Any source for this claim?
If people were deeply individually concerned about the risks vs. rewards of these technologies, they'd stop using them. That's the rubber-meets-the-road calculus I see.
Why do you think that? It clearly doesn't apply to stuff like oil, for instance.
I could give up my phone, but I would be in deep shit if I did it tomorrow. It would take a lot of arrangement to do so and it would piss off my family and lose me work.
People say they're concerned. But the actual number of people attempting to zero the amount of oil they use? Much lower than claimed concern.
Words are easy. Actions have costs that people would prefer not to take on.
How do you know how many there are? Anyone doing that couldn't travel except by foot, buy any commercial products or use any available communication services.
edit - alternatively, there are loads of people attempting to zero the amount of oil they use. They are just using oil to get there.
Every single one of the revelations you've mentioned was met with public backlash, followed by either a misinformation campaign or intense dog-wagging. This is called manufactured consent. For example, let's look at Cambridge Analytica. When it was revealed that a military contractor was hired to subvert the 2016 Presidential election, the dominant story in the alphabet-soup media was a twitter tantrum from Trump. As it became clear over the next few days that the story wasn't going to be buried easily, the narrative was quickly shifted away from the subversion of democracy to blaming Facebook for leaking user data, culminating in parading The Zuck before Congress. He played his part perfectly: no bread, but enough circus to keep the masses from thinking too hard about what it means for an election to be free.
People do the calculus to decide if risk is greater than reward all the time. It appears ubiquitous connectivity, for most people, is far more rewarding than risky.
Technically you're right but what you seem to be missing is that people (in general) suck at risk assessment. Although they are doing "the calculus", most of their calculations are based on heuristics that just don't reflect a rational analysis.
That is why so many people fear plane travel more than car travel, immigrants more than cigarettes, and pharmaceuticals more than "raw water".
See also: "Ayn Rand collected Social Security benefits." (And I abhor her oeuvre and "movement".)
I'm saying people make the claim on the average person's behalf that they want privacy and information such as their location (as triangulated by cellphone towers) kept generally secret from governments and corporations who can offer them benefits, and that claim is not actually supported by much evidence. I think the digital intelligentsia cares deeply; the average cell user, not so much.
That is, if Verizon was unambiguous with Joe Customer, "We may sell your real-time location information to companies known to re-sell that kind of information to the government, and you can't do anything about it" how many of them would be pissed? Isn't the state being restrained from un-warranted — literally — snooping into people's lives a core American value?
Your position is that most people would "meh". I think you're wrong. You're probably right that there's scant evidence either way, though.