> The problem with Facebook is not that they are using user uploaded content, is that the user has no clue whatsoever the data is being collected by means of tracking actions (likes, time spend on a video...) and cross site tracking and what is going to be used for (Ads, make the site more addictive ?, recommendations?).

I'd say the two biggest questions that outweigh any others are:

Who will access the data?

What will they do with it?

The problem is that few of us know how our data is being used against us. "We will use the latest artificial intelligence methods to convince you that [political issue] is a good thing, since you're just on the other side of the fence."

The key thing you didn't mention is who the data will be sold to. I doubt the extremist nonsense, not related at all to any videos I've watched, creeps into my YouTube recommendations by accident. Who's paying them to generate clicks and viewing hours? What conversion are they attempting with my information? Only one side understands this game. Is there any justification for not having to reveal who paid them for my information or my clicks?

another problem is that once data has been accessed, it can be stored and analyzed. maybe we need to play big tech's own game and apply ToS to any data we allow them to access?

When you put it that way it feels like Solid is a technical solution to a legislative issue.

Or perhaps a complement to a legislative issue. Solid could be an easy tool/set-of-practices that allows companies to abide by data privacy laws.

This exactly. This problem can never get better until normal individuals have the capacity and leverage to demand reasonable contractual limits on the use of their data, and the confidence that these limits will be enforced.

That's a tall order when we don't even have the language to describe what data-usage limits even mean.

You raise a good point - my example of asking if the user likes cats is something that could be an inferred metric based on their clicking on cat pictures and having lots of pictures of cats. It isn't the user data itself which Solid aims to control.

Trying to subdivide pods so that services map access from album A -> pod B and album B -> pod C sounds like a painful UX problem as well.. Do I place my ambient music in my music pod or my "office music" pod? Do I have a hierarchy of musical pods? I am joking a little, but it is a hard thing to have fit into an easy flow.