&gt;We rent our devices from Apple and Google, and they exercise control over what apps you run on it,<p>From my understanding, Apple is a little different in that as far as I can tell, they make money off of, you know, <i>you</i> - selling you things directly, not off of selling your information to third parties.   I mean, they do control what you can and can&#x27;t install on your device, but they do so not in service of collecting more data on you, but in service of getting you to buy more stuff from them.   Because their money ultimately comes from you rather than from advertisers, they ultimately have different aims.<p>(if this is wrong, please correct me.)<p>This is relevant because Your whole thesis rests on the idea that the currently-popular business model of &quot;give consumers free stuff in exchange for personal data&quot;  will remain stable, that the &quot;advertising based&quot; model will win over the apple model.<p>And maybe it will.  I don&#x27;t know.   But right now?  it looks like the apple model has won the high end, while the &quot;give you stuff in exchange for your personal information&quot; dominates the low end.   Now, personally, I wouldn&#x27;t bet money that the current situation is stable;  in part <i>because</i> of this huge economic inequality, and <i>because</i> the people you really want as customers are paying for the services with money rather than with personal information.   There is an argument to be made that a lot of this personal data collected by the cellphone companies who make their money through collecting data is mostly personal data of the poor, because wealthier people use the cellphone company who charges you money.<p>I mean, you could be right, certainly, but my point is just that things haven&#x27;t settled out yet.   We&#x27;re still in the part of the economic cycle where we simply don&#x27;t know what will stick after the &quot;dumb money&quot; leaves the system.