> It is my opinion that, as with anything that can be copied infinitely for free, his (and my) personal information is worth $0.
This would include all software, every movie, song, book, photograph, and TV show available anywhere. I'm glad that the rest of society has decided to place the value of those types of things a little higher than you do.
The multi-billion dollar a year industry of buying and selling our most personal data only exists because that data isn't worthless. It's extremely valuable, even yours, and the fact that others are using it will end up costing you again and again throughout your life, often monetarily.
The problem is that "Free Market" economics (which some people still argue is a valid economic theory for some reason) states that the market will decide what things are worth. The market decided a long time ago that movies, songs, books, photographs etc were, in fact, worth nothing. That's the effect of digital media. It's completely incompatible with the free market.
Weirdly enough, the people who were most vocal about this so called "Free Market" were the people who tried to defend their ability to make money from things that can be copied infinitely with almost zero overhead.
This isn't an opinion on whether or not digital media should be free, it's a statement about digital media being completely incompatible with outdated economic theories.
The person you're replying to may actually believe that his personal information should be worth $0. The only reason it's not is because it can be used for targeted advertising and a bunch of even more horribly dystopian purposes.
So, the fact is you're both correct. Personal data should be worthless (in fact, it should be only available with the permission of the "person") if not for bad actors profiting from the purchase and sale of this data.
The broken economic theories of free market economics state that digital media should be worthless, except that current laws and regulations extend out-dated intellectual property laws to protect incumbent distributors and rights holders (this only rarely actually protects the creators of the media). The idealistic goal of the creators profiting from their creations has been corrupted beyond recognition.
Basically, the things you both are discussing are both nuanced and broken. They exist outside of the context you're putting them in.
> The market decided a long time ago that movies, songs, books, photographs etc were, in fact, worth nothing. That's the effect of digital media. It's completely incompatible with the free market.
This is such a willfully ignorant take, it’s wild. Anyone who has a cursory understanding of game theory can see that if this were true a simple recursion would occur:
1. Everyone would pirate movies/tv/books.
2. There would be $0 in producing media.
3. Significantly less media would be produced. Anything capital intensive would be gone.
4. Demand for anything that could be produced would skyrocket. Imagine putting together a blockbuster film when the world hasn’t seen one in a century.
5. People would pay money for the product of 4.
Just because we can get something for $0 doesn’t make it worth $0. I could enslave my neighbors and make them work for me, that doesn’t make human labor worth $0.
It's not an ignorant take, it's reality. If you don't want that outcome, stop supporting outdated economic theories. I didn't say I wanted this to be the case, I said it is the case. The only reason digital media is sellable at all is due to laws and regulations. Not only are these laws and regualtions historically anathematic to those who defend the outdated economic theories, they're also protecting the wrong people. The distribution networks get a much larger share of profit than the actual creators.
People should exchange money for digital goods. That money should go primarily to the creators of those goods. None of this is happening very much, and it's actually moving in the wrong direction.
Ah! I think I missed your point because I read your comment through the lens of the root comment. My apologies!
We’re actually largely in agreement, especially about content creators deserving compensation and the fact that distribution is vacuuming up most of it.
> It is my opinion that, as with anything that can be copied infinitely for free, his (and my) personal information is worth $0.
I realize I’m responding to an account created four minutes ago but… the output of nearly all work done on a computer meets this criteria. Is all work done on a computer worth $0 in your view?
>I realize I’m responding to an account created four minutes ago but… the output of nearly all work done on a computer meets this criteria. Is all work done on a computer worth $0 in your view?
Yes. Also, this website is very pro-piracy, which means they generally agree with me. (Saying this last part because by mentioning the age of my account it seems you're accusing me of being a troll,)
Interesting! I imagine this website is also full of software developers, startup founders, VCs and others who earn a living in software. How do you reconcile all of that work actually being worth $0 with the fact that we are earning a living?
Sure you can cherry pick an example that would be difficult for me to monetize.
However I can think of plenty I’d do with the model weights for ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. Can’t you?
I can go on with hundreds of examples. The Waymo source and models, as another example. Enumerating everything would detract from the message so I’ll stop here.
It is my opinion that, as with anything that can be copied infinitely for free, his (and my) personal information is worth $0.