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Oh, actually, people also seem to drastically overvalue what their private data is worth.
Anecdotally: So, I don't have health insurance (I have wealth insurance instead, for catastrophes and it can't call itself insurance). So, I pay the retail rate for drugs. But it turns out there's a whole bizarro world economy where you can go to goodrx.com and get insane discounts off of the list price, like 90% or more and the drug ends up costing less than it would with an insurance copay.
Anyway, I have no idea how this works. I asked the pharmacist once why this free coupon knocked $10 off of this totally mundane drug that millions of people take. Her knee-jerk reaction was "because they sell your data". She really thought the fact that I take this med + my email address is worth $10 to someone. Not just that one time, but every time I refill it.
So, extrapolating "taking something that's yours" and "$10+ per take", I could see a recipe for widespread driving people crazy about privacy.
…what would feel like a good price?
I agree that $10 is way too high for any real value of that data. I could also believe that it’s where companies end up after factoring in all that bizarro-world. Maybe they sell the data for $1, but are also saving for bureaucratic reasons. Maybe it’s one of those loss-leader things where the cheap Xanax keeps people (or insurers?) in the program when they have to buy the long tail of exotic drugs. My personal guess would be that it has something to due with Medicaid pricing, because that derails literally everything.
I think it's probably worth a penny, at most?
Anyway, my research suggests these goodrx.com coupons are actually drug manufacturer rebates to the pharmacy off of their wholesale purchase. The manufacturer is effectively using this channel to quote much lower prices to uninsured poor people who would otherwise be forced to go without.
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