I’m mainly going to focus on two topics today including privacy and Facebook users, and subscription service models.
Facebook’s users are mainly categorised into two groups: being rational and emotional with varying levels of creation and consumption. I personally consider myself a rational user. I tend to limit my use of social media to informational purposes, mainly communicating directly or collaborating with people on projects, rather than seeking entertainment, or personnel connection. I understand why people use social media to connect and express themselves in an effort to share ideas, however I believe the security and privacy tools we are provided are insufficient. I Believe users personal data should be inaccessible by companies without express permission, compensation for collected data, and the ability to use the service privately. Considering our personal data is valued around $240US a year, why is it we just give it away for free? How much would you charge for your data? There should be a clear and easy way to protect ourselves and our data ensuring our identity isn’t stolen through social engineering, or our reputation harmed through deep faked media, compensating us for the risk and time we put into the service.
Do you embrace the growing technology around us? How would you rate you creation and consumption habits? How much data are you willing to share? Will competition naturally filter out unethical practices?
On the Business model end one major shift taking part in the market at the moment is the shift towards subscription services. Most large companies are incorporating these subscriptions into their services including Youtube, Google Stadia, Netflix, Disney, Amazon and Microsoft office. Most of these services have multiple competitors with limited barriers preventing consumers from jumping ship. Netflix for example is using an unsustainable strategy that is expected to be challenged during the introduction of Disney’s streaming service, resulting in consumers becoming more confused and unable to find what they want in a saturated market. I believe the introduction of subscription services in all aspects of our lives including normal shopping, news, video, music, clothing, and hygiene on its current directory is unsustainable. It encourages people to unconsciously spend more money. Businesses will need to adjust their service or relationship with the consumer to prevent them from switching sides, devolving a deeper relationship through loyalty programs that reward consumers for being dedicated loyal members, similar to streaks on Snapchat. The longer you’re subscribed, the greater the rewards. We fear losing what we already have to an extent that we will forgo more profitable options to keep what we have. Known as loss aversion, the physiological loss of our loyalty rewards / discount provided through our streak will be perceived greater than the monetary incentive to cancel the subscription.
Do you like the convenience of subscriptions? What else do you think can incorporate this model? And how many is too many?
RMIT Assignment 3 
Wow I never really thought about the value of my data before, nor how Social Media sites take and use my information. I know it is important to read the terms and conditions and privacy statement before signing up to something, but there are so many sites, it becomes hard (and I’m lazy). It becomes harder and harder to be an active and educated user when sites make it way too convenient to sell your soul for access to a site or application. For example, the face app people are using to make themselves old or young have terms and conditions to be able to use any data of users for whatever they want, indefinitely. That’s crazy!
How can we protect ourselves from this kind of stuff?
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Depends on what you’re trying to protect yourself from. Social engineering is often used by scammers that have sourced enough of your information through Facebook posts and descriptions to be able to pretend to be you. Often resulting in the scammer requesting a password reset for bank accounts or mobile plans playing on the emotional vulnerabilities of those on the other end of the phone, until they scarily enough take your online identity completely.
Protecting yourself from social media itself is significantly harder considering they make the rules, tracking everyone regardless on whether or not they are on Facebook via unique keys assigned to individuals browsing sites they have no idea are using Facebook tracking services. all you can really do is be an informed user, keeping you security and privacy page up to date.
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What! I had no idea! That seems really illegal, or at least it should be…
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Great post, James! Data protection is definitely a controversial topic, and I think for most people knowing that their data will be compromised by businesses is something that frightens them. It’s interesting that despite this, some people continue to post parts of their life onto social media anyway: their achievements, places they’ve gone, their friendships and connections, their birthdays even, amongst many other things – because it’s perceived as normal to do so.
I guess from this we can say that people easily turn a blind eye to the reality that they are putting their data out there, accessible for organisations, because it’s easier to go about normally and not think the potential consequences. No one wants to think about their data being exploited, it’s a scary thing after all!
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I Agree 100%. There is a great deal of risk involved with privacy, yet we fail to educate the young of the risks, and how to manage their personal information. Even if we did agree on a appropriate system to educate people technology changes too fast for most of society to keep up. We feel too safe behind our monitors, exchanging our personality, behaviors, and private lives for the pleasure of digital entertainment.
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Thank you James, very cool.
I think this also raises questions about tracking and payments of subscriptions. A report came out recently about how a lot of people were paying subscriptions to services they no longer used or had forgotten to cancel. Whilst it is good that their is more on the market, the consumer might find difficulty in logistical and financial upkeep with corporations moving so quickly to subscription services.
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I think you made a very good point about loss aversion. The subscription system is definitely a little sparse at the moment. You’ve identified an excellent opportunity for growth within the consumer market that would be great to capitalise on! What do you think is the best product that could benefit from the subscription system?
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At the moment despite the great subscription services in the real world like dollar shave club and clothing subscriptions like glamcorner, digital services are likely to remain supreme due to the lower overhead costs of managing and shipping products. Large companies are likely to just build on their subscriptions by making more partnerships with each other to deliver music, video, storage, games through one big bundle. It’s possible that these services will get so back that it could evolve into a checkbox system selecting which add-ons we want. Getting greater discounts and rewards for opting into extra services.
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I love your perspective on privacy with respect to social media. It’s interesting and concerning that these free services, such as Facebook profit off your data. Most people are unaware of this as they don’t generally notice or feel the impact however the main question to ask when signing up to a free service in the modern age is “is it really free”? and really shines to light the old saying of “nothing is really free” now more than ever.
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