Interesting article from Rory CJ on BBC news about the Amazon move around Amazon Prime. Today Amazon prime offers free delivery and getting things faster for a fixed fee per year. Its not perfect, many of the things on prime cost more and many things are not available on prime. They also slid under the wire at not extra charge the inclusion of Kindle lending library if you were a Kindle user, its a pretty poor service, previous comments on Kindle interface previously posted.
So Amazon have now said that you get unlimited streaming of films etc for the all new price of £79 a 60% hike in the annual fee. Well no thanks Amazon!!!!!
Given they should know quite lot about me, where I live, what I buy and how many times I am able to invoke Prime, they should be able to work out, coupled with their endless propensity models and external insight resources the following
- I won’t be able to use streaming due to digital exclusion derived from totally crap broadband speeds in my area, which are unlikely to fixed anytime soon either via fixed line or 4G
- I am not lazy consumer who just renews so I am likely to simply cancel prime
- I do not use the lending library service because it is rubbish
So why does an organisation one of the current group of digital data barons want to make this move. Well lets think about it
- They want more data about me, my viewing habits, what I watch, what I search for, how long I watch things for
- They want to combine this data with the other data they have to monetise it in one or more ways
- By improving offers and targetting my search and pricing to nudge me to buy more
- By offering the insights for a fee to those merchants who use their platform to sell to me
- To sell insight about me to non competiting organisations to generate increased revenue for them
- To demonstrate insight depth to those seeking distribution channels and showing why they are the best channel because they know so much about me as a real person unlike lets say the other data barons who make money out of my personal data Google, Facebook and Apple to name just three.
The reality is making money out of selling things to me conveniently and easily is just the top of an iceberg of monetisation of me as an individual. The injustice is I am the mechanical turk feeding their machine in return for nothing of value from the monetisation of my life and my personal data. They have not explained the commercial model. Unless you really think about you are blind to what is going on.
I am not empowered or informed, I do not even have equal access to the data I provide, Amazon do not offer the ability for me to download or collect my profile, transaction, preference and search data and store it myself in what are being called personal data stores. Amazon like the rest of them see the data as theirs an asset class which makes them money and they see me as a free worker who feeds their machine. See how much is being invested by the World Economic Forum in this subject a group with strong corporate backers, who are shaping the world, its a central subject the legendary Davos inner circle this year.
Worse still they make the data available to people who write apps or provide services, they make money out of me whilst keeping me in digital servitude
Amazon are not alone, this is what organisations have been doing for years its just gone globale, Personal Data is being described as the new asset class the new oil and unlike oil is limitless.
The old guard, the mobile network operators the banks, the utilities and the traditional B2C retailers and service providers are now being faced with an onslaught and attack in their own sectors by what Aral Balkan calls Digital Data Barons who are prepetrating digital feudalism on society as a whole and each individual. Personal data itself, in all its forms the analysis of it, the use of it, the sharing of it.
These organisations provide largely free services or well designed services (not all of them) or low cost services to individual human beings in return for their data, behaviours searches, preferences, intentions, transactions and profiles. The new world order where the individual is being enslaved to feed their machines blindly participating in data capture is happening everywhere, you only have to see how Open Data initiatives wants to consume personal data to deliver actionable insight, that the NHS in England want to give away our medical records to the all manner of organisations for “research” to cure cancer and solve countless worthy purposes but they are hiding the monestisation and there is not offer or engagement with the population scale personal data harvesting. You can opt our but they make it hard, if it was not for organisations like Medconfidential working hard to keep our personal health information private without our formal consent it would simply be happening to us blindly.
Privacy, control, consent and engagement in use of personal data is a fundamental human right, it needs to be enshrined in laws that work and we all need tools to help us have that control. Verified personal data about it is very very valuable it allows you to get things done on line that you cannot do easily today with forms and paperwork going by post or in person
Having the ability to collect it, manage it, analyse it and share it with who you want and to keep track of it is a core requirement for managing ones own life on and off line, the tools on offer from the usual old guard and the data barons make some things convenient but they never solve your longer term challenges they are simple data collection tools and harvesting models, they never really empower you.
So you need tools of your own, where the people who provide them do so to help you and only you and that poses a set of challenges commercial and government organisations and most third sector organisations do not want to take on as it is hard to see how empowering you helps them and at best they only want a thin deep slice or a broad shallow slice of your life so there you are stuck in the middle blindly participating surrounded by your data but with no real use or utility derived from it.
Data Data everywhere but not a drop of information or empowerment
Quest 4 Harmony 