Firefox will no longer be a supported browser – service.mbna.ca

> My takeaway from that is that people will choose privacy if it doesn't cost them anything and is easy.

Agreeing with the above, an alternative take on the rest is that people will not choose privacy if it is expensive and difficult. This doesn’t mean that it’s not a necessity, just that they can’t afford it and/or can’t work out how to get it.

The organisations involved in invading end user privacy employ large numbers of psychologists to deliberately design things that make being privacy-conscious difficult (mentally taxing / expensive / path of most resistance). When the population at large is (unknowingly) fighting against an highly armed adversary, it feels uncharitable to claim that they don’t care.

We’re losing a war the vast majority don’t even realise is happening.

...and yet when given a choice that's not marred in dark patterns or made obnoxiously repetitive they choose overwhelmingly to opt out.

That was the whole thrust of what Facebook was objecting too; they didn't want people to have a choice.

> They perceive ads as payment for using these services.

The problem is that they've been tricked into thinking 'ads' are the cost that they pay. The reality is that they'll be paying for the rest of their lives in ways they never thought were possible and with no way to back out.

The more people start to learn about how the data they've surrendered for a tiny bit of convenience is, and has been, being used against them they'll slowly come to realize that they've been ripped off and had no idea what they were giving up. They'll discover that they were lied to when they were told the services they enjoy couldn't exist without that sacrifice. By the time most of them catch on it'll be to late, but they'll certainly care then.

People in general are animals that do not reason abstractly, but rather react emotionally. I've had conversations with family members that were already coming into the conversation caring about being "tracked by GPS satellites", and I've tried to explain that it's mostly software on your phone doing the tracking, and that there are ways to mitigate much of it. Rather than seeing that I share their concern, work with technology, and perhaps they could pick up some tips for me, I just got othered for not mirroring their party line of being helplessly attacked.

So no, abstractly trying to tell people they're being continually surveilled and trying to get them to care is not a useful indicator. Even if you could obtain and present the contents of their permanent records in a shocking way, there's a good chance they'd just react to the overwhelmingness with cognitive dissonance.

I have had nearly the opposite experience, for what it's worth. Long conversations with non-technical family members about the pervasiveness of tracking and surveillance. A lot of them share my hatred for social media platforms and identify the 'correct' (in my opinion) issues with these platforms (pseudo-quantification of opinion via like buttons instead of nuanced interactions, mercurial algorithms tailored to individuals destroying any sense of shared reality, etc.).

Of course, none of them will actually take the leap and leave these platforms as I have, but I think people are willing to actually recognize these issues. Just depends on who they are. Maybe if you're talking with people you could talk about how this surveillance isn't just used for ads, that the data collected by advertisers is purchased by law enforcement agencies to circumvent legal requirements for warrants, that the police (in the US) with zero oversight can track your every movement via these databases, in open contravention of the spirit of the laws that "regulate" them.

Also, I think that the corpo line that surveillance results in "better" ads is simply untrue. I've heard so many people complain about irrelevant ads being served to them. I think there is a growing group of people who feel insulted by the shallow way they are typecast by these ads. A family member who is a carpenter who gets advertised consumerist "manly" products comes to mind. Because ultimately they are not serving you what you want, they are serving you what you are statistically most likely to click on. And at least most people I have asked, have never even clicked on an Instagram or Facebook ad. So the ads presented to "you" are really being presented to a consumerist ad-clicker alternate reality version of you, it is a fundamental disconnect. I think the value advertisers gain from increased "engagement" on ads is increasingly being paid for in the form of alienation of the kinds of people who will simply never respond to this kind of advertising.

> "I don't have a problem with targeted ads, they're more relevant and good!"

They don't care because they don't understand. It's not about 'ads'. the data they give up will increasingly be used against them in ways that matter greatly (like how much they pay for something vs their neighbor, or if they do or don't get offered a job) and in even the most mundane aspects of their life (like how long they wait on hold). If an occasional ad were the true cost they were paying for the fun they're having it wouldn't matter, but that's not the case. They'll be paying over and over for the rest of their lives as the data that's been collected is used against them by everyone who can leverage it for their own advantage.

> "Competition" requires competitors to actually compete. Firefox is clearly not interested.

I exclusively use Firefox because of ublock on mobile. Other browsers cant compete. I have no issues using FF, and major annoyances when I use chrome on someone else's computer (wrong shortcut to open a new private tab, can't press backspace to navigate back 1 page in history, etc)