Data is a hot topic these days. We see them everywhere in magazines, newspapers and TV. As a recent article from The Economist says “A NEW commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow.” It calls for an act from the trustbusters to prevent a data economy dominated by a few giants, just like back in the oil ages.
The term “data is the new oil” was first raised by Clive Humby, a UK Mathematician and architect of Tesco’s Clubcard. It is not the first time we heard about this phrase, and definitely won’t be the last time. But is data really the new oil? A BBC article points out a few differences between oil and data, namely, their supply, people who control them and the industry itself. First, unlike oil, which has finite supply, data is virtually indefinite. As for people who controls the data, it is the user themselves in theory, though not necessarily in practice. Lastly, the data industry is evolving much faster than the oil industry. Innovation lies in the DNA of every data company, that’s why some data company’s lifespan are relatively short. Consequently, the regulations are more difficult for data industry than oil industry in the past.
According to The Economist, companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft collectively had a net profit of $25 billion in the first quarter of 2017. They are widely recognised as the top 5 most valuable companies and the giants in the field of big data globally. In my opinion, despite data and oil are both valuable resources, data is not exactly the same as oil because data cannot be directly used. Its abundant availability is more like the air we breathe. The problem with data is not that where can we find them, but how can we make use of them. Nowadays, many businesses talk about data, but some of them do not really understand where the value of data comes from. Data itself are useless. To exploit the value of data, companies should find a way to refine them first. It is important that companies have the capability to transform the huge amount of data into greater business insights. Only in this way, companies can integrate data into their future business models and boost business growths.
Data is undoubtedly the source of many innovations in the future. However, with the rapid evolvement in the data industry, the fast-growing data availability companies control also sparks off much controversy. For example, the privacy issue the user is facing, the antitrust regulations for data industry and the debate on how much data is really needed for a healthy-growing data economy. We cannot deny the opportunities the data economy we are heading to. Nevertheless, we need to start thinking how we can address many issues coming from it as well, in parallel with the innovations data bring us.
Sources:
[1] Rajan, A. (2017, October 09). Data is not the new oil. Retrieved October 14, 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41559076
[2] The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data. (2017, May 06). The Economist. Retrieved October 14, 2017, from https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21721656-data-economy-demands-new-approach-antitrust-rules-worlds-most-valuable-resource
