I Figured Out How To Implement UBI From the Private Sector

Here’s How I Am Doing It

With this pandemic, the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) seemed to solve a lot of problems that the United States is struggling with. I have been running thought experiments on how the handling of the pandemic might have been different if UBI existed. I realized that it would be much easier to “shut down” the economy if no one had to worry about where their next paycheck was coming from. No one wants to shut things down when their livelihoods depend on it. But what if your job didn’t control your life that way?

I recently realized that my job was controlling my life. And I want to be clear, I loved my job. The people I worked with were amazing. But the nature of the work-life balance was off. This pandemic helped me realize exactly what was off. Work and life shouldn’t have to balance. They should blend seamlessly. The only time balance is necessary is an interaction between two distinct parts. But work is part of life. So you are trying to balance something with a part of itself. That ends up throwing off the balance of life. What if I said that I was trying to figure out an alcohol-life balance? Doesn’t that sound like I give a bit too much weight to one thing? But a work-life balance is fine?

There is more to life than work. Work should be a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Work should be fulfilling and give you the ability to grow at your own pace. This pace used to be fairly standard. But then the internet was invented and the world changed.

The problem is that we still tell people that they have to put in the time. That isn’t true. They have to put in the work. The internet lets us figure out how much time we want it to take. The fastest way to put in the work is by learning and doing. The internet gives us a playground to test out different ideas and experiences.

I can’t fix all of the problems with the world at once. But one thing I saw that I did know how to fix — the economy. The easiest way to fix it is to create a new path for money to flow. That path is UBI.

The trick to making UBI work is paying for it. So I created a system that will pay for itself. What does everyone have? The ability to generate data. What do companies want? Users of their products. What do users do? Generate data.

How do most companies generate data? They start by advertising their product. They need consumers so they advertise. The problem is that advertising is not an efficient method of gaining users. It produces a success rate of around 10%, for good advertising campaigns.

This creates an interesting downstream effect. Then a company has users and it tries to mine data about those users. They want to figure out what their users have in common and then create a model of an ideal user. They create products for that ideal user. Then they sell products to that ideal user.

The problem is that the ideal customer doesn’t exist. So what ends up happening is that companies try to convince users that they are their ideal customer. That is how sales get made, right?

Kinda. Except that it causes some strain between the user and the product. There isn’t “product-market fit”. There is an attempt to force a product-market fit by making the market match the product. Doesn’t that sound backward?

It is. It is a terribly inefficient way to do things. I also think it is putting a giant strain on the mental health of the world with so many people advertising so many different things. It is exhausting.

I figured out that I could kill two birds with one stone, as it were. I could create UBI by decentralizing data. This creates value for both sides. It creates value for the customer and the provider of the product. The customer gets a better product and the company doesn’t use as many resources producing a product that is valued by the customer. Win-win.

Here’s the plan. Create a company in which every user owns exactly one share. All users are completely equal. Everyone gets ownership of their own data and no others. Any decisions the company makes will be put to a vote. Majority determines the path of the company.

The company’s value will be in its data. The data will be more complete and more up to date, allowing companies to extract much more value from it. They will just have to pay users for the data they need. The company will take care of making deals with other companies in order to facilitate the funding of this project.

This company will be completely publicly developed and owned. Eventually, I see a board of directors overseeing its running, but I am not completely sure about that. I am going to work to get the initial funding secured and the system in place but then I want to step away. I know I have errors in my thinking somewhere. I just don’t know where. So I plan on letting the world tell me.

It’s time for change. That change starts today.