Social media apps take your data and monetize that data

Social media apps take your data and monetize that data by building new products that will keep you on their app longer, by selling it to advertisers, and by selling it to third party data brokers.

Health apps like Fitbit, Whoop and the rest take your health data and monetize it by making products that they sell to you as well as selling features of your data to advertisers.

The automotive industry takes your data and sells it to third parties like insurance companies and manufacturers. The banking industry takes your data and uses it to subsidize their product development. In software, the golden rule is that if the product is free, you are the product.

And there are two new types of software currently hitting markets globally. The first AI, where now not only were the products built using our data, but we are often paying for the privilege (ChatGPT 4 and others).

Separately, central bank digital currencies are offering state currencies directly to consumers. Again, if it’s free, you are the product. And unlike the private sector, governments and related institutions are after revenue, they’re after something else. CBDCs have an alarming ability to offer total control over a population.

Losing the freedom to transact if, say for example, you have been identified as a potential online threat, are engaged with movements deemed dangerous to the state, question official narratives, or voted against the incumbent party, can stop a citizen in their tracks. You lose the ability to buy food, make housing payments or buy clothes. This may sound too terrifying to be real but this is the very reality of many people across the globe, including China and island nations.