HN is generally very hostile to the idea that many people want their data collected, or at least don’t care much at all.
Most people don't even read their mortgage contract carefully.
People aren't ever going to read a EULA to read a recipe for chicken soup.
The people making those popups wouldn't be going to such great lengths to make it hard to opt-out if people didn't want to opt-out.
Anyway, the forms should all be standardized government forms, not bespoke anti-pattern devices cooked up by web designers in a competition of malicious compliance.
They do want their data "collected", in the sense that they are happy with it being used for some kind of legitimate purpose – like providing a service to them. Most people will also accept their data being collected for various other reasonable purposes – like logging, fraud monitoring, that kind of thing. I will accept that there are probably quite a few people who don't care either way.
There's a weird kind of reaction—among some tech people in particular—to the idea of regulating data collection – all sorts of total non-sequiturs, like "but are you telling me I can't have web server logs any more!!!" or "how would we have google maps!!" that requires either a stunning lack of imagination or deliberate feigned ignorance.
I personally hate being the "I told you so" guy. I try to warn people about things like security, privacy, and backups of important data, and am frequently ridiculed as "paranoid" (and much worse) right up until their cavalier attitudes about these things bite them in the ass and they lose decades of irreplaceable important data, or they get "doxxed" or worse yet, become the victims of "identity theft" and then they inevitably come crying back to me to help them "fix it". I don't want to have to tell people "Yeah, sorry. You're screwed at this point." That never feels good to say.
This uncontrolled corporate and government collection of (what should be private) data is another such situation, where people don't need it to be happening, but they've been trained by these corporate and government entities to believe it's "necessary" or "useful" somehow, and those people absolutely refuse to accept that there may be better (and safer) ways to handle such situations other than just blanket collection of data on corporate or government servers. Maybe we're "hostile" to these activities because they're hostile activities and we're trying desperately to convince folks there's better options.
Have none of these people considered that maybe other "people in the know" AREN'T "hostile" about these "data collection" actions for good reason perhaps?
Most people are aware that everything has a cost. Some people want us all to live under rocks because they don't like big companies. Other people think it's worth the cost. The vast majority of people just like "free" stuff.