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Comment by miki123211 | Hacker News Reader

As a customer, I want the ability to choose the way in which I pay a business I interact with, with the consent of that business of course.

Europe gives me less control of my personal data than the US would. I am no longer allowed to decide that I'd rather choose services that take payment in data instead of services that take payment in Euros.

I think people who disagree with this perspective should be accommodated. It's a valid objection and technology inherently favors monopolies, so you can't really have the Facebook equivalent of a vegan restaurant or gay club. I'm not against forcing (large) tech companies to offer tracking-free plans at reasonable prices for those for whom this is the right tradeoff.

What Europe is doing is just plain stupid, though, and it will be felt most by those who can least afford it.

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> I am no longer allowed to decide that I'd rather choose services that take payment in data instead of services that take payment in Euros.

Google, Microsoft and Apple don't really give you a choice, you will pay in Euros for your phone/PC, and then you will pay in your data as you use it whether you like it or not.

It should be perfectly fine if people want to pay with personal information, as long that personal information has zero social costs.

A prime example is sharing information about DNA since that has a social impact on relatives. Less obvious problem would be people in a position of social position, like say a judge or jury, since access to personal information in that situation provide unfair position of power in society. It also is a problem with voting, since access to voters personal information has a high risk of influence elections.

To take a more direct example, if you are paying your email provider with data, then you are also selling the information of anyone who send their emails to you. The sender is in an impossible position in that they can't know who the email provider is of a recipient (email forwarding is a thing), so the social cost is on the recipient if they sell the information.

> it will be felt most by those who can least afford it.

This sort of business model is problematic precisely because the poorest can't afford to refuse - that's a feature not a bug. Privacy is deemed a human right, and human rights shouldn't be for sale.

You could make the same argument supporting the legal sale of human organs, but as a society we've decided that kind of "payment" strips the poorest of their dignity and human rights.

The business model is inherently predatory for other reasons too. People see what they get right now - "free" access to the website they're on, but they're completely oblivious to the real costs because they're abstract, too many steps removed from each individual's actions, but they're very real and damaging in aggregate.

What you just described is actually only possible with data protection law. In Germany there are websites that ask you to accept ads and cookies or else u pay the monthly subscription fee. Without data protection law you likely just don't get the choice. Btw, the ads fee are priced in when you buy stuff.

I don’t understand where this is coming from. Isn’t Meta offering to EU users exactly the choice you are describing? (Even though in the case of the subscription we can’t really be sure they also don’t still use your data.)

The problem is that is also against the rules. GDPR bans using private data as a form of payment. You can give your data away freely but it can't be requested as a form of payment. In this case Meta is asking you to either pay with your money or your data. One is OK, the other isn't.

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