[sysk]

> We can't leave it up to ignorant and fickle consumers.

People like you infuriate me to no end. The fact is that a lot of consumers are willing to trade privacy for convenience, price, etc. Privacy just doesn't weigh much in those people's list of priorities. I'm glad we still have a semblance of free market capitalism because if people like you had their way, a lot of modern technologies simply wouldn't exist. That being said, I personally won't be getting that TV.

[gglitch]

No offense, but this seems specious because it presumes that a majority of consumers are making a rational choice from a well-informed position, which is not necessarily the case. They're currently making the trade, yes, but that doesn't mean they fully understand the implications of their decisions.

* Edited for grammar

[olifante]

So if the invisible hand of the market "chooses" to create an Orwellian total surveillance society, that will be OK, because hey, consumers chose it.

[sysk]

First, what comes closest to Orwellian total surveillance today is the NSA mass surveillance program which was created by government, not the free market.

Second, I wouldn't personally feel OK with that outcome but I would also recognize that most people do (given your premise) and that I have no authority over their personal choices.

[opendais]

Government elections are pretty close to the free market in the real world for many things. The better funded candidate wins 85% of the time which virtually guarantees every political seat is bought [in the free market]:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/oct/...

Simply because you don't personally have the wealth to purchase a congressional seat of your very own doesn't change the fact that when 85% of them are essentially decided by the money spent that they are basically "buying" the win at that point.

So to claim the free market doesn't create an Orwellian total surveillance society is pretty much false across the board.

1) In the "free market", you have Google, Amazon, and a number of other businesses that try to build that sort of capability to profile their customers for advertising and sales purposes.

2) In the "government where majority power is purchased through the application of money", we have the NSA which engages in both commercial and military espionage.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-braz... http://www.bbc.com/news/25907502

etc.

So when you say the NSA is divorced from the free market, I think you are delusional and/or ignorant. I find it scary that people don't seem to understand that the majority of power in government is essentially paid for and if your sponsors don't like you...the money dries up. So unless you are independently wealthy [on the scale of being a billionaire] and can just self-finance every single campaign, you aren't really an independent agent but instead doing your best to balance who "bought" your vote to minimize the damage.

[jabjoe]

You can not expect them to understand the ins and outs of every purchase. You judge a society by how it looks after it's people. You are arguing to leave them to the wolves.

[nathan_long]

> That being said, I personally won't be getting that TV.

Will you have a choice? If they profit enough, there may not be any non-surveillance models left in a few years.

The free market does wonders, but sometimes laws are a better tool. Eg, you can't sell a house that doesn't meet fire code, whether the buyer would accept it or not. There's too much danger that they don't understand, or that the next buyer won't, or that they're coerced by having no other options, etc.

[michaelt]

Well, there are certain things that can only be achieved by legislation, not by technical means.

For example, if you send an always-on sound feed from your living room (or phone) to Google for voice recognition purposes, should it be subject to fourth amendment protections? Because this isn't possible by technical means or through market competition - it can only be achieved by legislation.