[Minor49er]

I thought this was a great explanation up until I got to the unnecessary quip apologizing for "bursting my righteous outrage bubble". I haven't exhibited any outrage in my simple question so I don't know why you felt it necessary to add that.

[tytso]

They way you phrased your "simple question": "Then why don't they give the option to enable this in a "work mode" and not turn it on for everyone by default?" assumed that Google had turned it on for everyone, and it read as if you thought that was unreasonable and outrageous.

It might be nice if people assumed good faith, as opposed to assuming that anything that $BIG_COMPANY might do is unreasonable and evil. Certainly many people on these threads immediately leapt to the assumption that it was enabled for everyone and was trying to coerce people into some kind of DEI hell that conservatives hate.

[Minor49er]

I think you read a little too far into my original question since there isn't any indicator of how I feel about this one way or another. Though, to your second point, $BIG_COMPANY doesn't always have the general public's best interests at heart, especially not Google, so it's not hard to see why people are skeptical or worried about this sort of a change.