All while you "give grants to promote your principles, finance populace-educating groups, fund pro-privacy thinktanks/projects/foundations, etc." there will be other corporations and interest groups who spend time and money on "heavy-handed government internet intervention" that will ultimately affect you.
At the end of the day, what you can do or not revolves around politics and policy; not economic markets. This includes, in case this needs reminding, property rights that make market dynamics possible to begin with.
In truth, .gov >> .com, and by pretending it is otherwise - and acting like it is - you let yourself and your country (which I presume is the US) be manipulated by those who know better and put their $$$ towards whatever their goals are.
https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_...
At this point, the nuclear option, like the GDPR, is the only way to align the interests of large data firms with the public.
If you think otherwise, consider how the market punished Equifax for their data breaches. Or Kaiser. Or Target. Or Facebook.
When given the choice between doing the right thing, and the expedient thing, this industry has a long, and shitty track record of always choosing the expedient thing.
My point is that governments have a “long and shitty track record” too.
Not saying that government is bad, but it’s clear that governments, when given the power, can be far more dangerous than any company. They can do a lot of good as well, but they have a pretty bad track record.