I'd say "engagement is the new oil". As long as users keep scrolling, clicking & viewing the money keeps flowing :-/
Data without engagement is less valuable, unless you want to monetize it in less-ethical ways. For the time being, big tech companies aren't stooping to the level of outright selling user data, despite what critics claim.
And just like the production & consumption of oil, capitalizing on maximum user engagement produces some severe negative externalities—particularly in politics.
Perhaps engagement is paramount to the Facebooks of this world but data gathering is valuable to a much larger set of companies and nation states. Think health and location data - very useful to many industries that can better target their products and services to you outside of just clicking and scrolling through websites/apps for advertising dollars. I also would not discount companies using data in unethical or even illegal ways. There isn’t enough regulation and oversight yet.
Data without engagement is less valuable, unless you want to monetize it in less-ethical ways. For the time being, big tech companies aren't stooping to the level of outright selling user data, despite what critics claim.
And just like the production & consumption of oil, capitalizing on maximum user engagement produces some severe negative externalities—particularly in politics.