This is a bad analogy.
Oil is a commodity. Data are not. Oil is extractive. You can fly in tech and talent, pump oil, keep the rulers happy and not concern yourself with the local population. You can’t do that with data—its value, for advertising and influencing, is linked to the population’s productivity and power. Finally, data are ephemeral in a way oil isn’t. You can’t barrel up bytes in the middle of the ocean.
What is with programmers and their utter failure to understand an analogy, is it their literal mind? Is it the lack of socialization when growing up?. "Data is the new oil" just means that it is an important economical and political asset, that's it that's the extend of the analogy.Nobody is thinking about API degrees, viscosity, sulfur content, etc. For the purpose intended the analogy works. I am pretty sure you could come up with a better analogy (Data is a car, in true Slashdot style) but watch like not even 5 min later another guy will come up to pick your analogy apart with the most literal of interpretations.
In my special hell I am doomed to take literature classes with a bunch of programmers.
User 1: A is like B
User 2: Wrong! Here is a very detailed description of why A is not literally and exactly B, therefore A is not like B.
You can find this pattern over and over in the comments section. If you ever want to generate a giant tree of pedantic, nitpicky responses here, simply post a car analogy, and let the programmers do the rest of the writing.
“Data is the new oil” is used by Reliance, an oil company. It may be you who isn’t thinking deeply enough.
The analogy is bad because oil has a specific geopolitical history. That history was caused, in part, by oil’s nature as an extracted nonperishable commodity. Opining on policy with respect to consumer data, a non-extractive, perishable differentiated good, with reference to oil reserves is misguided. Oil also has a specific national history in India. One that involved the state investing in, protecting and buying through domestic middlemen.
“Data is the new oil” is a different message from e.g. “data is the new gold.” It advocates porting a specific regulatory regime to India’s digital economy. One featuring politically-connected national champions.
So what?, it is used by thousand of companies. Hell, the guy who supposedly come up with it worked for Tesco, so he should have used meat or milk.
> It may be you who isn’t thinking deeply enough.
That's the point, you get the general sense of the idea, maybe chuckle at the marketking-hype speak and move on, you dont try to over-analyze if iron, land or tulips were a marginally better option.
The rest of your comment will be sent to pseud's corner
https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/project-natick...
>These data are subjected to sophisticated analyses to manufacture 'prediction products,' and are then sold into what I call new 'markets in future behavior.' Huge revenues flow from these new markets.
>The logic of this new capitalism is that we are raw material resources. We are not the 'ends' of the process but rather the 'means' of the revenue process. It is 'about' us, but not 'for' us.
https://sciencenode.org/feature/shoshana-zuboff,-part-two-re...
The oil analogy works for me.
>You can fly in tech and talent, pump oil, keep the rulers happy and not concern yourself with the local population.
Check.
>(Data's) value, for advertising and influencing, is linked to the population’s productivity and power.
You can still sell oil in Tonga, a country with very low GDP, but you won't make as much as if you sold out somewhere else. In fact if you're selling oil and you leave out the niche cases, you are losing money.
>Finally, data are ephemeral in a way oil isn’t. You can’t barrel up bytes in the middle of the ocean.
Places have tried to make laws to make data ephemeral, because it is generally not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten