Because for christs’ sake, Facebook is one of the most OPEN and transparent tech companies around when it comes to data privacy. Many companies out there are far shadier when it comes to this stuff.
Let’s face it, no one wants to pay for Facebook. Personal data for advertising is pretty much the only way Facebook can exist.
The issue here is not the business model of FB but the sneaky ways it tries to make it seem something completely else. While the audience here at HN and similar forums are more than aware of the business model, I'm pretty sure if I asked my mum about it, she'd draw a blank or would not be completely informed. It's to a population like this who are most likely to fall for dark UX patterns and other shady ways FB uses for getting an uninformed consent.
And that's not right. I think, the outrage is not about the business model as much as it is about (un)informed consent. Sometimes - like in this story - almost while cocking a snook in the face of regulatory authorities.
I don't know about that, but a few years back, when joining Facebook was all the rage, I, personally, was getting very annoyed at every other article in the press reporting what happened on Facebook and having everyone I met asking me, first for my facebook, then why I don't have one, then looking at me as if I was an alien when I explained I didn't want to hand over my personal data to some internet company.
From my point of view, this is not hysteria, it's a backlash brought on by the adoption of a fad by people who never considered the consequences of their actions and who only now start to wake up to them.
And I fervently hope that the current fad, of dissing facebook, will keep for at least as long as the fad of joining it has kept on.
taken another way, why would you pay for email when you have gmail? well there are plenty of people that do! i’m one of them, because it provides a far superior experience, and you know exactly where they get their funds from