Breaking the Magic Spell

Is magic real? It certainly feels like it.

Is magic real?

I would argue yes. Most definitely.

At least, it seems, large swaths of the population are victims to a myriad of magic spells, rendering us into a trance-like state, which becomes at odds with our own reality.

This conversation came up recently during a marketing meeting with Shannon. You may have heard of her. She’s done a lot of great writing for us here at TIKI, and you can check out her journey here, here & here.

Now, back to our conversation. Shannon and I were discussing potential topics for future cornerstone pieces here at TIKI, as is often the case between the two of us. The discussion of expectation versus reality came into play, as in, what do people normally expect out of a service? What is considered “normal,” why is it “normal” and are there outside forces acting to push us toward a certain status quo?

Let’s get more specific. Shannon mentioned she often hears people say that sacrificing privacy is “the price we pay” for getting to use a service. Is this not something that you’ve heard before when people are discussing privacy on the internet? Sure, Meta and Google are collecting nearly every bit of information about you that serves any sort of use case (i.e. that can be sold for profit), but that is just the “price we pay” in exchange for the convenience of using the Google Suite for “free,” or for using your Instagram to cash in more frequently in your eCommerce business.

“That’s just the price we pay in exchange for…”
“That’s just the price we pay in exchange for…”
“That’s just the price we pay in exchange for…”

Say it enough times and it becomes ingrained in your consciousness. The utterance of the phrase, or the mental digestion of hearing the phrase over and over, creates a pattern. Our brains love patterns because they’re easy and recognizable. We often fill in our reality with what we expect, from what we see to what we think. And thus, “the price we pay for the convenience of Google and Meta (and many others)” has inevitably become our own personal privacy on the internet.

Magic.

Now I’m no expert in magic, or magick, or whatever you’d like to call it. What I do know is, it sure feels like a “spell.” With our modern understanding of magic, we all know it's a trick. We're okay with the “trickery” because it entertains us, but we're still clear about the exchange (meaning: we’re giving money to be entertained by someone who’s acting like a magician).

If I’m watching an illusionist who I KNOW is an illusionist, I’m okay with them using sleight-of-hand to slip my wallet out of my pocket during a performance. I’m okay with it because I know I’m dealing with an illusionist (I also know that if they actually kept my wallet I could charge them for committing a crime, but mostly I trust that I’m going to get my stuff back and that it was just a cool trick.)

What’s not as cool is when the sleight-of-hand illusionist doesn’t market themselves as such. Instead, they use distraction and trickery to take something from me that I didn’t realize was going to be taken. Then they’re no longer an illusionist - they’re a pickpocket.

The big difference between the two is transparency and trust. If you're fully aware, you know it's entertainment, you know what you're giving and what you're getting, and you can decide if you want to participate. Otherwise, the joke’s on you, and your personal data (and privacy) is what’s taken from you.

The normalization of your own personal data becoming the currency that fuels mega-corporations, such as Google and Meta, is something that has become so ingrained into the consciousness of the population. Even though the majority of people are at least somewhat concerned about how much data is collected about them by companies (79%) and governments (64%), 72% say that all or most of their online activities are being tracked by companies. Seventy-seven percent at least understand a little bit about the user data profiles generated in order to serve users advertisements, among other things. Eighty-one percent of people believe that the risks outweigh the benefits when it comes to companies collecting user data.

But still, we carry on with the idea that for some reason—even though when we are pressed we admit something fishy is definitely up with data collection on the internet—our privacy is “just the price we pay in exchange for” use of these ubiquitous services.

Why? Well, it may be worth mentioning that 62% of people do not believe it is possible to go through daily life without having their personal data collected by companies.

Enter the shoulder shrug.

The marionette strings attached to your shoulders are drawn upward, and the thought of “what can we do, that’s just the price we pay?” justifies slipping on the headset and drifting into the Meta metaverse. Just like a magic spell?

Well, how the heck do we snap out of it? The awareness is there, as made evident by the above statistics. But we need to rewire our programming in order to inject a different, more constructive pattern into our consciousness. The price we pay for using a service need not be the continued sacrifice of our privacy.

Magic can work in both directions.

“The price we pay for using a service need not be the continued sacrifice of our privacy.”
“The price we pay for using a service need not be the continued sacrifice of our privacy.”
“The price we pay for using a service need not be the continued sacrifice of our privacy.”

Thought is a powerful force. We are banking on it here at TIKI. We know that the time is right because it is self-evident. We are just so used to being mistreated that it has become normalized. The magic spell has brought us to this point, but true mesmerization has never been a factor. We’ve always been at least subconsciously aware that what’s going on with our data isn’t quite right. 

Now it’s time to flip the script. To continue to appease the statistically-inclined, consider that 55% of people would prefer better tools for allowing control of personal information versus the 44% that would prefer stronger laws governing what companies can and cannot do with their personal information. Leveraging the momentum (this survey data was released in late 2019) of the 55% of people who want better tools is key to snapping us out of this spell. 

We are building the very tool that allows for users to control their own personal information in the most logical way possible: by granting them ownership over their data. We do this by minting each data point on our Knowledge Graph as an NFT. The details aren’t incredibly important if merely having control is what you want—the technology at TIKI is geared specifically toward control. On top of this control comes the ability for user monetization, as anonymized data sets yield valuable, ethically-sourced insights for businesses to purchase.

And so the magic spell evolves from “That’s just the price we pay for using the service” to “The price we pay for using a service need not be the continued sacrifice of our privacy.” And then it continues on to “By exercising true ownership over our data, we can navigate the internet on our own terms and get compensated when our data is purchased by businesses.”

I’ve mentioned previously that thought is a powerful force. We can take this literally. Force is “the capacity to do work or cause physical change.” Thought can manifest as physical change. It’s how we were tricked into believing sacrificing our privacy is the exchange for use of so many online services. Thought coupled with action is another way of describing informed choice.

With informed choice, we act on the world rather than being acted upon. No more shoulder shrugs. The spell is being lifted.

We aim to change the perception of data and its value by simply catering to the wants and needs of a population taken advantage of by hordes of corporations and governments. We will move from shoulder shrugs to true, informed decision making until it becomes the norm. 

Just like magic.