🔗 John Battelle’s Search Blog Who Stole My Alpha?

The term is borrowed from the financial sector, where “alpha” represents the excess return or competitive edge a particular investment yields over what the market might usually return (this is where the leading finance publication Seeking Alpha got its name).

… I’d often wondered.

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I think what’s new is that we finally have a constituency with the power to oppose the wholesale appropriation of data that’s been the mainstay of the tech industry these past few decades. Unlike consumers, who willingly ceded control of their data for the convenience of tech services, corporations are terrified of sharing information that might expose their strategies, competitive edge, or weaknesses.

Ummm .. maybe not all .. but a lot of ‘consumers’ (I prefer ‘people’) were not willing .. they just didn’t have the power to fight back.