Do You Use Data To Understand Your User Or To Control Them?
Both Are Possible. One Is Bad.
The future is data. The present is also data. Actually, so is the past.
If you want to figure out how to make money, understand how to collect and analyze data. With data, all things are possible.
And therein lies the problem. All things are possible. Given the right data, anyone can control the behaviors of others.
Behavioral Marketing
Don’t believe me? Check out behavioral marketing.
According to Neil Patel,
Behavioral marketing is the strategy of targeting leads or customers based on specific actions they take on a website, rather than just the pages they view. Then, marketers use behavioral segmentation to target specific consumers based on the actions they take.
If a company is watching your behaviors, there is one reason. They want to understand you better.
But what do companies do with the data? This is where companies show their true colors. There are primarily two things that a company can do with the collected data. They can use it to tailor their products to the needs and desires of the user, thus providing them more value. Or they can use it to figure out the best way to modify behaviors to result in profit.
I have come up with a simple test that you can do to see which a company is. See how easy it is to figure out what data the company has on you. Then see how easily they give up that control.
A company looking for profits will hold on tightly to your data and try to refuse to let it go. A company that cares about providing you value will be open about what data of yours they collect and give you the option of leaving.
So What Do We Do?
The answer is a decentralized internet.
Wired wrote about it in 2018, declaring it “here, with some glitches.” As mentioned in the article, it was also the main premise of the startup in Silicon Valley.
Blockchain is part of the answer. It offers us a tool that we can use in the implementation. But it isn’t the whole solution.
The solution is simple. The solution is data. Blockchain helps us track changes in data over time.
But who controls the data?
Those that control the data, control the world.
This has never been as clear as it has this year. How many lives have been lost due to poor communication? We have the data to control the virus. Masking and socially distancing is enough to effectively control the virus, but only when it isn’t everywhere. Thanks to people in power intentionally obfuscating the information as it came out, Americans did an amazingly bad job at handling the virus. Now, we sit with over 250K dead.
If that isn’t proof that data matters, I don’t know what is.
But there is more to it than just the leadership. It falls on us as a society. Americans have done a great job scaling Mt. Stupid. I am constantly amazed by Americans thinking that they understand complex problems better than the experts, “because they read an article, once.”
I am just as guilty of this, by the way. I love learning and make it a point to understand as much as I can about the world around me. I have developed a really good sense of what is true and what isn’t. I also have the research skills needed to back up my intuition. That doesn’t make me right about everything. Even if I sometimes think it does.
In my experience, this is a distinctly American trait. It can be a great thing at times, allowing Americans to do some incredible things. It has also allowed America to fall into its current state. When everyone stopped trusting the experts, it became really easy for anyone to inject themselves into the narrative as an expert. Then, the stories that sounded the best became what was believed. A good story is much better than the truth. It can be crafted to easily be so.
So How Do We Fix It?
That is the billion-dollar question. It will require something new. Something that we tend to dismiss, especially in the United States.
Cooperation.
It needs to be a concerted effort between all of the major players in both tech and government. We need to come together despite our differences and decide that we want to make the world the place that it can be.
That’s where the major money lies. In cooperation.
It’s totally doable. I designed a system that could make it happen. Is it the best system? Probably not. But the design allows it to evolve as needed. That is the system’s strength.
One thing I have embraced in life is my ability to do everything. That is an idea that I was raised with. When something breaks, you learn how to fix it and you do it. There is no reason to call someone to fix your problems. That is a waste of resources. Before the internet, there was the library. The answer was always in a book.
But now, I have started to realize something. Just because I can learn how to do everything, I don’t actually have to learn everything. Sometimes, it is better to hand it off to the experts. There is value in both approaches. With something as big as changing the world? While I could build something like that on my own, I don’t want to. I would be making too many mistakes. I would make incorrect assumptions and that would limit the overall power of my ideas.
I see a ton of opportunities here. I am in the process of launching multiple companies to validate some ideas and build up connections. But the ideas are smaller and won’t change the world on their own. But perhaps they will lead to the world changing. The answer, as always, will be in the data.
