Kind of highlights the true value of data that users are giving away with every single, in this case, transaction.
I am not quite sure how one would go about an alternate method for assessing the actual value of user data, but it has always seemed rather obvious to me that it is hugely downplayed by all the self-interested parties and their defenders.
Would it, in this case maybe be the change in market cap pre and post sales figures? But even that, as pointed out, has some increases baked in based on alternative research to estimate performance. I guess you would need to find a very specific company that really does not lend itself to outside, tangential research and that keeps its performance measures and metrics under wraps really well between announcements. Anyone have any idea of an industry or company that fits such a profile?
Does anyone else realize we are really in and moving deeply into an era that is going to add significant opportunities for corruption and economic capture.
The problem with ascribing dollar values to data (a.k.a. facts) is that you can make up a million untestable hypotheses about how data could theoretically have worth. To give an extreme but illustrative example: let's say that by typing this comment to you, I raise the temperature in my router by a millionth of a degree, which alters the wind pattern in my room, which causes butterfly to flap its wings, which... you get the point.. causes a hurricane in some remote part of the world. Does this make the "expected value" of my comment negative billions of dollars?
You can back this argument out to less extreme versions and see that it's very difficult to economically value a fact. E.g. what if the traders named in this article had 100X the capital on the line for the same trade. Is the data now 100X more valuable because of the added economic value they derived from it? What if their trade netted them more than the change in market cap?
I am not quite sure how one would go about an alternate method for assessing the actual value of user data, but it has always seemed rather obvious to me that it is hugely downplayed by all the self-interested parties and their defenders.
Would it, in this case maybe be the change in market cap pre and post sales figures? But even that, as pointed out, has some increases baked in based on alternative research to estimate performance. I guess you would need to find a very specific company that really does not lend itself to outside, tangential research and that keeps its performance measures and metrics under wraps really well between announcements. Anyone have any idea of an industry or company that fits such a profile?
Does anyone else realize we are really in and moving deeply into an era that is going to add significant opportunities for corruption and economic capture.