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Comment by mvzvm | Hacker News Reader

I disagree. I think HN is rabid about privacy and "owning your data", but by and large, most people just don't care.

Most that I talk to do - but it's similar to how they care about the national debt.

There's nothing they can do, they have no realistic expertise or control, and they vote with what - dollars once every phone purchase?

I think this is a good analogy, because the national debt is not a good measure of anything. People bring it up at all the wrong times, and takes grandstanding postures around it. Just like this, eh?

At least there might be a reason to care about privacy, but there actually isn't a reason to care about the national debt. There's no evidence the model of it being debt means anything - it certainly isn't household debt when it's in a currency you can just print more of.

And even under the model where printing money causes inflation, we're in a negative interest rate regime meaning printing money would cause /deflation/.

> and they vote with what - dollars

More and more, I am seeing many companies that realize they can do both: take the user's money and feed them ads. After all, that's more profitable than just taking their money.

As examples, T-mo, Verizon, my local gas station, various airlines all both take my money and give me ads. Some are even known to sell my data.

So, can I actually vote with my wallet?

Consider who taught them not to care.

There’s a whole thing with growing or making your own food as much as you can. We keep outsourcing food production. In affluent areas that’s a boon, in others it’s an active problem.

Probably we will see the same play out here.

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