| You seem to believe that everybody somehow knows the consequences of "opting in". Does everyone have a CS degree in your universe? > we all know what the terms of this kind of convenience are Most people have no idea whatsoever what those terms are. Even among technical crowds I still find people assuming that humans are required for various tasks that have been automated for a long time. I seriously don't understand why you think people understand the "terms" of what big data and machine learning are doing to their data. Even simple things like the fact that cell phones give away your location can be a new concept for people that have only considered them telephones. And why should most people have a realistic understanding of this stuff? The computer industry has been over-promising and dressing up their products since the transistor was invented. We have decades of services that dissemble as their business model, convincing people that their data is "private". > 'smart' (read data gathering) devices Why should anybody think that their TV is surveilling them. It wasn't long ago that saying your TV was spying on you could lead to a schizophrenia diagnosis. Nobody reads the legalese and manual for a TV before they bought it, understood it, and choose to trade their data. They bought a TV that advertised voice activation or some other feature. There is no reason for most people to think surveillance would be involved. > stop opting in While some people have started to realized how this stuff really works, the common response is to feel trapped without options. It will take time - decades - to properly educate the general public. > The ignorance card is utter bullshit at this point. Look at how many people here on HN that still think "anonymized" data cannot be correlated back to real their real identity. If people that understand terms like "hashing" and "INNER JOIN" are still figuring this out, the general public doesn't have a chance. |
But if the deal is too good to be true, it's only because you don't have all the facts. Information asymmetry is the very basis for capitalism.