Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
It doesn&#x27;t work. There isn&#x27;t enough money in the data for anyone to care. Your entire data load might be worth $100 a <i>year</i>. The only reason it funds massive industries is cost-effective aggregation by dirt-cheap computer power.<p>I ran the numbers on Facebook a while back: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19462402" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19462402</a> It comes out that they&#x27;re making roughly $17&#x2F;yr in annual revenue per user. <i>Revenue</i>, not <i>profit</i>. Cross checking my numbers against some other sources, it may be now more like $40 or $50&#x2F;yr. Profits, the thing they could actually afford to share with you, look like maybe $10&#x2F;year. So, what, Facebook is going to cut me a check for $5 every year? Google sends me another 5-spot, and a few other companies send me a dollar or less? What problem does that solve?