Recently people have become a little disturbed by how much of their personal information is being collected and processed by big Internet companies like Google and Facebook.
But the only reason those companies care about collecting all that personal data is because it’s the most efficient way to sell advertising.
And the only reason they care about advertising is because selling ads is the most effective way to make money off of a free service.
And the only reason their services are free is because no one is willing to pay a monthly fee for access to social media and search engines.
Or are they?
It’s true that when these technologies first went mainstream people weren’t really sure what to do with them. They were reluctant to spend real money on virtual products. As a result giving access away for free was pretty much the only way to get any users.
But now? People know how valuable an effective search engine is. People have seen how helpful social media is for keeping up with friends and family (and arguing with strangers). People believe the Internet is a genuine necessity of modern life ranking only slightly behind food and water.
And now that people understand how useful these services are, maybe they are also finally willing to directly pay for them. Maybe even pay enough money to make ads unnecessary and make data mining less lucrative.
The big question is: How much would Google or Facebook or Whatever Inc. have to charge to survive without any ads? And how many people would be willing to pay that?
Casual research (a.k.a. some random articles I found on the web) suggests that the average user provides Google with $200 worth of ad revenue per year, and about half that much to social media companies like Facebook and Twitter.
That’s… really not that bad. Less than phone service and about the same as other major software as service platforms. With that in mind I bet a lot of people would gladly pay $200 a year for a “pro” level Google account with no ads or $100 to keep in touch with family on some sort of genuinely “privacy-first” social media platform.
In some ways I think this transition is already happening. Netflix has made paying for software as a service a mainstream idea and a lot of other websites already offer the choice to remove ads with a paid membership. Now that data privacy is also becoming a mainstream concern I really wouldn’t be surprised to naturally see more and more “free (with ads)” products offering privacy enhanced “pro” membership options.
So while a lot of people are worried we’re rapidly hurtling towards some sort of distopian corporate panopticon it’s also very possible that we’ve reached peak digital insecurity and that things are going to start getting better as more and more companies shy away from unpopular advertising tactics and instead tap into the growing wave of customers who place a premium on responsible data handling.