[imagist]

I posted this elsewhere, but I think I intended to post it in response to your post:

Well, there are a few possible solutions, and they don't all involve corporate incentives:

1. Government regulation

2. Technical solutions (alternatives to communication that have end-to-end encryption, for example)

3. Eschew corporations entirely when it comes to our data and communications (i.e. open source and personal hardware solutions)

Personally, I think some combination of 2 and 3 is my ideal endgame, but we aren't there technically yet. 1 isn't really a great option either, because government is so controlled by corporate interests, and corporations will never vote to regulate themselves. But we can at least make some short term partial solutions with option 1 until technology enables 2 and 3.

However, none of these options will happen while people hold onto the naive idealism that the free market will solve all our problems.

[parasubvert]

> Eschew corporations entirely when it comes to our data and communications (i.e. open source and personal hardware solutions)

Unless you're proposing a large rise in non-profit foundations, these are mostly funded by for-profit corporations operating in a market.

> However, none of these options will happen while people hold onto the naive idealism that the free market will solve all our problems.

I don't think most people beyond libertarians or knee jerk conservatives believe that. Heck most economists don't really believe the market is "self regulating", there's just too much evidence that it's not.

However, most do believe that a regulated market solves the problem of large-scale resource allocation better than planning in most cases. In same cases, no: healthcare is a well-studied is a case of market failure and why centralized / planned players fare better. It's not clear to what ends data/communications/security is a case of market failure and warranting alternative solutions.

[imagist]

> Unless you're proposing a large rise in non-profit foundations, these are mostly funded by for-profit corporations operating in a market.

You bring up a deep problem that I admit I'm not sure how to solve. I'd love to see a large rise in non-profit foundations, but I'm not actually convinced even that would solve the problem.

I think the solutions proposed by i.e. the FSF where up-front contractual obligation to follow through with their ideals may be a better solution, but we're beginning to see very sophisticated corporate attacks on that model, so it remains to be seen how effective that will be.

> I don't think most people beyond libertarians or knee jerk conservatives believe that. Heck most economists don't really believe the market is "self regulating", there's just too much evidence that it's not.

> However, most do believe that a regulated market solves the problem of large-scale resource allocation better than planning in most cases. In same cases, no: healthcare is a well-studied is a case of market failure and why centralized / planned players fare better. It's not clear to what ends data/communications/security is a case of market failure and warranting alternative solutions.

This argument is purely sophistry. You take a step back and talk about a more general case to make your position seem more moderate, admitting that the free market isn't self-regulating, but then return to the stance that the free market solves this problem because a regulated market (regulated how? by itself? In the context of free market versus government regulation, "regulated market" is a very opaque phrase) solves most cases, and on that principle, we don't know whether the very general field of data/communications/security warrants alternative solutions (now we can't even say "government regulation" and have to euphemistically call it "alternative solutions" as if government involvement is an act of economic deviance?).

We're speaking about a case where the free market didn't work, de facto: Yahoo exposed user data, hid that fact, and likely will get the economic equivalent of a slap on the wrist because users simply aren't technical enough to know how big of a problem this is.

So let's not speak in generalizations here: the free market has failed already in this case, and you admit that the free market doesn't self-regulate, so you can't argue that the free market will suddenly start self-regulating in this case. Regulation isn't an "alternative solution", it's the only viable solution we have that hasn't been tried.

[parasubvert]

" (now we can't even say "government regulation" and have to euphemistically call it "alternative solutions" as if government involvement is an act of economic deviance?)."

I presume an unregulated market is preferable to regulation at the outset, yes. Government regulation should be done in the face of systemic failures while retaining Pareto efficiency.

Put another way, I think the market can be very effective with well thought out regs. but I don't believe there are better general/default alternatives than to start with a free market and use the empirical evidence to guide policies...

"likely will get the economic equivalent of a slap on the wrist because users simply aren't technical enough to know how big of a problem this is."

I disagree that this is a case of market failure.

This is a case of "you know better than the market" and you want to force a specific outcome through regulation. But I'm not sure that's what people want.

what if people don't really care about their data being exposed all that much? It's a risk they're willing to take to use social networks. The penalty is that people might move off your service if you leak their information (as is likely to some degree with Yahoo). That to me seems to be the evidence here. That's not a market failure, that's a choice.