- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Regeneron is to pay $256 million in cash to acquire “substantially all” of 23andMe’s assets, including its massive biobank of around 15 million customer genetic samples and data.
Regeneron is to pay $256 million in cash to acquire “substantially all” of 23andMe’s assets, including its massive biobank of around 15 million customer genetic samples and data.
Don’t give me that ‘hindsight is 20/20’, it was the first thought I had when I heard about this.
‘How are they going to monetize this?’
Either they sell your data, or they go under and… sell your data.
There was no other option from the inception.
None of this is new, and private companies gobbling up any data they can hasn’t been new since at least 2005.
The future is not evenly distributed.
Were you working with data back then? Marketing? You want to argue that there was the same public knowledge around digital data in 2005 (when web 2.0 was in its infancy) as there is now in 2025? Most books I’ve read on the topic weren’t even published till the late 2010’s. Surely there was a moment or experience that woke you up to the importance of privacy and the capabilities of data. Not everyone has had experiences like that, even today.
I’m not dismissing personal responsibility, I was just shocked that the dominant, first reaction was “morons” and not “these companies are immoral, and don’t deserve our trust.” I want privacy as the default and not an overwhelmingly individual arms race against corporations and professionals. The latter is going to lose, and that will hurt the rest of us. If we want the former, as a community we have to get off our high horse, get on the ground, and grow by welcoming those that got burned into the fold. edit: grammer
The tests weren’t free.
So what are they going to do after?
You won’t get tested twice, they still need to pay for existing. After they test everyone, how are they going to keep it up?
Unless they take more money from you, they will sell your data to someone else.
Insurance companies? Advertisers? Those things provide value for bad actors more than for you.
I’m glad you had the foresight to keep yourself safe, but unfortunately not everybody is as observant or skilled in critical thinking as you are. We all started from ignorance, and no matter how well-learned a person is, they can’t possibly know everything. The least we can do is remind ourselves that we’re imperfect too, and have some compassion for those that are just discovering things that we have already learned.
I have no issue with that, but let’s not act like there was anything else other than a trend.
If people said ‘I got caught up in the moment, everyone was doing it’ then fine, you got duped, it happens.
But don’t give me lame excuses. Most people didn’t approach it critically, which is not unusual, but own up to it.
I’m tired of the same excuse over and over.
And those tests weren’t even that cheap.