> but the flip side of this is, do most users of web2 services want their data collected, processed, analysed, rebundled, and resold to the extent that it is?
Facebook doesn’t sell user data. Google doesn’t sell user data. Twitter doesn’t sell user data. They sell ads. The user data is strictly kept internal to the company because selling it would weaken their market advantage.
This is one of those weird myths that has been propagated by fear-mongering journalists and politicians. You’d think tech people would be the first to call out this logical error, but for some reason it has been embraced as the ground truth despite being trivially easy to fact check.
> Whether you like it or not, you are paying for the services you use, but in ways that are often opaque to you.
In 2021, the trope that “If you’re not paying, you’re the product” has been repeated to everyone a thousand times over and it’s old news.
But paying for a product doesn’t mean that your data and usage patterns aren’t still being extracted for profit. Just look at smart TVs.
Blockchain doesn’t magically change this fact. It’s theoretically possible to design systems where certain types of data are obscured or encrypted, but it’s a huge leap to assume that web3 services will, by default, encrypt everything and obscure access patterns. Just look at how easy it is to track Bitcoin transactions between wallets publicly.
Facebook doesn’t sell user data. Google doesn’t sell user data. Twitter doesn’t sell user data. They sell ads. The user data is strictly kept internal to the company because selling it would weaken their market advantage.
This is one of those weird myths that has been propagated by fear-mongering journalists and politicians. You’d think tech people would be the first to call out this logical error, but for some reason it has been embraced as the ground truth despite being trivially easy to fact check.
> Whether you like it or not, you are paying for the services you use, but in ways that are often opaque to you.
In 2021, the trope that “If you’re not paying, you’re the product” has been repeated to everyone a thousand times over and it’s old news.
But paying for a product doesn’t mean that your data and usage patterns aren’t still being extracted for profit. Just look at smart TVs.
Blockchain doesn’t magically change this fact. It’s theoretically possible to design systems where certain types of data are obscured or encrypted, but it’s a huge leap to assume that web3 services will, by default, encrypt everything and obscure access patterns. Just look at how easy it is to track Bitcoin transactions between wallets publicly.