Good afternoon and welcome back! Let’s get to a little Friday evening reading with some wine 🍷
It’s a beautiful sunny afternoon in Amsterdam 👨🏻💻 ☀️ I apologise on the delay in writing. I’ve been on vacation traveling in Montenegro, and have been thinking of slightly changing the format of this newsletter.
While I’ll still aim to share insights from building and running a design consultancy / studio, I want to be more freeform in what I share to give visibly to some of the philosophic and industry discussions we have in the studio. Some of these may have no conclusions, but simply exploring topics from a design lens.
I hope it gives more insight into our culture, what we find valuable, and how we view design at a strategic level.
With that… this weeks hot topic was Privacy.
The Axis of Privacy
Over the last week, I’ve had interesting discussions with several members in our studio on privacy. We quickly sketched a few frameworks that reflected various levels of control. We temporarily settled on three (3) axis.
Freedom of information < - - - > Control of information.
Think of this in terms of US / EU versus China / India.Tracking of digital behaviours < - - - > No tracking / no data trail
Think of this like Google and Facebook versus Tor or potentially Apple.Control over personal information < - - - > Lack of ownership over personal information
Think of this like… well, no one yet does a good job of truly centralised personal information, which is perhaps one of our problems in management of our digital selves.
I’ve continually advocated for years that Convenience will always beat Privacy. Simply put, C > P. Individuals will give up data, behavioural information, and allow tracking if they are properly “convenienced” in return.
While we continually hear that privacy is important to users, current behaviour is suggesting the opposite.
That being said, we’re seeing Apple turn privacy into a business opportunity, we see regulation in the EU to aim to protect consumer privacy, and more stories are coming up showing how China is using authoritarian tendencies through the removal of privacy to both control populations - making Privacy a central topic of discussion.
Several coworkers were pushing back saying that because I embrace big tech, I’m in a bit of a filter bubble and there is a strong growing movement on privacy - which you see in Neeva, Brave, DuckDuckGo, and many more.
Although I’ll admit a few years ago I was using Little Snitch, Wireshark, and set up my own VPN, so at times I am a bit paranoid. However big picture, I still believe the masses will sacrifice privacy and data for convenience.
However, part of my personal beliefs is I should always be asking “am I wrong?“… and this is that moment.
Politics and policies aside, I’m curious how we see privacy shaping up in the next decade(?). What is the cone of plausible futures? Continued lack of privacy and companies eating up data? More regulation in the US or Asia? Companies privatising privacy as a business model? Or a continued nonchalant attitude towards privacy as long as users served convenience (hello Dead Kennedys).
Any Black Swan events that could effect this?
Privacy, similar to policy, climate change, digital currency, or other global challenges is a perfect problem for Designers to tackle.
It seeps into every digital product we touch.
Over the last two decades we have flattered the term Design/er to mean individuals who work on screen based products - people who make rectangles and right angles. In our studio, we believe design is a much richer canvas that centers on broad challenges and problems.
To all the designers reading this, if you’re not talking about global challenges, start. This is what we do!
Thank you for reading and exploring topics with me.
Until next time!