Before every move you made was tracked, there were only a handful of companies that could deliver ads to people
Yes but that had nothing to do with tracking, it was just the nature of the medium. I would like to agree with your idea of tracking as payment, but I really can't, because:
a) Most of the time I don't have a choice. There's no option to pay them money and even if I pay them directly, they may still keep collecting tons of personal information about me on top of it.
b) It's sneaky. I don't really know what information they have and how they use it. I just have a couple of completely meaningless words from their privacy policy.
c) I don't know the price I'm paying.
The last point is the most important one. The value and the risk associated with a particular piece of information greatly depends on what other information it is combined with, but I can't control that. The company could get acquired tomorrow by some ad behemoth that knows a lot of other things about me, so the price I'm paying could change after the fact. That's not the way payment works. I have to know the price I'm agreeing to pay before I enter that contract.
c) Technically you do. It was in the privacy policy (or what was omitted from the privacy policy), and in the clause that says the privacy policy can change at any time without notice.
Deceptive, yes. Personally, I'd like to see more sites adopt privacy policies written like 37signals: http://37signals.com/privacy
If you have the option to become better at serving your customers, you do it. When you interact with a for-profit organization, they are a) extracting something of value from your or b) subsidizing the service with funds from a different business area that does.
Fundamentally, if a business owner can do something to more effectively serve his customers, he does it. If he runs a free service, those customers are advertisers.
We need to change consumer attitudes so people aren't opposed to paying for services they find valuable. When the general public is the customer instead of the product, it will find its voice more effective.
Yes but that had nothing to do with tracking, it was just the nature of the medium. I would like to agree with your idea of tracking as payment, but I really can't, because:
a) Most of the time I don't have a choice. There's no option to pay them money and even if I pay them directly, they may still keep collecting tons of personal information about me on top of it.
b) It's sneaky. I don't really know what information they have and how they use it. I just have a couple of completely meaningless words from their privacy policy.
c) I don't know the price I'm paying.
The last point is the most important one. The value and the risk associated with a particular piece of information greatly depends on what other information it is combined with, but I can't control that. The company could get acquired tomorrow by some ad behemoth that knows a lot of other things about me, so the price I'm paying could change after the fact. That's not the way payment works. I have to know the price I'm agreeing to pay before I enter that contract.