The Dynamics of Exchanging Information for Services (a candid assessment)

Telecommunications technologies in the 20th century were funded almost entirely by advertising revenue. The exposure that telecom companies could provide could of course make products and services more well known by the public; but it could also be a playing field for competition. Corporate models, being models that rely on perpetuity of increases in quarterly profits, make the playing field a bit more challenging and in states of growth maximum, even a bit toxic. This has carried over into the world wide web; and has had some unfavorable results in maintaining economic stability.

By making web services more accessible, by exchanging personal data for those services, the web grew not only as a market place, but also a platform for socialization. The masses used it to influence politics; and politics used it to influence the masses. This became intertwined with the data being shared. Now the data is being sifted through at will by every government on the planet. This is something that being not only allowed by the companies charged with it's security and distribution, it's done with a handshake; as prior senior members of corporations are "elected" to lead regulatory administrations.

The crux of the issue is that information is not being exchanged for services to the consumer. This is because the services do not serve the consumer. The services serve the return. This is all brought about by a business model that is too heavily influenced by the public sector.

For instance, social media is being used more to stifle social autonomy than to promote it. This is not a service to the consumer. The upswing in usage of ad blocking software has more to do with the experience of web surfing than anything else. In too many cases, web pages will load extremely slowly or not load at all due to the sheer number of warez attached to it. The ad market that funds the internet has thus become extremely inflated due to it's own requirements for perpetuated growth. Inundation with ad and spyware is not a service to the consumer. Social media outlets are now even drastically reducing representation for the entrepreneurs that have taken advantage of their monetization platforms. This has led to the emergence of new third party solutions. This suggests that not only is the payment in information increasing, but the services that stood as compensation are being reduced.

In this particular market, the services serve the return, and the consumer is the product. The argument that the information is only valuable in aggregate is truncated in the ad space alone. It's also not as valuable as the numbers would suggest; when the system is being gamed in every way that it can be gamed. The numbers not only do not tend to add up, but they tend to be several times what would be expected. Even though this is widely known, it still continues; because the market requires it. This is a market that is forcing itself to crumble under it's own weight.

This market provides the vast majority of funds for internet 2.0! The internet moves capital in unprecedented ways. It's the new platform for commerce. It's the foundation of the new business models, including the emergent ones. I can not even begin to describe how all encompassing the collapse of this market will be. No one will be able to sort it out. It will be reset level; just like 1929, only world wide. Fortunately, it's not likely to last long enough to destroy the infrastructure. It will be nice to see the world working together to fix something.