> Anytime you move fees from a regime where they’re fully visible to the customer into one where they’re hidden, the customer is eventually going to get fleeced.
It would be interesting to apply this insight to "surveillance capitalism" industry. You get to use Google/Facebook/Twitter/etc for free, even though there is some fixed amount you would theoretically be willing to pay to use them. In exchange, the companies use your personal information to display ads to you, but you have no idea what that is worth to those companies. In other words, your personal info (which is used to sell ads) is by definition worth more than the cost to serve Google/Facebook/Twitter to you (otherwise those companies would make no money). But you have no way of knowing how much more.
It would be interesting to apply this insight to "surveillance capitalism" industry. You get to use Google/Facebook/Twitter/etc for free, even though there is some fixed amount you would theoretically be willing to pay to use them. In exchange, the companies use your personal information to display ads to you, but you have no idea what that is worth to those companies. In other words, your personal info (which is used to sell ads) is by definition worth more than the cost to serve Google/Facebook/Twitter to you (otherwise those companies would make no money). But you have no way of knowing how much more.