Today’s (September 23, 2019) New York Times included a video editorial titled “Jaron Lanier Fixes the Internet.” It posits the idea that people should get paid for their internet activity, that they are inadvertently giving away a very valuable asset in the current model. I think there’s great merit in this concept. I hope there will be an uptake and test of the model Jaron proposes.
Ours has become a consumer-driven economy. Something more than 70% of economic activity in America is driven by consumer spending, choices that each of us make every day. Advertisers actively mine our internet activity to place ads in front of our eyeballs and influence our purchases. That’s fine, they can keep doing it, but we should have more control, ownership and compensation for the data we are currently giving away.
TripAdvisor loves to tell me that I am among the top 50 (or whatever) reviewers in my area to try to goose me into writing more reviews. This is free content for their platform — why shouldn’t I get a payment, a micro-royalty, for the content I contribute? I would have a greater incentive to contribute more reviews and encourage friends, families and social contacts to like them, not to mention potential interaction and maybe discounts from the businesses themselves.
I would be willing to more actively participate in social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, TripAdvisor, YouTube, Instagram and so on, if there was some revenue stream returning to me for my activity, likes and posts. In addition, it would probably give me an incentive to be more accurate in my likes and dislikes if I knew there was a direct tradeoff in the advertising directed toward me. By extension, every consumer choice I make, from articles read to programs/movies watched to grocery store or Amazon purchase should accrue a royalty into my account. They are all data points, they are all aspects of my digital identity.
Some will decry layering the economy and each transaction with an added “tax”, that prices will increase to cover any payments to consumers, not to mention the infrastructure needed to implement tracking. I think the tracking is already happening without our consent or knowledge. Payments to consumers for data interactions can help make the system more efficient and sustaining, and as Jaron points out, will greatly expand the pie.
Time will tell if there is uptake on Jaron’s proposal. It feels like an important idea.