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0 pointswintermutestwin3y ago0 comments

I believe that is a disingenuous argument:

1. The monopolistic position of many of these service providers drastically limits the ability to choose alternatives and creates social and economic hardships for those who would avoid the use of these services altogether. For example, my ISP lobbied my government to allow them to steal my data. I have exactly one choice of ISP.

2. When we look back on the colonizers handing the natives trinkets in exchange for land, we consider that egregious theft. Most people lack any real understanding of the price that they are paying for these services and the intrinsic value of their data. They also lack an understanding of how this data can and will be used against them now and in the future.

3. And what about the data thieves who build shadow profiles on people who have not signed up for their services? (e.g. Facecrook)

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shadowgovt3y ago

Competition is always one click way on the internet. The "monopolistic" practices would not be sufficient if people actually cared enough to stand up an alternative that respected your privacy.

The market does not care enough about its own privacy to justify those alternatives. DDG has been available for years... It's doing fine, and it's a great alternative to Google, but it's not doing the gangbusters that one would expect if people weren't mostly satisfied with the privacy trade off.

And personally, I think it's extremely elitist for us to assume that we can better evaluate the privacy / service trade-off than most users can. Comparing the average user to a native being taken advantage of by European colonials is a view terribly dismissive of people's self-determination.

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