There is something odd about thinking of people as data. After all, each individual human being is a vast entity, and essentially infinite vessel of complexity and possibility.
But for purposes of the modern on-line economy, people are data records. We are born in this year, and die in that one. We have preferred shopping habits, viewing preferences, favorite places to vacation.
Somewhere in a computer database, we are each reduced to a neat set of categories and a list of weights and values. From the perspectives of Amazon, Facebook, Google and their ilk, this is who we are.
Yet in our hearts we know better. For we are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.