Our online data makes us a product which internet companies sell to their real customers
Our relationship with the many internet companies we rely on is not a traditional company-customer relationship. Thats primarily because were not the customers. We’re products that those companies sell to their real customers. The relationship is more feudal than commercial. The companies are analagous to feudal lords, and we are their vassals, peasents, and—on a bad day—serfs. We are tenant farmers for these companies, working on their land by producing data that they inturn sell for profit. Its becoming increasingly difficult to not pleage alleigence to at least one tech ecosystem. After all, customers get a lot of unique value in having feudal lords. Its simply easier to allow someone to to hold our data and manage our devices.
References
- Schneier, Bruce. (2015). Data and Goliath The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World Chapter 4. The Business of Surveillance (Location 996). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.