Superhuman: Creepy Powers
An elite service getting some heat for ethically shady practices
Hey Bheem,
Let me start this week by turning your focus towards an issue that happened a month back in the world of tech. You will see through this example the lax nature towards privacy we all have when it comes to Internet and services in it. Our godly ignorance to all things Internet lets companies take us for a ride. Read on…
Superhuman, an email client. It's a super expensive email client that is doing the rounds on twitter for being lightning fast compared to the free ones we use.
Why do i want to talk about this ?
Few things happened in the past few weeks
Prominent design leader of the Silicon valley wrote a 4000 word post describing the design flaws and privacy invasion techniques used by superhuman, which it is pitching as elite features.
Battle ground was prepared, sides were taken and things became awkward.
In the end, the founder, Rahul Vohra decided to fix the violation through an update and a fluent post announcing it . Kudos to his writing skills.
Design leader followed it on with a better post, describing how this patch is nothing but lip service and turned the focus on again.
In the end, as of me writing about it. It has completely fizzled out with analysis pieces trying to mint some content out of it. Both sides have moved on for the moment.
Your immediate thought would be to know, who was right and who was wrong. The answer is little more complicated than taking sides. Let’s dig in.
Build-up
Lots of words have already been poured outlining the issue at length by the media. Why wouldn't it, a startup that is solving the problem of email by making it fast. Problems that only super busy, super powerful and super rich people will have. This falls right in lap of tech reporters who are writing narrative based stories and analysis pieces talking about the lack of empathy that tech people generally have in these times. The irony is that they covered this same startup before the issue with subtle praise and congratulatory note on raising capital.
Issue’s Crux
But, I want to talk about this now to outline the poor awareness of users with regards to privacy of internet services. Markets of privacy are not really quantifiable in economic terms but they still in this modern age work like an ancient barter system.
You could even give the barter system a fair rating, inefficient yet, fare. But the current technology and product industry is practicing a barter system that is unfair, unethical and abusive in nature. The scales are skewed to the side of the one who are providing the service(companies), and no recourse for the users using the service.
The biggest social media companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter are at least open about using you as a data point and make money of you. In return, you get to use their service for free, excepting the data cost, the cost of the device you are using them on and also the cost of the hours you spend on them. So, not free as you think.
Superhuman is in the territory of serial killer when it comes to data privacy abuses. To understand why is that, let me take you through digital consumer technology 101.
First, offer what ever you are offering as free.
Second, reach enough users and hook them on to your service by saying it is free. Add lip service called convenience, whether actual or made up.
Third, leverage these users to raise some money on puffy valuation for your company.
Fourth, after getting validated by the 0.1%. Expand the offerings to further larger number of people without worrying about making money on your own.
Fifth, when growth stops. Bundle all the data that you have collected on your users and sell it to data brokers who are collecting these to track you across the web and hit you with adds that are relevant to you, going by your internet usage.
Now, that sums the business of pretty much all the tech consumer facing companies. You are now a technology insider, congratulations!!
So, coming back to Superhuman and Mr. Vohra. They did the cardinal sin of charging users a hefty price, $ 29 per month to start with in the first place. Then went on to collect data on how their users are using their product, and mentioning that they are free to do as they wish with that data, strike two. The biggest of all is yet to come, wait for it, letting your users track others. Bham!!.
You heard it right, the app can track the opens and the location of opens to the mails you sent using Superhuman.
Intermediate Truce
After our design leaders first post, the feature of location when opening email has been permanently disabled and the option of open tracking has been turned off by default, you could switch it on back from the settings.
You see, that feature looks nothing out of ordinary because including this newsletter many emails tracks opens, not the location though. With Superhuman, the people on the other side don't even know they are being tracked, in newsletter or marketing mails you can expect that and decide to not open it. I will let Mr Mike, our Design leader put it succinctly :
An ex-boyfriend is a Superhuman user who pens a desperate email. Subject: “I’ve been thinking about us”. He sends it to his former partner. She reads it when she gets to work in Downtown Los Angeles at 9am. She reads it again before dinner with friends in Pasadena at 7pm. She reads it again at home in Santa Monica at 1am. Over the weekend, she takes a trip to New York and reads it again. Twice. She decides not to answer the email, because her ex has stalked her in the past and she doesn’t want to communicate any further. But because of the tracking pixel, her email is always communicating, and it’s sharing info she does not want to send and doesn’t even know she is sending. She didn’t reply, but her ex still knows she read his email five times, including most likely in her bed. And he knows she took a trip to New York.
That is just one instance, if it didn't creep you out then i am sorry. I have given up on you ever realising the importance of this thing called data and how it can be weaponised against you for your own good. I know, you must be thinking but what do i have to hide? Nothing probably, yet how would you like a stranger coming up to you in public and saying “I Know what you did last night, day, summer and year?”
Nothing shameful or wrong, yet scary, right ?
Summing it Up
I am leaving this midway because trying to cover the data privacy thing makes my blood boil and hair fall. So, let me go take some pills and put some hair oil before we give it an another go. Also, there is no dearth of such abhorrent practices currently being practiced by the tech industries. So, we do have all the time to talk about this once again.
Regards,
Vivek
Duologue is an effort by Vivek and Bheem to have a dialogue about varying topics.
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