One hell of an article that gave me affirmation on my vision over the next 10 years, time to place your bets on the table gentlemen, if you have not done so.
http://subprint.com/blog/data-is-the-most-valuable-commodity-on-earth
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Certainly my belief, as well as value, data is your very thoughts, secrets, mad ideas and feelings, yes to be published just as a thought is published by speaking. Data is the very future of us all and in my mind we cannot protect it enough, and we will 
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Hedge your bets gentleman
I do like silver (not a paper representation)…very useful commodity, but SAFEcoin matured over 10 years, should be also be very useful and shiny
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The article overstates the case. Its not the raw data set that valuable. Such data has a shelf life and is of varying quality, most of it shallow even with mining. Many of the firms listed in the article are facing disruption.
“For example, Amazon, a company that is not even profitable, has seen its stock price hit all time highs this year and the stock is up 250% in five years. What does Amazon have? Loads of data. From the purchase history of their users to hosting a large portion of the internet via Amazon Web Services, Amazon continues to amass data at an alarming rate.”
Amazon is valuable not because its got data so much as its provided a good and valuable service (no profit in this case is a sign) with high customer satisfaction. Its also been a very innovative company in the real sense and prospered through ups and downs and against the likes of Walmart. Its also diversified in a solid way. It actually generates a lot of useful data of its own. It may still do things like automatic shopping down the road, but its real value isn’t even remotely based perishable stats culled from its customers.
Netfix has used customer data in some interesting ways to aid customers search for movies but its starting to channelize, impart because it to has been being pinched from a content strike and manipulations from sponsored media, including the extortion from cable which is trying to profit from restricting access to is customers. Netflix would have better in a much better position if it had been even more aggressive in pursuing digital ditching disk. Its real value has been its actual value it delivered to customers and crucially that it did so ad free. Of course its going to going to be successful and valuable in this environment when it doesn’t abuse its customers.
Other firms cited in the article like Facebook look set to sink when better open source possibly money free and privacy respecting services sprout up overnight. Firms like Facebook are incredibly weak. They can be undone by copycat competitors that are simply honest. Their data will rot. Data grabbed by spying on people has nothing like the value these corporations and governments attribute to it. They fool themselves thinking they actually know their customers and citizens. More valuable stuff could be gained by simple dialogue but these aren’t honest entities and the people get use or get used by them don’t trust them much. Often they deliberately falsify what they give these entities.
No question services like Google Maps and Google Street view are incredibly valuable but that comes for the actual use the data is put to not simply the raw data. Value is also created by the ethics and practices of the firm behind them. Big data is going to have its bubble burst. Maybe they will call it a data bubble. Big data is facing a cord cutting. These are firms facing consolidation in winner take all markets.
Think of Watson (IBM is of course big data, but not in the same sense) the service is valuable in many of its forms based the data that available on the Web generally. The idea that these firms own the data they’ve acquired by dubious boiler plate means or spyware is questionable as is the notion that they will continue to have access. What are they going to do when they have to pay full price for access to data. They are about to be cut off. This article reads like something sponsored by the ad industry.
Hi, this is an article from 24 Nov 2014 that corroborates the idea that data is and can be used as currency.
Reading this article, I thought of Safecoin. The difference I see is that I believe the article’s author and commenters are referring to synthesized data that is connected to an identity, whereas Safe Network chunks are not synthesized in that way, they are more raw. Right?
I think it is engaging to ponder using data as currency. Seems like there was or should have been a William Gibson novel about it.
harriet
I agree that data provided by companies that synthesize it is more valuable to those who want to sell to consumers and surveillance agencies. But I wonder if users will gravitate to services that do not require that they provide identifying information.
<< Big data is going to have its bubble burst. Maybe they will call it a data bubble. Big data is facing a cord cutting. >>
Are you suggesting a retreat from the cloud? As in the cloud will die because of decentralized services like MaidSafe? Just trying to get the gist of your remark.
harriet
I am actually. I think we are set to see the end of compromise services. We can build services without strings that are wholly empowering to end users. On a macro level all these negative services (especially sponsored media) have resulted in deeply broken policy. Currently the aim seems to be to lower wages not just to get to global averages but to enslave through debt. That is no way to create stability. I’d say that profit in bigger organizations is broken right now as it seems channeled toward that aim. It seems policy is trying to take use back to heredity/class reinforced by money.
Instead of a system that try to derive stability from stoking prejudice and paranoia we can again have a system where money and its uses are circumscribed even by tax if need be and where threats of deviation from anti social uses of money doesn’t allow for hostage taking threats of capital flight. Where austerity simply can’t happen. Where anti social uses of money aren’t practical or possible. Enslavement through money is the problem. One indicator that this has happened will be the end of the refrains that try to confuse speech and money and people and corporations. These are censorship attempts.