Privacy vs. Profit

Is there a privacy-friendly monetization model out there?

Advertising doesn’t cut it. The idea behind advertising is simple: users love “free” stuff, and ads make it possible for companies to offer it. Google and Meta built entire empires on this model - so there’s no question it works. But it’s a disaster for privacy.

Venture-backed startups aren’t much better. They take money on the condition they grow fast and become profitable even faster. And when it’s time to show revenue? That’s when the “privacy tradeoffs” start creeping into the roadmap. That’s when even a paid app can’t guarantee the privacy you deserve.

In the pursuit of profit, data-hungry companies turned themselves into endless harvesters of personal information - all under the banner of “personalizing ads and improving the experience.” That personalization pitch is one of the biggest lies in tech. It’s right up there with “E2E encryption is bad because of terrorism and CSAM.”

Now, with the rise of AI, it’s getting worse. Companies want to harvest even more of your data - still wrapped in the same tired excuse: personalization. AI is everywhere, and they want to know everything you do on your computer. And of course, it’s coming for your browser too.

Data harvesting in Chrome for advertising will transform into data harvesting in AI-powered browsers - like OpenAI’s browser, Perplexity’s Comet, or The Browser Company's Dia.

Here is how, Josh Miller, CEO of The Browser Company, describes it on Twitter:

Do you often browse with your co-worker over your shoulder? Me neither. And if someone was watching everything I read, clicked, and skimmed throughout the day, I wouldn’t call that a “co-worker.” I’d call that surveillance.

AI is already a copyright disaster, and it’s on track to become a privacy disaster too - if it isn’t already. See what happened with the Meta AI app recently.

But I don’t judge them. I’m pretty sure those smart people are doing everything they can to provide as much privacy as possible (well, not everyone, khm khm). In the end, it’s all about money. Incentives shape behavior, and when the reward structure favors data extraction over restraint, even good intentions get bent. And I won’t pretend I’m making anything close to what they are.

Subscriptions and donations are more honest (consider buying me a coffee, by the way) - and maybe that’s why I’m paying for Kagi and using the Orion browser with zero telemetry. But you only have 24 hours in a day, and only so much money to spend each month - wallets aren’t bottomless. Subscription fatigue is real, and most people still expect everything online to be free. That’s what the ad-funded web taught them.

I don’t have a perfect answer to the question I opened with. But maybe the next great product isn’t the one that squeezes more profit out of your data - maybe it’s the one that finds a way to thrive while asking for less.