What happens when the wave of encryption rippling through the personal technology world washes up against the realities of the data economy?

Most of the recent debate over the spread of encryption has centred on the implications for personal privacy and national security. Less has been said about business: in particular, what a greater use of encryption will mean for the usability of tech products and services, and for the business models that rely on capturing and extracting value from data.

This week, it was WhatsApp’s turn to push encryption deeper into everyday life, with the news that conversations between its 1bn users will be scrambled. WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging app, has already run into problems in Brazil for not storing messages demanded by a court. Now, it will not be able to “read” real-time communications either.