Edit: If you read the following as "vote with your feet" and not "go live in a tent" you will have better results.
It is written: 𝓣𝓱𝓮𝔂 "𝓽𝓻𝓾𝓼𝓽 𝓶𝓮" / 𝓓𝓾𝓶𝓫 𝓯𝓾𝓬𝓴𝓼
[For screen readers: They "trust me" / Dumb fucks]
It's a problem, for sure, but I don't think we're totally helpless... yet... and it frustrates me to see this level of learned helplessness, and mistaking convenience for necessity. Being used to using your phone for everything, doesn't mean you cannot do something else. It's inconvenient, and not impossible, to go to a library[0] instead of Google and BabyCenter.com for answers to your questions. It's inconvenient, and not impossible, to momentarily disappoint your kids to protect their data forever (which is the kind of long-term concern that you understand and they don't, because you're the adult, which in turn is why you, and not they, are in charge).
[0] RE libraries & books, that's the method most people used up to and past the 80s when PCs started appearing in many homes. That's the method by which enough knowledge was transmitted through millennia to enable the invention of smartphones. You don't even have to borrow the book; you can read it on-premises. But if you need to borrow it, you should still real-quick make sure the library isn't selling you out to anybody either. Most libraries have enough money and are pretty popular when it comes time to levy a tax or issue a bond. But some are just strapped enough that they "could really use the extra cash" that comes from providing borrower data to somebody who has convinced them it will be "anonymized."
Please don't use the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block of Unicode to make cutesy letters like that, it can prevent the visually disabled from reading HN through their screenreaders.
Because we don't want a world where we HAVE the technological capability to make life so much more convenient but somehow can't use any of it because of some shitty fixable privacy/social/political problems.
For example, if you see a car that tracks your movement and sells it so some third party, you can either say "lets make cars that don't do that" or "lets go back to horses". I'm not excited about going back to horses, we can fix the damn car :/ Turning our back on modern technology is a depressing and limiting action in the long run.
Completely agree with you there. My objection was to the point around convenience & cost of time i think.
Seeing how much we focus on lowering the friction to onboarding, landing pages and just working in software for a while, i think the private solutions have to be every bit as convenient as the commercial option, otherwise they are not viable. That is just table stakes for mass adoption by a broad audience. Technical users may vote with their feet even when its slightly inconvenient, but its not enough to make a dent in the world.
For example, i cannot even imagine how much longer everything would take if every google search i made was replaced with a visit to the library. It would be 5-10x the time, maybe much more. A ton of information would be completely unavailable even given infinite library time. Luckily, I can (and do) just use DuckDuckGo instead.
There's lots of encouraging progress in these kinds of solutions that are both just as convenient AND private - decentralized web, pinephone, linux adoption, end to end encryption on messengers, personal clouds like NextCloud etc.
It is written: 𝓣𝓱𝓮𝔂 "𝓽𝓻𝓾𝓼𝓽 𝓶𝓮" / 𝓓𝓾𝓶𝓫 𝓯𝓾𝓬𝓴𝓼 [For screen readers: They "trust me" / Dumb fucks]
It's a problem, for sure, but I don't think we're totally helpless... yet... and it frustrates me to see this level of learned helplessness, and mistaking convenience for necessity. Being used to using your phone for everything, doesn't mean you cannot do something else. It's inconvenient, and not impossible, to go to a library[0] instead of Google and BabyCenter.com for answers to your questions. It's inconvenient, and not impossible, to momentarily disappoint your kids to protect their data forever (which is the kind of long-term concern that you understand and they don't, because you're the adult, which in turn is why you, and not they, are in charge).
[0] RE libraries & books, that's the method most people used up to and past the 80s when PCs started appearing in many homes. That's the method by which enough knowledge was transmitted through millennia to enable the invention of smartphones. You don't even have to borrow the book; you can read it on-premises. But if you need to borrow it, you should still real-quick make sure the library isn't selling you out to anybody either. Most libraries have enough money and are pretty popular when it comes time to levy a tax or issue a bond. But some are just strapped enough that they "could really use the extra cash" that comes from providing borrower data to somebody who has convinced them it will be "anonymized."