I wonder how this would fit in in countries with universal healthcare?
This is a natural fit for the US, where the business of healthcare happens much closer to (and often involves) the end consumer.
In countries with universal healthcare, I think this would only work if Facebook/Google/Apple made the state provider the first choice to receive healthcare data. The state normally has programs in place already to centralise and analyse health data and what Facebook are proposing is essentially setting up equivalent functions in parallel.
There seem to be a lot of private enterprise that competes and prospers even when there is a large state presence. FedEx is an example that comes to mind.
"This is a natural fit for the US, where the business of healthcare happens much closer to (and often involves) the end consumer."
Seems true, but would add that it could go a whole lot closer. The typical consumer is generally insulated by insurance being packaged into employment deals and a near universal culture of prepay masquerading as 'insurance.'
The privacy push by Apple will benefit their healthkit and related apps.
Apple has always been a hardware company and this gives them some competitive advantages over google and facebook who can only make money by ultimately selling your information. Realistically, Google/FB probably won't monetize your health information and instead try to use it to attract you to their other services. But I trust Goog/FB less than Apple to keep my information private.
I hope Apple continues to push the privacy angle. I've seen people here on hn state that young people don't care about privacy, but that isn't what I've witnessed. My youngest relatives (grade school to early college) are privacy conscious and use services that they at least think have privacy (snapchat, for instance).
Also, friends and relatives older at retired age are also privacy conscious. The only people I know that don't seem to worry about their privacy are in their 30s and 40s.
As someone in the mid-30s and up range, many of us were shaking our heads at the over sharing and privacy implications of those younger - at least here in the states.
Not sure where you feel 30-40s care less about privacy than others.
I know it's anecdotal. It's just based on personal observation of my relatives whenever I travel back to the u.s. The oldest and the youngest seem to be the most paranoid about making information public and I think for different reasons. The youngest probably don't want their parents and relatives to know what's happening in their private lives and the oldest are just paranoid of technology.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 27.2 ms ] threadThis is a natural fit for the US, where the business of healthcare happens much closer to (and often involves) the end consumer.
In countries with universal healthcare, I think this would only work if Facebook/Google/Apple made the state provider the first choice to receive healthcare data. The state normally has programs in place already to centralise and analyse health data and what Facebook are proposing is essentially setting up equivalent functions in parallel.
"This is a natural fit for the US, where the business of healthcare happens much closer to (and often involves) the end consumer."
Seems true, but would add that it could go a whole lot closer. The typical consumer is generally insulated by insurance being packaged into employment deals and a near universal culture of prepay masquerading as 'insurance.'
Apple has always been a hardware company and this gives them some competitive advantages over google and facebook who can only make money by ultimately selling your information. Realistically, Google/FB probably won't monetize your health information and instead try to use it to attract you to their other services. But I trust Goog/FB less than Apple to keep my information private.
I hope Apple continues to push the privacy angle. I've seen people here on hn state that young people don't care about privacy, but that isn't what I've witnessed. My youngest relatives (grade school to early college) are privacy conscious and use services that they at least think have privacy (snapchat, for instance).
Also, friends and relatives older at retired age are also privacy conscious. The only people I know that don't seem to worry about their privacy are in their 30s and 40s.
Not sure where you feel 30-40s care less about privacy than others.