Another big distortion that isn't captured properly in GDP is the value of data.
People pay for their social media, using their data. People turn around and steal or scrape it. Then vendor resellers sell the same bits for whatever price a business will pay for it. The biggest joke in the world, is negotiating a procurement contract for data, where the seller's cost is near zero, and the buuer's budget is made up.
Great point! Although, I took it in a different direction. What you're talking about is probably an input for advertising companies, so maybe that shows up in whatever they charge for advertising. I'm not totally sure how or where it gets counted.
The proliferation of "free" information in general is very poorly captured. There's an analogue of the housework problem with people who produce content as a hobby and don't really seek compensation.
reply