Comment by porcoda
19 hours ago
I think people are willing to pay for privacy protecting software. The problem is I don’t think people trust companies who claim that because there are too many instances of that “privacy” coming with a subtle asterisk. Businesses can’t seem to resist eroding trust in the interest of $ (growth! Shareholder value!) or caving to authorities. Plus, it’s rare that companies are transparent enough to earn the trust they claim we should give them.
I do agree with the sentiment: people need to get paid to write software, and people want freedoms to be respected by that software. It seems to be challenging to rectify the two in most cases (yes, there are cases where it works - those are the exception not the norm).
100% agree. Regulation is part of the answer. For instance, we trust that a gas pump is accurate because we know the government inspects it.
But I think we need more companies where trust/privacy is a brand promise. Apple, I think, is trying because they can. As long as they make money selling hardware, they don't have to rely on ad revenue.
In my opinion, the reason there aren't more companies that brand themselves as privacy-protecting is because people aren't willing to pay that much for it--at least not as much as the companies can make by selling data.
Part of my reaction to the article, however, is that the people who most value privacy are the least willing to pay for software--their solution is always about free-as-in-beer software. That obviously shrinks the market for privacy-respecting software.