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The discussions around these issues always follow the same pattern that reminds me of a dialogue I recently saw posted somewhere, where an Amish person and a non-Amish person talked about technology and the amish person asked the other one, "do you think having the television on is good for you and your family?" and the other person responded "no, but we don't want to get rid of it because it may be useful", and the amish guy responded with "that's the difference between us, if something is bad for our family we throw it out."
The discussions around tech are the exact same. We all agree the modern internet is screwed, large companies put ads into everything, we're getting screwed over, non-profit domain spaces are being sold, everyone's unhappy, and we do .... nothing. Because of 'innovation' or some other conjured up fantasy term.
The only reason "we" do nothing, is that "we" have no agency. Other reasons are just rationalization to cope with our powerlessness: we pretend ideological debates among the people decide the faith of the country. The only vote "we" have is voting with our wallet, which only works in a truly free market.
Certain kinds of capitalism, yes. There's not just one kind, and the kind we have now isn't the best kind. Perhaps we should try to discover a better one?
> What does privacy look like in non-capitalist places ... like ... China ...?
China is very capitalist now, if you weren't aware.
In any case, the main problem in those countries (at least with regards to privacy) was authoritarianism, not non-capitalism.
The public is simply ignorant about surveillance technology issues. Not that long ago we used to tolerate sawdust in our bread[1], and that's food, something humans should be pretty knowledgeable about. People would revolt if this happened now, whether they live under a capitalist or communist system. A free market might accelerate the transition, but education about the issue is still the underlying factor of change.