Data Dollars

 

The idea of getting something for free has begun to trickle into our daily lives via technology. We can scour the app store to download free versions of games and programs.  We can peruse the internet at our leisure clicking through sources of information without so much as paying a penny (especially if we surf the web at the library).  We can communicate with individuals via email, Facebook, Twitter, and the like from across the globe with near instant connectivity without cost.

All of these items are “free” to the everyday consumer; however, the companies behind these apps, emails, and technological advancements have a cost.  Thus, returning to age old wisdom of economics, “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”

Regardless of one’s interpretation of a “free good,” the overwhelming majority of our society’s goods cost money as a function of the good’s scarcity.  What I mean to say is that the more infrequent a good is, the more value we place on it; hence, diamonds are expensive, but plastic forks are cheap.  If we consider the world of online applications and websites, we are dealing in diamonds.  The major cause of the “scarcity” of Facebook, Twitter, and the like, is the network requirement for these websites to thrive.  Certainly, a competitor of Facebook could begin tomorrow, but, unless a critical mass were to join, you wouldn’t meet anyone, nor would you reconnect with long lost friends. Therefore, an online location with truly billions of participants is a diamond.

These diamond services in technology have a cost.  The cost of using Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Amazon is your data.

In recent weeks allegations against Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have made people fearful of the availability of their personal data so much so that a #DeleteFacebook hashtag was trending on Twitter.

(The nieve thought that migrating from Zuckerberg’s Facebook to Dorsey’s Twitter will somehow cut down on one’s data availability is almost laughably comical.  Twitters privacy policy includes the line “What you share on Twitter may be viewed all around the world instantly. You are what you Tweet!”  Therefore, in no way is leaving Facebook for an alternative better for your data. )

Regardless of one’s definition of markets, acts, and decisions, humans are engaged in transactions.  We must realize that it is not a right to have access to Facebook, Twitter, and Google, but a privilege provided to the public as a transaction, whereby data can be used, bought, and sold, as a market good compensating these behemoths for their services.

Do I like it? No. But, my dislike is trumped by the benefit I reap from using their services.