[einpoklum]

Then you have not been paying attention for the past decade, I'm afraid...

Ed Snowden revealed that these companies share their data with the US government:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...

also, even you think about using it "their own uses" - much of that is scrutinizing you to make you better susceptible to ads and other solicitations by their paying clients. I mean, people are not the clients of Google and Meta - they're the raw material.

[972811]

your links don't disprove OP's main point at all. being forced to share data to the government is different than actively collecting data to sell to other third parties. these companies have tons of incentive to collect user data, but very little to sell it. i think that nuance is important to understand. if you think i'm wrong, try going to facebook or google and asking to buy some user data. you cannot.