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Google Says Data is More Like Sunlight Than Oil (businessinsider.com)
Google wants to popularize a more upbeat way of describing data: It's more like sunlight than oil. From a report: Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday morning, Google's chief financial officer, Ruth Porat, said that "data is more like sunlight than oil," adding, "It is like sunshine -- we keep using it, and it keeps regenerating." It's a twist on the well-known phrase "data is the new oil," meaning the world's most valuable resource is information rather than petroleum. Like the oil barons who preceded them, Silicon Valley titans such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon have risen quickly to profit from this new resource and even control its flow. And in another echo of history, regulators are eyeing the industry.
At least to Google, Facebook, and Amazon, data is like crack, not happy-happy-sunshine. They are addicted and act just like any other addict.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Whatever altruistic motto you want to portray, Google, this doesn't reflect that. You're taking an equally lucrative and shady business and trying to make it sound better by marketing it. This is one of the purest forms of evil. Data gathering and monetization of that data is much more like oil than sunlight, and that includes the bad ways. Oil barons, data barons, both are looking for a way to get and control as much of it as possible and are willing to do just about anything in that pursuit because it is profitable. There are people who have abused sunlight as an renewable energy source in the same way oil has been abused to the detriment of society. If you're overt about it, at least people can make informed decisions about supporting you. If you try to hide it or sugarcoat it like this BS attempt, well, that means you are evil. You don't have to sugarcoat good truth. Anyway, I like what google does with my data, but the fact that they are attempting this form of dishonesty makes me reconsider.
Sunlight eh... I guess that makes Google a melanoma?
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This is just Google bragging about the insane quantities of data the get through their various platforms and services. Data is oil indicates that there is significant value in data. Data is sunshine means that you get so much data thrown at you, that you begin to notice clouds, rain clouds, and other weather patterns in the data. Sunshine also invokes shadows. At night a shadow is impenetrable, buried in the darkness of the unknown, you have to shine the light directly on the object your interested in. In the daylight a shadow conceals almost nothing. Like Facebook "shadow profiles" of people without accounts.
Data is sunshine also implies that there is a recurring pattern to the data, like an ebb and flow of the tide, or seasonal changes, or the rotation of the earth. The data refreshes, it doesn't change significantly.
This implies that data is still oil, and validates the usefulness of data. Sunshine is validation of the data. Oil is the data.
Why is it that the companies mining it keep their practices so deep in the shadows?
"Proximity to wonder has blunted our perception and appreciation of it" --Tim Hartnell in 'Exploring ARTIFICIAL INTELLI
All that data would be worthless without underlying "fundamentals" economy. You still have to produce widgets that are wanted by consumers that can afford to pay for it.
Google and such are just rent-seeking, where they artificially insert themselves between producers and consumers.
Oil? Sunlight? Those are both stupid analogies. Data are simply information. You do not need an analogy to explain that.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
You're not welcome to my data, now or ever, I do not consent to your collecting it, and I sure as fuck don't consent to your selling it if you had it.
Data is not like sunshine.
Data is not a natural resource, because that data is generated not by a natural phenomenon to whom all have access, it is (typically) generated by people.
In that sense, data is more like blood.
Which would make Google and Facebook more like vampires and us, their victims.
Sunlight, if anything, would be the GDPR and other regulations, shining a light on their activities, which is the last thing they want.
Doesn't that make more sense than Google's skewed, self-serving analogy?
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Deviously clever of them to use sunlight in their analogy, since sunlight doesn't belong to anyone and is free for anyone to receive.
Data is more like fresh water. It's also renewable and free. But it pools up on certain private property. You cannot access it on someone else's property without trespassing or first getting their permission. Which is something these data mining companies hide from their "customers" inside dense EULA agreements. If they're so certain that their users have willingly given them permission, then they wouldn't object to a law which requires them to state in bold at the top of their sign-up page and EULA what data they collect and how they use it, right?
Based on the exponential growth of data, it's more like the sun going supernova, or at least turning into a red giant.
is the technical term.