[dimnsionofsound]

I understand you don’t agree with the cheaper cars argument, and I don’t either.

To the people that would seriously make this argument though, I ask them this:

If the location or other telemetry data is so valuable that the manufacturer selling it can have a real impact on the purchase price of the car, then doesn’t that value have to come from somewhere? Other companies wouldn’t buy that data if they didn’t think they could use it to make more money than the data is worth. That money the data buyers then are hoping to make would come from the very people that the data did, in most cases, right? So the consumer has ended up with less money compared to if they didn’t have their data sold, even if they got some trinkets in return.

[perpetualpatzer]

>then doesn’t that value have to come from somewhere? It's not necessarily zero-sum. The trinkets may well be worth more to people than the privacy benefit. In fact, if the car owner saves $100 and buys a trinket, they presumably think the trinket IS worth more than $100. Many might happily trade vehicle telemetry for a properly autonomous vehicle that means they could sleep during their commute time.

Moreover, for the general public, money flow is good, even if we think car owner #75834 got duped in how he spent his $100. Buying an extra trinket creates trinket-making jobs, who eat at restaurants, which hire cooks, etc. Estimates vary, but suggest $100 of flow generates an additional $50-$250 in economic activity [0].

[0]See Table 1... https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-....