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by enedil 1310 days ago
I doubt that if somebody cannot afford a haircut, their data would be that pricey.
2 comments

I'm thinking more on a macro level.

Someone at Google has said "people want to pay us money to have better support and be treated like customers instead of products", and the response was "no, not worth it". On a macro scale Google was not interested in the money of individuals.

Facebook / Meta is one of the richest companies in the world, and they didn't make their money by taking money from individuals.

Politicians aren't swayed by the donations of common people, but by the donation of wealthy special interest groups and wealthy individuals.

The poorest 50% of the United States controls 1.2% of the wealth. One day they'll look around and collectively ask "what can we do with our money?", and the answer will be "buy cheap consumer goods, pay rent, and not much else". More and more companies don't want the little money they have, instead they want their attention, their votes, and their time and labor. Going after their money alone just isn't worth it.

Oh. Another great example of this is how many companies focus more attention on getting VC money than on getting paying customers. Again, average people don't have enough wealth for it to be a focus for the biggest companies.
Rich/poor does not matter all that much to surveillance capitalists and atdech companies.

If they or their friends have the ability to vote someone will always be willing to for their data to have an advantage in swaying said votes.