Those who because of scalability can bother us excessively should not be able to do so at a zero marginal cost

Sir, Martin Wolf writes: “Scalability means that an intangible good can be enjoyed by one person without depriving another of its benefits. In an economy where scalability — frequently turbocharged by network effects — is important, some businesses will quickly become huge. These winners may also enjoy huge incumbency advantages.”, “Challenges of a disembodied economy”, November 29.

Indeed, but also look at how a zero marginal cost allows the social media to drown us in such an excessive amount of ads, fake news and irrelevant information, which so dangerously wastes our very limited attention span.

So when Wolf writes “governments must also consider how to tackle the inequalities created by intangibles, one of which (insufficiently emphasised in this book) is the rise of super-dominant companies” let me (not for the first time) suggest the following:

Charge social media, like Goggle and Apple, a very small bothering-tax, like a hundredth of a $ cent, every time they reach out to us with something that does not originate in something specifically allowed by us, like the direct messages from our friends.

That could, at the same time it builds up funding that could be used for a Universal Basic Income scheme, which helps to take the sting out of growing inequalities, reduce dramatically the bothering of us and allowing us more of that so necessary boredom we need for creativity and thoughtfulness, which we humans so specially need now when we have to interact more and more with artificial intelligent robots.

@PerKurowski

The marginal cost for others than my friends to connect and bother me on the web, should not be zero.

Sir, Rana Foroohar, with respect our lives and adventures on the web advises us “to think much more carefully about three things. First, the extent of information that we reveal and all the myriad ways in which it can be used. Second, whether the products and services we receive in exchange for our data are worth it, or whether the terms of the exchange should be reconsidered. And third, how governments may shift the rules of the new digital playing field, and what it will mean for capitalism in the 21st century.” “Tech’s fight for the upper hand on open data” October 9.

She might be right, but boy that is a big task. I get tired of even thinking I must get through all that.

My current day-to-day concerns are much more mundane, like that of being able to get the most of what I want out of the web, with my very limited attention span. Let us say out of the 180 minutes I might be on the web each day, I would be happy if I were not rudely interrupted more than 50% by distractions; like those fake-news that require so much self-discipline not to click. But the truth is that, for the time being, the robocalls I get on my cell and on my landline are much worse. These demand an immediate attention that the web does not.

There is though one aspect of this all that I have given a lot of thought; and that is on how all revenues generated by exploiting our own preferences should be distributed.

If I, as the owner of the intellectual property rights on my own preferences, cannot be duly paid a royalty for these, at least I do not want others to be able to exploit them for their own causes.

If 50% of all web revenues went to help fund a Universal Basic Income, perhaps that could be an acceptable compromise for me.

But back to our limited attention span, the major problem is that the marginal bothering cost for social media or other service providers to connect with us is zero. If each connection that does not originate from someone directly authorized by us is taxed with US$ one cent… then I am sure those connecting would at least think a bit more before bothering me.

And, of course, those taxes should also help feed a Universal Basic Income. The last thing we need is social media and redistribution profiteers teaming up in order to engage in mutually profitable crony statism. 

@PerKurowski

The numbers of ads on Facebook and Google need to be limited, and those clicking these should also be paid something.

Sir, Rana Foroohar, with respect to those services we supposedly receive free from Goggle, Facebook and similar for free, correctly writes “free is not free when you consider that we are not paying for these services in dollars, but in data, including everything from our credit card numbers to shopping records, to political choices and medical histories. How valuable is that personal data?” "Big tech makes vast gains at our expense", September 18

Indeed, more than 10 years ago I wrote you a letter in which I said: “Clearly a search engine should mostly be valued in terms of the services it offers to the searchers but in this case it is actually the searchers that become the searched and this leads to some very strange signalling effects”.

And since then I have been all over the web promoting among others the possibility that we should be able to get an intellectual property right over our own preferences, in order to have sometRhing to negotiate with… and then on how we could enter into agreements with ad-blockers that could help us exploit those IPRs.

But lately what has also come to concern me, is how our very limited attention span is being overexploited, leaving us too little time for reflection on our own realities.

Would it not be great if Google or Facebook, or any such similar social media service we get hooked on, and which has over a million members, could only send each member ten adds per day, and that these would receive 50% of any ad revenues collected as a result of having clicked on the ad?

Under no circumstances should we humans allow the marginal cost of bothering us to be zero.

I believe that could benefit all parties involved. Even Google, Facebook and alike would be less harassed by the besserwisser. Don’t you think so Sir?

@PerKurowski