I don’t get any data from Substack. What numbers it does share with me are WAY wrong. It told me Renee didn’t open the Water Bed email. She said she did. Angie says she didn’t open it 157 times. Substack says she did. So, I want to be clear. I don’t know what happens once I hit send. And, I don’t get paid if you click any links.
You’re going to notice two polls in this one. Please take a moment to answer them. The son of the lady who walks my chee-hooa-hooa needs your input for a science project. Thanks.
Ok, with that, let’s have some fun about you and your data.
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Our digital selves LOVE to be pampered with slightly better things.
In a digital hotel, digital you would let the cleaning crew watch you sleep just so they could recommend a slightly better pillow. No? What if the bed makers and shampoo bottle fillers said, “We’re the most trusted cleaning crew.”? Still no? What if they put trusted in italics and used a calming font?
Is your digital aura worth the free stuff you trade it for?
To be fair, it’s not black or white. It’s not hot or cold. There are degrees to this. Someone told kid you don’t touch a hot stove. You did it anyway. Just to know — how hot is hot? I know apps ask to take stuff. Sometimes, I have to know just how much my digital servants take without asking me.
A few times I’ve tried to catch Google eavesdropping. I whisper a random word – “Button” — like they did on Password in the 70s. To make sure it doesn’t cheat, I put my hand over my mouth like NFL coaches do. Then, I Google (v.) something seemingly unrelated, “Best places for dinner.” Contexto! Google says, “Fungi’s has the best *button* mushroom risotto in town.” Really? Come on. Not even Google has an algorithm that good.
IRL this would bother me on many levels. If someone popped into my house or went through my stuff, I’d calls the cops. But, it’s digital. Which makes it OK. I tell myself, “Self, it’s free.” Self replies, “It’s useful too. Remember, the oddly specific feedback that falls just shy of creepy is how we get baseball scores for our team.”
The line between digital and real life is blurring. We let Google into our home. Amazon too. Nest and Alexa are physically present. We can touch them and talk to them. We tell them to keep us warm or what we’d like to buy. Nest, “I’d like it to be 72˚.” It happens. Alexa, “We need more dog food.” It’s delivered. Devices that use our data make our real lives better.
You know how much I like the next things. The next thing will be to give our boring devices more sass. I’m jotting down: A SaaS model for chatty apps. Renee, you’ll be hearing from me.
I’d like to stand on a smart scale while scanning the barcode for an extra large box of Mallomars at the self check and have the machine say loud enough for the lady next to me to hear, “Really? REALLY! Extra large Mallomars? Go back and get some fruit. And, call you mother.” And do it all, in a lilty New York voice.
Right now, there’s a Jewish dude (I can say that because I’m a Jewish dude) beating me to the venture funding punch in Silicon Valley pitching the idea of adding Shecky Greene personas to the devices that interact with you. SNAP — the Camera Company (argh) — will buy it for billions. All Shecky wants is for you to agree to his Terms of Service.
Laugh, but you’re starting to wonder about all of those Terms of Service updates you’ve been getting recently. Like, “Hey – I’m getting a lot of ToS updates. What’s up with that?”
Why did every app you’ve ever used or service you’ve ever subscribed to email you last week with long, evolving legal prose written by tall, evolving legal pros. Zoom’s new ToS asks — no, tells — you that they will use your face and voice for their AI. Here you thought data was just posts you like. Stuff you search for. Things you watch. Vacations you take. Your meds. Your DNA. Pshaw.
Last poll.
What if I cuted up your digital soul by calling it “oura,” put a comforting bar over the ‘o,’ said trust in a calming tone and whispered it like a vocal italics, what if my service could tell you that you were happy moments after happy feelings warmed your heart with the modicum of correctness of a 1975 K-tel mood ring — but without all those distracting colors — you would be so lost in the Silesian diacritic of the moment, you would fork over the essence of your being just to get the smidgiest scintilla of seemingly significant personal insight, you’d strap a device to your body 24/7, sign my ToS, hand over everything about you, and you’d give me 300 bucks to boot.
Don’t believe me?