I don't disagree with you Roi, but that imbalance of power between user and platform provided in regards to data privacy and usage isn't the issue that's being discussed in this article - and it certainly isn't justification for Australia wanting to charge for news weblinks.

On the issues of data privacy, I have dealt with it in this article: https://blog.usejournal.com/the-thing-about-cab-drivers-and-facebook-f21b50dddbc7

And regarding DuckDuckGo and Bing, you think they wouldn't need to make money at some point? Especially when their user base grew so big the infrastructure cost them billions to maintain? Google created a revolution too that was free for users too, when it first set itself apart from human curated search engines in the early days like Yahoo and Excite. But sooner or later it had to try and make money somehow. The only exception would be if a search engine functioned like Wikipedia and depended on user donations. But can that be enough to sustain the much larger infrastructure needed to run a search engine?

I don't believe data collection will cease as you've said; because it is needed to drive and advance AI. What will cease would be the individually precise and targeted online advertising business model we have today. We will go back to general targeting like the billboard, TV and radio ads of the past.

Cheers,

Lance