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>but you know how much easier this would be for everyone if Google offered an option for users to be paid for volunteering your information to them?

Have you not seen their Opinion Rewards app for Android? They do precisely that.



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That's a wholly different context. In that context, you're not selling usage data, you're selling conscious opinions/preferences. More than anything, all that does is confirm the assumptions Google is already making about your tastes based on your usage.

This is about valuing the usage data itself that's passively collected on the Android platform.


Is it ? Google provides free functionality, like a (pretty nice) mail client in the cloud in trade for mail usage data.

Those things go, outside of Google, for 2$/month minimum, and more often 10$ per month ...

Similar things go for Google's index of the web, phone operating system, ...


The real indicator of how outsized the value is compared to the perception of such is the revenue inflow.

There's no reason for the suppliers of raw materials here not to raise their prices (from zero). If anyone wants to provide it for less, so be it, but given that Google wants insight into everyone marketable, there's no reason for people not to raise their own prices for the data they supply.


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