>These companies have been making their position on all of this extremely well understood over the last freaking decade
I don't think that's fair. These systems are extremely complex. I work in the user privacy space for a company you've heard of, and I can't say that people don't care. I think they don't understand. They don't understand that these companies have PhD educated ML data scientist getting paid outrageous salaries mine your behavior and influence it. I will never, ever blame the user for being exploited. I will always blame the people who continue to work on these systems, because these systems are evil.
> They don't understand that these companies have PhD educated ML data scientist getting paid outrageous salaries mine your behavior and influence it
What I think is a fallacy is that _any_ of us even understands exactly what that means. The data science crap is (from what I hear from people in the industry) is mostly hype.
> I will never, ever blame the user for being exploited.
It's not exactly exploitation if the user is aware of what's happening and change causes them only inconvenience. People don't even turn off GPS on their phone even though they only actively use positioning like once a week just to avoid the inconvenience of having to go to privacy settings and turn it on/off, basically they'd rather be tracked the whole time just to save 3 seconds. If you do this you're not being exploited, you're willingly accepting this transaction. It's their loss.
The thing that every single person can see is that these companies don't have the customer's interest primarily in mind. Google is not giving free stuff because they're generous (and they shouldn't be, people should understand that companies exist to make money by "supposedly" providing value). Their standard position is hypocritical. Amazon argues for higher min wage not because they care about welfare, but because they want to prevent competition from even a 1% chance of gaining a tiny share in some market, as long as min wage can only be paid by Amazon and not some random small business, they're winning.
Our problem is not that companies are doing any of this. It's that when EA did that whole gambling/surprise-box crap, people complained and complained for months, but a lot of those same people STILL played the same stuff and bought stuff from the company. This leads to the conclusion that people don't want anything to be different, but they like to complain and have moral high standing.
> The thing that every single person can see is that these companies don't have the customer's interest primarily in mind.
I've tried to talk about privacy with many people, but very few people think about things like that. They don't even know what things like "server" mean. Even if they have a vague awareness that companies are conspiring against them, they give up because they have been told that "'They' already have all my data so there is nothing I can do."
I understand the difficulty in explaining the technical stuff. Partly i think it's also on people to learn a little. Not in a few months and not to become tech savvy, but ust the basics about what the heck internet is and what's the difference between that and the web for example. Technically this is a 50 year old invention, if you absolutely understand nothing about the internet you're almost actively trying not to learn or read, with that being said I think we should have more basic technical education specifically designed for non-tech people.
> Even if they have a vague awareness that companies are conspiring against them, they give up because they have been told that "'They' already have all my data so there is nothing I can do."
Yeah like I said, it's a nihilistic attitude. For example saying that more countries should have nuclear weapons just because around 9 have it already is cannot be an argument. 10 countries having them is more dangerous than 9.
And by the same rational, if Google already owns you, it doesn't mean that you it's ok to sign your soul away to TikTok now!
> Partly i think it's also on people to learn a little.
It isn't just limited to non-tech people. Even many programmers even aren't aware of it. They know how to code, but they don't understand the larger systems that they are a part of.
I don't think that's fair. These systems are extremely complex. I work in the user privacy space for a company you've heard of, and I can't say that people don't care. I think they don't understand. They don't understand that these companies have PhD educated ML data scientist getting paid outrageous salaries mine your behavior and influence it. I will never, ever blame the user for being exploited. I will always blame the people who continue to work on these systems, because these systems are evil.