Tech companies especially those in the social media sector have chosen a business model where advertisers are the customers and the user is the product. They use your data in invasive ways to derive a mathematical model of who you are: advertisers pay significant amounts of money in their attempt to gradually change your perception of whatever product, service or policy they want to promote. The Netflix film The Social Dilemma describes in detail how these big tech companies work today: I encourage you to watch it.
The manner in which a data platform is monetized deeply impacts data ownership and privacy. If you use a software platform with a business model based upon the old data economy then data about you is the product being collected and analyzed then sold (mostly) to advertisers who subsequently target you with incessant and often annoying, meaningless ads. This business model creates an incentive for big tech companies to collect as much data about you, by any means necessary without any regard to the effect it may have on real people and on our society.
On our OOLoop platform we do not work with advertisers. Both Builders and Loopers represent our target customers to whom we provide a service. We enable Builders to gain insights that can ultimately improve the quality of life of Loopers in a way that respects everyone’s data.
When a Looper decides to participate with a Builder by selling access to their data, the Builder pays OOTech, we take a small administrative fee and then pay all the participating Loopers. Most features on the OOLoop platform are free to use; we also provide premium features for a fee and additional subscriptions for professionals and enterprise customers (Builders).
It is important to understand how a platform makes money; I believe that it provides a window into how a platform treats your data. If advertisers can target you based upon the recommendation of a proprietary machine learning algorithm optimized to illicit your strongest emotional reaction, then your goals to retain control of your own data and the platform’s goal to collect and monetize information about you in order to generate profits will never be aligned.
You will never find ads on OOLoop. We do not work with advertisers, and we have no relationship with data brokers either. We work with entrepreneurs, business managers and policy makers who want to improve their product, services and/or policies that can directly and positively impact lives on a local and global scale.