> Social media companies are incredibly clear about what information they gather and how they will use it: everything and however they want.
OK, but...the thing is, that's not actually true, however much their less ethical executives might prefer it to be.
They don't, for instance, collect data on what games I play on my iPhone, because that information is not available to them. But while I have enough technical knowledge to understand that they don't have access to that, a) not everyone does, b) while it's true on iPhones, I don't know if it's true on Android—and there may be different answers for "can Facebook track that on Android" and "can Google track that on Android", and c) there are probably things they can do that, despite my relatively good understanding of the subject, I'm either unclear on or at least suspect they can't do.
Similarly, there are many things they don't do with it, because they can't, due either to technical or legal restrictions, or because it's just not profitable. But I'm much less clear on what these things are, and I would very much like to know.
Of course, they don't want us to know either of these things. Right now, most people generally fall into one of two categories: those who, like you, have just thrown up their hands and said, "They collect everything, and there's nothing we can do about it!", and those who don't really know/understand much of anything about it.
Being forced to be clear and open about what data they collect and how they use it would draw attention to it, and make it possible for people who don't want to live like digital doomsday preppers in bunkers to take some reasonable precautions to safeguard their data. It might also get (more) people to say, "Hey, the way you're doing that is wrong, and we should make laws to make that illegal."