Comment by caseyy

So long as a significant portion of companies harvest user data to provide “free” services, no well-meaning business can compete with their paid apps. Not in a real way.

It’s the prisoner’s dilemma, but one vs many instead of one vs one. So long as someone defects, everyone either defects or goes out of business.

It’s the same as with unethical supply chains. A business using slave labour in their supply chain will out-compete all businesses that don’t. So well-meaning business owners can’t really switch to better supply chains as it is the same as just dissolving their business there and then.

Only universal regulation can fix this. If everyone is forced not to defect, we can win the prisoners dilemma. But so long as even 10% of big tech defects and creates this extremely lucrative business of personal data trade that kills every company not participating, we will continue to participate more and more.

Read Meditations on Moloch for more examples.