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The recent Apple fiasco about introducing ads into iOS shows how true your statement is. It doesn't matter (apparently) that you paid £1500 for a brand new spanking phone, Apple will still want to milk you for money, even though they made about 50% pure profit on that single sale. A very apt comparison would be blackmail - you'd think that paying the blackmailers their demand would sort things out, simple transaction, I pay you, you get rid of the compromising material (or w/e they're blackmailing you with). Except no, you paying them just stokes the fire, because they see they can make more money off of you, so they'll come around again, demanding payment. You lost out on paying the first demand, and literally nothing changed. Same goes for paid services. You'd think that switching from a free service structure (where your data is being sold to support the upkeep of the service), to something paid, would mean that they don't sell your data anymore, right? Well, why on Earth would they NOT sell your data when they can make money off of it? Most companies, especially VC-funded ones, won't care about long term. You can always rope in users with flashy new stuff, discounts, promotions, and users are not likely to leave, even if you push them to the edge of acceptability of abuse (here, I'm considering sale of your private data, especially if you're a paying customer, abuse), simply because it's more comfortable to just accept it rather than try to find another service that fits your needs, move all your stuff over, etc. - plus, there's no guarantee that this new service won't change business practices in the future and start selling your data (or abuse your customership in a different way). This is why the whole pro-capitalist argument "well just pay for it and they won't sell your data" is bollocks. In a capitalist market, there's absolutely no incentive for a company to stop making as much profit off your back as they can. There's no incentive to "provide a fair service for a fair price", but there's LOTS of incentive to "provide bare minimum services at the highest price a majority of the customers are willing to pay, one way or the other". The only way to fix this is via regulations, but that stifles "innovation" (and by "innovation" I mean the padding of the pockets of the investors). |