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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 02/09/2026

Some self-styled critics of tech monopolists say that the answer to Facebook's privacy invasions is to force the company to pay for your privacy with *cash*, rather than services: www.wired.com/story/opinio... 7/

wired.com

Andrew Yang Wants You to Get Paid for Your Data. It Doesn't Add Up

He says social media companies should pay you for the data you produce. But loopholes abound, it's too expensive, and other plans like it have failed.

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 02/09/2026

This is ideological capture in its purest form: the "data dividend" that Facebook would owe you under this system amounts to a few dollars per year. For wealthy people, the sums would be trivial. 8/

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 02/09/2026

Working people who've been on the downward leg of every K-shaped recovery for a quarter century, who've maxed out their credit cards and re-mortgaged their homes and drive Uber on the weekends to make rent, would have to subject themselves to ongoing surveillance. 9/

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Giant Pain in the Ass @giantpainintheass.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Sometimes I wonder how much it would cost each user for a company like Facebook to stop manipulating people to drive engagement and selling their data and serving them advertisements and instead switch to a membership fee model, while remaining similarly profitable. It's probably tiny.

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