I agree, and I wonder if over the long term, an economy where no tracking is possible might not perform as well as an economy that tracks everything, for knowledge means better resource allocation.
(and then the tracking economy, let’s say China for example, will just steamroll our economies. This is what I‘m worried about, in a vacuum a slower developing but ad/tracking-free society would be preferable of course.)
Of course I despise all ads as much as the next hacker here on HN, I just wonder sometimes if they‘re a necessary evil.
So in the end I‘m inclined to agree with your nuanced „some general statistical gathering is OK, just no fingerprinting etc“.
> an economy where no tracking is possible might not perform as well as an economy that tracks everything, for knowledge means better resource allocation.
Such an economy is still very possible: just pay people for their data. Giving it away isn't economically efficient and imposes significant negative externalities, as we've seen.
> an economy where no tracking is possible might not perform as well as an economy that tracks everything
Oh well. Just let the economy perform slightly worse then.
> for knowledge means better resource allocation
Who cares about some corporation's resource allocation? That's their problem to solve. We should be caring about all the people whose privacy they are violating instead.
If they want to allocate resources efficiently, they should be required to do it in a way that doesn't invade anyone's privacy. If that means they'll make less money so be it.
I'm not disagreeing with the possibility, but this seems like a speculation on a possible risk. I can think of lots of reasons why this might not happen too... but the privacy invasion is happening now and is a direct threat to our public life. I think we should focus on the most pressing problem first.
(and then the tracking economy, let’s say China for example, will just steamroll our economies. This is what I‘m worried about, in a vacuum a slower developing but ad/tracking-free society would be preferable of course.)
Of course I despise all ads as much as the next hacker here on HN, I just wonder sometimes if they‘re a necessary evil.
So in the end I‘m inclined to agree with your nuanced „some general statistical gathering is OK, just no fingerprinting etc“.