I'm all for significantly limiting the "data economy", but I suspect too many people have become too used to getting free stuff. I see this all over the place - there are products and services that are quite expensive to build and provide, but they're free because people (often unwittingly) exchange data about themselves in place of the actual cost. If you still want those products/services without the data industry supporting it, someone will have to pay for them. I think lots of people opposed to the data economy will become less opposed when faced with actually paying for stuff it supports.
I learned this the hard way trying to sell something that competed with free tools from Facebook/Google/[other giant data monetizing companies]. Our tool was/is competitive, but we aren't in the business of data harvesting or advertising - so, the engineering cost (many years of effort) would have to be paid from actually selling the product. The response? People want the free ones, and could really care less how the engineers that built it were paid as long as THEY (the consumer of the tool) got it for free.
As long as the "someone else will pay for X so I can have it for free" attitude is acceptable and widespread, we're likely stuck with a pervasive and deep data economy.
I learned this the hard way trying to sell something that competed with free tools from Facebook/Google/[other giant data monetizing companies]. Our tool was/is competitive, but we aren't in the business of data harvesting or advertising - so, the engineering cost (many years of effort) would have to be paid from actually selling the product. The response? People want the free ones, and could really care less how the engineers that built it were paid as long as THEY (the consumer of the tool) got it for free.
As long as the "someone else will pay for X so I can have it for free" attitude is acceptable and widespread, we're likely stuck with a pervasive and deep data economy.