Furthermore; I'd much rather have the government spying in my stuff than Facebook selling my data to the highest bidder; at least if that were my only two choices.
Are you seriously comparing letters and private IM conversations? I don't know about you, but I received/sent maybe 5 letters in last 10 years, none of which were from/to another private entity.
> I'd much rather have the government spying
I consider this very short sighted and dangerours, but that's your choice.
> at least if that were my only two choices
Those are not your only two choices, that's kinda my point. We actually don't have to choose between a greedy company or a state. The only decision people need to make is centralized or decentralized system.
For what it's worth, I too would trust the government a whole lot more than Facebook.
It would seem to me that Americans have had more experiences with bad companies, and Europeans more experiences with bad governments over the past 300 years...
> The only decision people need to make is centralized or decentralized system.
They already have this choice; Matrix and others exist for quite some time already. Yet it is evidently clear that your average citizen will flock to whatever messenger is the easiest to use and is already used by their friends/family. Security/privacy are second thoughts at best, if at all; and even if it were important, grasping the different implications of all the available options isn't exactly easy either.
And since we can probably agree that the vast majority of folks already "fail" to make the right choice in this regard, I'd much rather have a regulated, government-controlled messenger than some company like Facebook. The former is accountable to its citizens, the latter to its shareholders - if I have to pick my poison, the choice is clear.
...because email and IM exist. they used to not exist and people sent paper letters to each other all. the. time.
now there are places and people I need a particular digital post office company to communicate with - and the worst part is, it's because they don't really care and thus force me to risk giving up my data if i want or need (read - am forced to due to life circumstances) to talk with them.