| Everytime I read threads like this I get very concerned. It's like, even here, people don't understand the core problem. Or are intentionally trying to shift the blame away from big tech. Of course the state spies on you. After Edward Snowden everyone should know that. And thats a big problem because the state is the one actor that should fight to protect you from surveillance. But let's not claim that big tech is not the motor of the machine that is state sanctioned surveillance. Google allowed the US to read your e-mails. A yahoo software was responsible to access your webcam from the outside. NSO sold Pegasus to state actors. That sounds bad enough. But if these companies would care about their users they would stop this from happening. Right? Of course these companies will tell you that they need your information to provide you with the best service. In reality they want to collect the biggest value as possible from you. In the past you would just pay for a service and the service would provide a service. If the company wanted to extract more value from their users they would raise the prices. But today is different. It is no longer just a transaction between you and a company. It is also a transaction between the company and a third actor who is interested on spying on you. The motivation changes. It is no longer about protecting you country or whatever. It is about money. And companies want to make money. And if companies see a legal opportunity to make more money they will take it. They will sell as much of your data as possible. Now you will tell me that I should just stop using these services. But that's not so easy. Network effects are real. If they aren't real for you? Great. But other people have friends outside of tech circles. Now if you want to have a social life you need WhatsApp or other services. This is an even bigger problem in developing countries that are literally dependent on these "free" services. Normal people wont buy a homeserver, self host a matrix instance and convert literally everyone in their friend group to element. They will go for the cheaper solution and just download WhatsApp. But they don't know that they are paying for this service with their data. E2EE? Yeah right, your Messages can only be read by me, you and Facebook. This is why we are in dire need of anchoring privacy into law. People will go for the cheaper option. But if you are in need of using a service it should not come with strings attached. And if your service is only sustainable by selling the private correspondence of people it deserves to die. There is plenty of great OSS that just doesn't have the network effects of proprietary ones. |
Something something, salaries depend on not understanding the objections to invasive surveillance capitalism (or not caring), and egos depend on always being the hero of their own stories.