results (Q4 skews because it spikes):

$8.32, $9.30, $10.49, $12.43, $14.34, $15.65, $17.07, $19.38, $21.20

Quite the increase machine. US+CA ARPU for 4Q17 ($27.76) was triple that of
4Q14 ($9).

~~~
dhimes
Where are you finding these data?

~~~
RhodesianHunter
Earnings Reports most likely.

[https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-
details/...](https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-
details/2018/Facebook-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-
Year-2017-Results/default.aspx)

~~~
dhimes
I'm seeing $40.7B in 2017 revenue, 2.1B active monthly users (1.4B daily
active users). I'd like to know how the calculation is done because I'm
getting very different answers using these numbers.

~~~
Slansitartop
> I'm seeing $40.7B in 2017 revenue, 2.1B active monthly users (1.4B daily
> active users). I'd like to know how the calculation is done because I'm
> getting very different answers using these numbers.

There aren't 1.4B active daily users in the US and Canada, because there
aren't even that many people.

He's looking at the one of the richest slices of Facebook's user-base, but it
looks like you're looking at the global/worldwide numbers, which include _a
lot_ of _much_ poorer people.

~~~
dhimes
Agree. Which is why I am trying to find out where he's getting his numbers.

------
wpasc
The media portrayal of the tech world would be more impactful if it weren't so
hyperbolic, dramatized, and skewed. There are myriad valid complaints about
the tech world, but Facebook paying you for you posting your photos is not one
of them.

Facebook is free. Google search is free. 15gb of gmail/google drive is free.
You get those free, truly amazing services for nothing because the companies
found ways to generate value from the data being gathered. The cost to
maintain that infrastructure and provide those great services is pretty high
and has taken some brilliant engineers years of sweat. (I don't work for
either so I'm not tooting my own horn, just giving credit where I believe
credit is due)

I think as it currently stands (collect data on me and I get free 99.99%
uptime, cloud available services for email, cloud drive, and social
networking) is a pretty sweet deal.

~~~
sharemywin
They aren't free. You pay for them in high prices for good and services. Those
companies pay advertising which increase prices plus their tech size profits.
And because the stock market machine demands greater and greater profits they
need larger stronger monopolies to generate those obscene profits.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
> They aren't free. You pay for them in high prices for good and services.

Your reasoning is extremely fallacious because you're overlooking a lot of
nuance.

Yes, it is true that _in aggregate_ part of the advertising costs get passed
on to consumers. How much exactly depends on macroeconomic factors, industry
dynamics, pricing power of distributors and retailers, and hundreds other
variables. But you are right that _in aggregate_ a non-zero amount of the
advertising costs get passed on to consumers.

However, advertising is valuable to advertisers because it works to some
degree. And it works because people are influenced by it. Now, as _an
individual_ I have no control over what other people are doing and so I have
no control over how valuable advertising is and how much is being spent on it
and how much is being passed on to consumers. Therefore as _an individual_ I
look around me and prices are what they are and already have in them
advertising costs which will not go up by me using service. Therefore as _an
individual_ the _marginal_ cost of me using these services is effectively zero
(imagine the ratio between the value of advertising to me and the aggregate
value of advertising, that's effectively zero). As _an individual_ those
services are free.

So it depends on what your definition of "free" is. A) Would prices be lower
if advertising didn't exist? Yes [0]. B) Would prices be lower to me if I
didn't use these services? No. The thing is that in definition A) I don't
really have a choice, so it's irrelevant. I only have a choice as an
individual.

[0] And even here some people will disagree with you. What I call "free market
fundamentalists" will argue that No, they wouldn't, because the advertising
leads to higher sales and greater operational efficiency, so that advertising
costs are exactly offset by lower per-unit costs.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>part of the advertising costs get passed on to consumers //

Can you tell me who else will pay my advertising bill, because it can be a
complete money pit and getting someone to pay for it without using revenue
from customers would be great. Let me know bub.

~~~
sharemywin
I just said it wasn't free and we pay extra with a markup. if we just paid for
it and had choices we would pay a lot less that's all I'm saying. or some kind
of buying club.

------
mdale
There is already mechanical Turk for the cases the author described. There are
many paid initiatives to label data that these companies employ. These "AI"
companies sample sizes are small compared to the services they provide against
them. Once divided up its pointless to think about them "paying" you and is
counter to the point. They already are paying in the form of the service they
are providing. I.e free storage, service etc.

Democratizing the data so more companies can use it to build products beyond
these major concentration of platform players is a much more practical. This
is similar to the personal data requests legislation that Europe already has
in place. This would be an extension to enable competing services to access
this data as their customers opt into the the service. Enabling more companies
to build more competitive products (employ people working towards market
competitive products) not trying to set "sustainable" sheep that feed from the
same troff of the concentrated power of these companies. Certainly universal
basic income; but that should be wholly independent of being subordinates to
these service providers.

------
crispyporkbites
The thing is, I don't actually have my data.

Perhaps if I collected it and stored it, perhaps put it behind an accessible
API and supplied Google et al with an API key to access it I might have a case
for charging them for it.

~~~
specialist
It's worse than that. We currently don't even have the right to determine who
has our data, or how its being exploited.

The remedy, of course, is to establish intrinsic properties rights over our
own data. No different than copyrights.

Maybe we need a new catchphrase.

I propose _bodyrights_. It captures the notions of self, privacy, identity,
and sovereignty all in one.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
PII, Personal Identifiable Information, is the phrase I know for this.

I'd like to see a requirement for all companies receiving PII to issue an
account of how they use it and who it's sold to, those receiving your PII
would also have an obligation to notify you, and offer access to the same
audit data (how they're using it, who they got it from, who they gave/sold it
to).

Legit companies would then leak information, by design, showing companies
using/selling your data without notifying you.

Real fines like those anticipated in the GDPR would be needed to encourage
companies to adhere to the legislation.

/ifiwereemperoroftheworld

~~~
PeterisP
IMHO lots of the valuable data that the original article is about isn't
_necessarily_ PII. That is, even if they're linked with PII right now, they
need not be so and the article's argument would still make sense in that case.

E.g. sensor-mapping data gathered by Tesla from your driving is extremely
valuable even if you absolutely dissociate it from anything personally
identifiable. Facebook would have immensely valuable aggregate data about how
people are likely to react when seeing a particular piece of content even if
they would (or would be required to) not link the event to anything personally
identifiable and just keep the aggregate. Etc, etc, etc.

------
WingH
But the value of my data alone probably is worth less than a dollar to Google
and Facebook. Given the choice of getting paid a dollar, or using it for free
(in exchange for them using my data), I would choose the latter.

Only in aggregate is it worth a lot.

~~~
amelius
In that case, I would pay Google and Facebook a dollar, and keep my data safe
from their prying eyes.

~~~
WingH
I would do that too.

But the notion of getting paid for your data, when its worth so little by
itself is not appealing.

------
mtgx
This wouldn't be such an issue if they couldn't see the data on which they are
computing (and individual data wouldn't be exposed in data breaches either).

But I'm not sure if Google even cares too much about doing that (I know
they've experimented with this, but nothing on a scale that matters), and
Facebook certainly doesn't. Apple seems to be the only one that does somewhat
with its differential privacy approach.

I think they can all do much more, but they're not trying too hard.

~~~
deong
I'm not sure you understand what differential privacy is. Apple still has your
data. If there's a breach, an attacker gets your data. It's probably
encrypted, just as it is with pretty much any modern system where user data is
collected, but differential privacy doesn't have anything to do with what data
is collected or stored. Differential privacy is just a method for limiting how
much information can be reliably inferred about an entire dataset from limited
queries on statistical properties of the data.

It's basically this. Imagine I have two data sets that are identical, except
one has your specific data and the other doesn't. It's possible in some
circumstances to infer information about you by asking for things like
averages on the datasets. Differential privacy is a method for defeating
attacks that rely on that type of "leakage" of information. It assures that if
two datasets are close enough, queries on those datasets will not yield
significant information about their differences (i.e., the presence or absence
of one particular data point won't be detectable).

It's all about how queries of the data perform, and not at all about the data
itself.

------
pentae
I'll never understand why I can't pay Google and Facebook $20 to $50 per year
to simply respect my privacy and not give me advertisements. I can't imagine
they make more than this off my viewing behaviour (especially as I use
adblock)

~~~
ooyy
Those people who are willing to pay $50 per year for such thing are worth more
than 50$ per year as targets for advertising.

------
GCU-Empiricist
Seems like an is ought question that is long settled: look at the credit
reporting agencies. We may be doing impressive new things and figuring out how
to learn a lot more about people, but who owns data on a person is a dead and
buried question.

~~~
mywacaday
Not dead and buried in Europe with GDPR coming.

~~~
skocznymroczny
Which will add another checkbox that you have to tick once when entering a
website. EU is not the ally of ordinary folk when it comes to the Internet.

~~~
PeterisP
Actually, GDPR seems to be explicitly designed so that no amount of checkboxes
or legalese in terms&conditions can be sufficient to continue as-is, companies
actually would have to change behavior to be compliant. Lots of previous
threads have discussions about the particular details.

Of course, we'll have to see how it turns out in practice, but it's just a
couple more months.

------
tsumnia
I've had this discussion with people before. It both sounds good and not
depending on the viewpoint. The good is already spoken about in the article -
I generate data that a company is in turn using to make money. The analogy I
have used before is imagine if I owned land and ate apples on that land. If
the apple seeds I spit out grew, I'd have apple trees. It would be bothersome
to me if the state came in and sold all the apples the tree grew and I never
saw a dime. Refraining from political discussion, I'm upset someone else is
profiting off my work. No different than using my uploaded picture to train
image processing systems.

Now the bad, how much am I REALLY worth? Online surveys pay out pennies at
most for my "opinion". I'm a middle-class, white, male, computer scientist -
the market is literally flooded with data from people like me. My data is only
worth something if I was, say, a single Hispanic mother or some other niche
demographic, and that's only because of their rarity.

Now, this is where the discussion typically leads to science fiction. I think
this would be a great use of blockchain currency and let the market drive the
value of your data. If there's a shortage of, say, beach pictures (because why
not), then you're Instagram data might be of value. Likewise, the GPS
locations of an underrepresented demographic is suddenly worth a more because
its hard to get that kind of data.

But I think the major issue still falls back to how much its all worth. The
article says $20,000, which nicely would support arguments for a living wage.
I generate the data that runs the world, so pay me enough to live it in.
However, what if the data isn't worth $20k?

~~~
tinymollusk
I think your analogy would be more apt if you were spitting seeds onto public
property, and the state took the trees. Or even further: you spit seeds (your
data) onto Google's property while they gave you a free tram ride to the other
side.

~~~
tsumnia
Another could be someone lets you use their land for free, so you use the land
to grow a unique breed of flowers. Later you find out that person that owns
the land is selling honey from bees that visit those flowers (solely or in
some combination with other flower patches). This honey revenue depends on
your proper upkeep of your flowers.

Okay, fine, its the cost for using their land.

But THEN, you find out that your flowers (or, again, the combination) are so
unique, that person begins making millions of dollars in revenue off the
honey.

As the primary producer of the income, I'd feel a bit shafted if I didn't get
some of type of reciprocation.

Doubly so if that person accidentally let a malicious entity on the land who
then stole my unique breed of flower and then started selling/reproducing it.

------
heurist
_Your_ data is worthless. _Everyone 's_ data is priceless.

------
squarefoot
Puppy pictures aside, I'd put it another way: I'm unique and what I do online
is the product of an unique person thinking. If some corporation makes money
by analyzing my behaviour, then I should be allowed to treat my data just like
a song or a book: that is, intellectual property, with the clause that if and
only if that data is gathered with consent and full transparency (using 100%
free and open source software for example), then they're exempted from paying
fees and/or lawsuits. Just my 0.2€. I don't condemn companies for using
technology to make money, and am perfectly fine if they scan my surfing
habits, but people rights should always come first, and if they scan my emails
or private messages or use the information in a way I don't approve then I
want to be able to hit them badly.

------
stratigos
Ive been saying it for years - I wont allow fb, twttr, ggl, or any of the tech
giants access to my data _until_ they compensate me fairly for it. If theyre
making billions off of us, then I want a few thousand in return. Until then,
no accounts and no data from me! Privacy Badger, ABPlus, block @ DNS level,
etc.

Also Ive been a succesful technologist, programmer, and social being for many
decades, and not having any of those accounts has never been a downer in my
life. I feel much healthier, sound, and happier than my peers that have FB
accounts. Cant see the value in that jank. Cant see why it makes sense to
empower those companies at our expense.

------
trendia
Can I trademark my likeness (as famous actors or musicians do) and then sue
Facebook if they use it?

I'm sure there's some reason it wouldn't work, but it's fun to think about.

~~~
canadianwriter
In general they use ananymized data. No one is advertising to Burt who likes
bee hives, they are advertising to a cookie pool that likes bee hives. Your
likeness would probably not cover anonymized data. At least here in Canada,
PII (personally identifiable info such as email) is not allowed to be used.

------
saas_co_de
The next generation of technological progress has to be an answer to these
questions.

Google and Facebook (and similar companies) have killed innovation with their
monopolies and in order to break their monopolies new technologies must be
invented that disrupt their business models.

It is interesting to see the NY Times advancing such avant garde ideas but it
is good to see rising social consciousness of the limitations of current
technology.

------
taeric
Can't you be paid by virtue of cheaper costs? Ad agencies filtering out value
is of dubious value for society. Cheaper cars, more effective roads and
transit, wiser food choices, data driven medicine, and plenty of other
progress points continue to help most everyone that is at stake in this
discussion. My hope is it continues to help even more.

------
brwsr
Off course, but the steady stream of money to the rich is unstoppable. The
problem is that we are conditioned to accept the extreme wealthy and even look
up to them. Most people think everything is OK as long as they have a decent
income. So most people only find out first about the horror of this system
once they lose their job and hit the streets. But then it's all too late when
the reality sinks in. With the sticker POOR on your head your kinda lost till
you die in this world.

We live in a world of modern slavery where one needs the skill and luck to
find a good job to avoid the streets. A better distribution of wealth would be
great of course. Imagine all those billionaires rendering at least half of
their fortunes back to the poor. But that is not realistic and will never
happen. Things will get worse to the point they lock us up in some sort of
"District 9" (Elysium).

------
tomcooks
An argument that having terrorcorporations get your data becoming normalized
even further - the "but you do get some money in exchange!" edition.

Next step is getting some discount in the walled garden store or some crypto
token payment.

Blah.

------
michaelbuckbee
It's kind of like reverse micropayments, in most cases the actual value of
your "puppy pictures" etc is only valuable in the aggregate.

------
anonyx69
They do pay users for their data in the form of whatever service or content
they provide.

~~~
s73v3r_
Facebook collects data on people who are not Facebook users too.

------
balthasar
This sort of data collection is inevitable with a highly commercialized
Internet.

------
nofunsir
I'm astounded by the amount of blow-back in this thread. Do you all really
love gathering user data that much that you can't even consider the
possibility of parting with it, or at least with its _free_ availability?

------
elemenofi
why is nobody here speaking about the basic attention token?

[https://basicattentiontoken.org/](https://basicattentiontoken.org/)

~~~
balthasar
Basic attention token has nothing to do with the article.

------
paulcole
You are being compensated for it. You get to use Facebook, Gmail, Google
Search, etc. without taking out your wallet.

Want more compensation? You’re free to negotiate or take your data elsewhere
to a higher bidder.

~~~
s73v3r_
Reconcile that with the fact that Facebook collects data on people who don't
use Facebook.

------
yarrel
I can't wait to spend my $20!

------
BeetleB
Similar to Betteridge's Law of Headlines:

Any time a question has a "shouldn't", the answer is usually no.

------
fullshark
This is analogous to asking why TV viewers aren’t paid?

------
ancap
I find the term "your data" bothersome. Just because there is a piece of data
out there that pertains to you it doesn't make it "your data". Some will
contend that the data is only gathered through a violation of your privacy,
but I don't agree--in most cases, particularly the big tech companies who
clearly spell out in their ToS, privacy policy, etc. what data they're
gathering.

~~~
s73v3r_
"Just because there is a piece of data out there that pertains to you it
doesn't make it "your data"."

Yes it does.

"Some will contend that the data is only gathered through a violation of your
privacy"

That it is.

" but I don't agree--in most cases, particularly the big tech companies who
clearly spell out in their ToS, privacy policy, etc. what data they're
gathering."

And when did I agree to Equifax's terms?

~~~
ancap
>Yes it does.

While you've presented a compelling counter-argument, I'm still not convinced.

>And when did I agree to Equifax's terms?

You didn't need to because they never stored "your data".

~~~
s73v3r_
"While you've presented a compelling counter-argument, I'm still not
convinced."

It was far more compelling that your argument.

"You didn't need to because they never stored "your data"."

Yes, they did. My social security number, my address history, my employment
history, all my data.

~~~
ancap
>Yes, they did. My social security number, my address history, my employment
history, all my data.

I can write down in my notepad right now:

    
    
      s73v3r_ - thumb sucker
    

and whether it's true or false, real or imaginary, relevant or irrelevant to
you personally, it doesn't make it yours.

~~~
s73v3r_
So I suppose in your mind that whatever a company wants to do is fine, and
that's your prerogative. But in the real world, that's simply not true. And in
the real world, this data is derived purely from me. It absolutely is MY data,
and they have no right to collect it without my consent, and they have no
right to sell it to others without my consent. To believe otherwise is to
believe that a person does not have personal agency, and that a person is not
in charge of themselves.

~~~
ancap
>So I suppose in your mind that whatever a company wants to do is fine, and
that's your prerogative.

Non sequitur and a red herring.

>To believe otherwise is to believe that a person does not have personal
agency, and that a person is not in charge of themselves.

Non sequitur. Someone owning data _about_ you has nothing to do with denying
someone's "personal agency". Quite the opposite. I would suggest someone
recording the actions you make is a testament to the principle of personal
agency. You can own yourself and your choices all day long, but you don't
control the consequences of those actions. Furthermore, if you're saying
someone cannot record things that they observe, you are denying them their
personal agency. (As an aside, I find your appeal to "personal agency" curious
given your previous assertion that people are irrational, implying the
foolishness of such a principle).

>But in the real world, that's simply not true. And in the real world

In the real world there are a myriad of legal jurisdictions, with a myriad of
laws whose principles and motives often are contradictory. I am not arguing
from the perspective of the status quo. Individuals can also demonstrate
cognitive dissonance.

Please answer the following questions:

1) If I observe you walking down the street and I see you wearing a pair of
Adidas athletic shoes, and I make a mental note to myself "s73v3r_ wears
Adidas athletic shoes", do you own my thought?

1a) If yes to #1 how do you justify owning a stranger's thoughts?

2) If I write down the thought in my notepad, do you own the entry in my
notepad?

2a) If yes to #2 how do you justify owning an entry in a stranger's notepad
who expended their labor creating?

If you answered no to #1 and yes to #2 then you have a contradiction you need
to account for (data is data whether it is in memory or persisted). If you
answered no to #1 and no to #2 then you have established the principle that
you do not own data about you. If you answered yes to #1 and yes to #2 then it
would be good for you to at least be explicit so those who are following the
argument understand your premise.

------
frgtpsswrdlame
I see the problem but this feels like a bad solution. The way I see it there
are two real problems here.

(1) Google, Facebook and the like do have a cost, just that it's data instead
of money. The fact that we're one step removed from money obscures the true
cost associated with the services. And when you combine that with the fact
that the services themselves obscure what data they're collecting/have,
there's no way for an end consumer to know if they're getting a 'good deal'
since they have no idea what they're paying. A fix to this would be radical
forced transparency - every consumer should be able to find out what data any
company has on them - both collected and bought (and bought from whom for how
much.)

(2) Data is too large a competitive advantage in certain industries. It seems
similar to me to utilities. Barring local law I _could_ try and start up a new
water company and displace the incumbent but it would never work - the huge
fixed costs make the industry prone to natural monopolization. Same here
except with data. There are absolutely ginormous costs associated with
collecting user data that could rival Google's or Facebook's (if it's even
possible). You _could_ start a company to try to beat Google but you'll never
get the data to make it good enough to compete and since you're not good
enough to compete you'll never get the data. The free market here has done
it's work - it's generated something new and useful and beneficial to society,
now we should nationalize it so that it stays that way.

