zlacker

this argument is inadequate because it only examines and explains one side of a multi-part system. The users of consumer electronics as a mass at a point in time is not sufficient, even if well described, to explain important changes of the system over time.

When you talk about communications technology adopted at a societal scale, changes in norms and routine have ripple effects. Most certainly one of those is a change in asymmetric power relations by central communications companies, versus the user of their systems who get strictly limited information views of what is happening with their phone calls or emails.

When you have asymmetric power relations with market advantage and secondly literal surveillance at stake, a unilateral change in the service agreement is not a small "oh well" matter.

This single statement "people do not care" does not show all the players, and most especially does not show the players making decisions, the management of the companies making more money or new revenues with new decisions.